Sandia National Laboratories earns ISO 9001 certification

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia has received ISO 9001 certification by the British Standards Institute (BSI-Americas). Sandia received its ISO 9001:2008 Certificate of Registration following a comprehensive ISO audit conducted by BSI-Americas. In late October, BSI auditors visited Sandia to assess the system of policies, processes, procedures, tools, and roles and responsibilities used to manage Sandia.

Sandia’s ISO 9001 scope of registration includes policy areas (Facilities, Human Resources, Information Management, Corporate Governance, Supply Chain Management, Integrated Safeguards and Security) and mission activities (nuclear weapons program management, design, fabrication, and production of unique equipment, weapon components, neutron generators, and ASICs — application-specific integrated circuits).

Sandia President and Laboratories Director Tom Hunter made achieving ISO 9001 registration a key objective for the laboratory.

“This is a significant accomplishment for our Sandia team,” Hunter said. “It reflects our continued commitment to operational excellence and provides a framework for the future of the laboratory.”

According to Enterprise Transformation Vice President Joe Polito “Receiving ISO 9001 registration assures Sandia and its customers that the lab’s Integrated Laboratory Management System (ILMS) meets an internationally accepted quality management standard that is widely considered to be a commercial best practice.”

Before receiving ISO 9001 registration, companies must demonstrate that their quality
management system results in continual improvement. Sandia designed ILMS so that the laboratory can self-identify and fix its own problems, Polito said.

Achieving ISO 9001 certification aligns with goals set out by the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. For instance, it provides Sandia the critical foundation needed to more effectively use commercial standards for mission and operations work as part of DOE Secretary Steven Chu’s Reform Initiative, said Chuck Meyers, Sandia’s senior manager of Enterprise Systems,

NNSA Administrator Tom D’Agostino, in a memo last April, asked Sandia to identify “ways to dramatically rethink, and fundamentally redesign, what many on both sides see as a compliance and enforcement-driven contractual relationship instead of a constructive partnership for mission accomplishment.” Sandia and the NNSA Sandia Site Office formed a Joint Reform Team tasked with changing the DOE/Sandia contract relationship. ISO 9001 registration is a key element in transitioning to industry standards.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.