Elevated QA, hold points, configuration control
Commissioning software for nuclear support systems where every record has to survive a regulator's audit.
Balance-of-plant and support systems on a nuclear site sit under a quality regime that ordinary commissioning tools were never built for: graded QA, mandatory hold and witness points, N-stamped documentation and strict configuration control. Deskely enforces that structure in the register itself, so a record cannot be signed out of sequence and every signature is retained exactly as issued.
- Systems
- Balance-of-plant, support
- QA
- Graded, hold and witness points
- Records
- N-stamped, configuration controlled
- Gate
- Independent review and release
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The problem
A standard commissioning tool was not built for this level of control.
Nuclear support and balance-of-plant systems — cooling water, ventilation, electrical distribution, fire protection and auxiliary systems — carry graded quality requirements, mandatory hold and witness points, and configuration control obligations that most commissioning software simply ignores.
Where a general contractor tool lets any record be edited after signature, or does not enforce a hold point until someone remembers to check, the resulting evidence set does not survive a regulator's or an independent assessor's review.
Deskely builds hold points, witness requirements and configuration baselines into the register directly, so the sequence a record was signed in is the sequence the quality plan required.
Setting up the register
Systems, QA grade and configuration baseline are attributes of every asset, not a side spreadsheet.
Support and balance-of-plant systems are modelled with their QA grade carried against every asset and record, so the level of evidence required scales with the safety significance of the system.
Hold and witness points are defined per test procedure, flagged to the responsible independent inspector or authorised verifier, and blocking by design rather than by reminder.
Configuration baselines — the approved drawing and procedure revision a record was executed against — are captured at the point of signature, so a later design change does not silently invalidate historical evidence.
Execution
Records are signed once and never quietly altered afterwards.
Technicians and inspectors execute test procedures on tablets against the approved revision, with the record locked once signed and any correction handled through a controlled amendment rather than an edit.
N-stamped equipment and its associated records carry that status as an attribute, keeping code-stamped documentation identifiable and separated from ordinary commissioning paperwork.
Independent verification and QA sign-off are captured as distinct signatures from the execution signature, preserving the separation of duties the quality programme requires.
Review and release
Release is an audit trail, not a claim made at handover.
System release depends on every hold and witness point beneath it being signed by the correct authority, enforced from the data rather than checked manually against a matrix.
The completion dossier retains full signature history, configuration baseline and QA grading per record, in the form an independent assessor or regulator would expect to review.
Configuration control persists after release, so later modifications are recorded against the same baseline history rather than starting a fresh, disconnected record.
Seismic and environmental qualification
Safety-related equipment has to prove it survives conditions it may never see, and the seismic and environmental qualification file is reviewed as closely as the commissioning test itself.
Equipment classified as safety-related or important to safety carries a seismic qualification and environmental qualification obligation — proof, usually by type test or analysis, that it will function through a design basis earthquake, accident temperature, humidity or radiation profile — and that qualification file has to be traceable to the specific installed item, not just the equipment model.
Where a component is replaced or a qualified life expires, the EQ status of the installed item changes, and a commissioning record that does not carry that link leaves the plant unable to demonstrate that what is actually installed is still within its qualified envelope.
Deskely holds the seismic and environmental qualification reference, qualified life and installed configuration as attributes of the specific asset, so EQ status is queryable per component rather than reconstructed from a separate binder when a periodic safety review or a regulator's inspection asks for it.
How it runs
From a graded QA plan to a defensible release.
Nuclear support systems reward getting the quality structure right in the register before execution starts, because retrofitting hold points after the fact does not satisfy an auditor.
- 01
Grade systems and assets
QA grade recorded against every system and asset to set the evidence standard required.
- 02
Define hold and witness points
Mandatory holds built into the record sequence and routed to the correct inspector or verifier.
- 03
Capture the configuration baseline
Approved drawing and procedure revisions recorded at the point each record is executed.
- 04
Execute with separated signatures
Execution, independent verification and QA sign-off captured as distinct, non-editable signatures.
- 05
Track N-stamped equipment
Code-stamped assets and records flagged and kept identifiable within the wider register.
- 06
Release with full traceability
System release issued once every hold point and signature is in place, with the dossier retained intact.
FAQ
Questions about Nuclear support systems scopes.
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