4.1 Because of concerns for safety and the protection of nuclear materials from theft, stringent specifications are placed on chemical processes and the chemical and physical properties of nuclear materials. Strict requirements for the control and accountability of nuclear materials are imposed on the users of those materials. Therefore, when analyses are made by a laboratory to support a project such as the fabrication of nuclear fuel materials, various performance requirements may be imposed on the laboratory. One such requirement is often the use of qualified methods. Their use gives greater assurance that the data produced will be satisfactory for the intended use of those data. A qualified method will help assure that the data produced will be comparable to data produced by the same qualified method in other laboratories.

4.2 This guide provides guidance for qualifying measurement methods and for maintaining qualification. Even though all practices would be used for most qualification programs, there may be situations in which only a selected portion would be required. Care should be taken, however, that the effectiveness of qualification is not reduced when applying these practices selectively. The recommended practices in this guide are generic; based on these practices, specific actions should be developed to establish a qualification program.