March 2006

Report on Safety System Engineer and Oversight Programs

This report provides a status of the implementation of safety system engineer and safety system oversight programs at Department of Energy (DOE) sites and recommendations to foster improvements in those programs.  The status is based on the results of evaluations conducted at eight DOE sites between October 2004 and March 2006.  These evaluations were conducted by the DOE Office of Independent Oversight's Office of Environment, Safety and Health Evaluations, within the Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance.  The programs were evaluated as part of Independent Oversight’s reviews of the effectiveness of programs for managing safety systems’ design, configuration management, maintenance, and operation to ensure that such systems can perform their safety functions when needed.