LANL partners with a wide variety of suppliers who provide sustainable, quality goods and services that help us in our mission to solve national security challenges.
One of the controls LANL uses to assure delivery of quality goods and services is the evaluation of suppliers against established quality assurance program requirements.
To become a Quality Supplier, a supplier must be able to implement requirements of LANL’s Exhibit H form, which is included in quality subcontracts.
Exhibit H establishes quality assurance program requirements and flows them down to our quality suppliers.
The standard Exhibit H consists of two parts:
There are some areas of work that require us to apply additional controls to ensure delivery of the goods and services that meet our mission needs. We use a scale called Quality Levels (QLs) to assign controls based on identified risk.
We use a graded system of QLs to apply these controls. These QLs cover the following areas of work:
| QL 1 | QL 2 | QL 3 | No QL | |
Areas of Work | Nuclear safety / highest risk | Important to Safety / elevated risk | Applying industry standards / low risk | None or negligible risk |
| Level of Control | Highest | Moderate | Low | None |
| Quality Program Requirements | QL-1 Exhibit H – based on NQA-1 | QL-2 Exhibit H – based on DOE O 414.1 and 10 CFR 830.A | QL-3 Exhibit H – based on graded DOE O 414.1 | None |
| Supplier Evaluation Method | Direct evaluation of supplier’s facilities and QA program (on-site audit) | Review of supplier’s QA program documents and records (desktop evaluation) | Must be able to register in Ariba | No additional QA evaluation |
LANL’s Institutional Quality Supplier Development team is here to answer any questions regarding quality supplier requirements. If you can’t find information in the resources linked below, please email us at supplier_qa_support@lanl.gov.