Document: NRC Regulatory Guide
Document ID: c6321e39-3d1b-40a6-ace3-8c6a0c54e2cd
Document Type: regulatory_guide
Title: Developing Software Life Cycle Processes for Digital Computer Software Used in Safety Systems of Nuclear Power Plants + HISTORY - HISTORY 08/2012 – DG-1210 , Proposed Revision 1 08/1996 – DG-1059 , Proposed Revision 0 (Rev. 1)
Source: NRC Regulatory Guide Division 1
Source URL: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1031/ML103120727.pdf
Revision Date: 2023-06
Chapter: 
Section ID: RG-1.173
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CFR Title: 

Content:
e a major rule as designated in the Congressional Review Act. B. DISCUSSION Background The use of industry consensus standards is part of an overall approach to meet the requirements in 10 CFR Part 50 when developing safety systems for nuclear power plants. A licensee’s compliance with these standards does not guarantee that it will meet regulatory requirements. However, the licensee’s 1 The term “safety systems” is synonymous with “safety-related systems.” The GDC in Appendix A to 10 CFR Part 50 cover systems, structures, and components “important to safety.” However, the scope of this regulatory guide is limited to “safety systems,” which are a subset of “systems important to safety.” DG-1210, Page 3 compliance with these standards does ensure that it will incorporate practices accepted within various technical communities into the development and quality assurance processes used to design safety systems. These practices are based on past experience and represent industry consensus on approaches used for the development of such systems. This regulatory guide refers to software incorporated into the instrumentation and control systems covered by Appendix B to 10 CFR Part 50 as “safety system software.” For safety system software, the development of software requires the use of a carefully planned and controlled development process that incorporates the best available approaches to the various aspects of software engineering. A number of consensus standards provide guidance on implementing currently accepted approaches to specific software engineering activities such as software requirements specification, software testing and documentation, software verification, validation, reviews and audits, or software configuration management. A carefully planned and controlled software development effort should incorporate these specific activities into an orderly process within the software life cycle, including pre-software and post- software