Document: NRC Regulatory Guide
Document ID: 3eb179d3-5491-407d-8b0e-eed083d58a17
Document Type: regulatory_guide
Title: Configuration Management Plans for Digital Computer Software Used in Safety Systems of Nuclear Power Plants + HISTORY - HISTORY 08/2012 – DG-1206 , Proposed Revision 1 08/1996 – DG-1055 , Proposed Revision 0 (Rev. 1)
Source: NRC Regulatory Guide Division 1
Source URL: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1032/ML103200044.pdf
Revision Date: 2023-06
Chapter: 
Section ID: RG-1.169
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CFR Title: 

Content:
uration management is a significant part of engineering activities and is already addressed by NRC requirements for structures, systems, and components important to safety. Although the principles and intentions of traditional configuration management apply equally to software, software involves a significant change in emphasis for which traditional hardware configuration management systems might not be sufficient. Software requires a greater emphasis on the design process, and the deliverable product is more like a design output. In the production of engineered hardware, design outputs are typically inputs to a manufacturing or construction process, and configuration management activities focus on ensuring that design outputs and manufacturing or construction process variables are traceable to identifiable manufactured or construction products. In contrast, in the production of engineered software, design process information may result in the development of many intermediate design outputs generally associated with the final design output. Typically, numerous software engineering changes are expected and encountered during the coding and testing phases. Consequently, although similar in intent to hardware configuration management, SCM requires a change in emphasis and the expansion of the importance of intermediate design baselines and associated design process information. Appropriate SCM records accurately capture every change and provide a reliable and powerful tool to compare every difference between any two intermediate versions of a software implementation. The need for robust and detailed change management and the need for rigorous identification and control of product versions is also substantially increased. One consensus standard on software engineering, IEEE Std. 828-2005, as endorsed by this regulatory guide, describes software industry approaches to SCM that are generally accepted in the software engineering community. This standard provides guidance