Templates and records · UNE 73401

Nuclear supplier evaluation under UNE 73401

In the nuclear sector you do not buy from whoever offers the best price, but from whoever has shown, through a documented evaluation, that its quality assurance programme meets the requirements.

In one sentence

Nuclear supplier evaluation documents that a supplier of safety-related items or services has the capability and an adequate quality assurance programme for the specific scope being purchased —usually through an audit—, sets the conditions and validity of its approval and feeds the list of evaluated suppliers, as required by the procurement control criteria of UNE 73401 and CSN guide GS-10.8.

Content reviewed on 17 October 2026

Type of information: Mandatory record Procurement control criterion; GS-10.8 and GS-10.1
Who fills it in: Quality assurance With purchasing and engineering; audits are carried out by qualified auditors
When: Before the first order And periodically according to the validity set, or after quality problems with the supplier
How long it is kept: Lifetime or at least 5 years IS-24 requires licensees to keep as lifetime records, for the whole life of the facility or component, those meeting any of its criteria, and to keep non-permanent records for at least five years. Suppliers apply whatever the licensee’s purchase order specifies.

What the standard requires

What UNE 73401 demands and what it leaves to your judgement

The procurement criteria of nuclear quality assurance require suppliers to be evaluated and selected on their capability to supply in accordance with the requirements, their compliance to be verified through source inspection, audits or examination of what is received, and that evidence to be documented.

GS-10.1 accepts suppliers whose programme is not strictly in line with UNE 73401 in two cases: those evaluated against ISO 9001, which must supplement their requirements with those in the standard’s annexed tables that apply to them, and suppliers of commercial-quality equipment, whose use requires a dedication process.

Approval is given for a specific scope —which items or services, at what level— and has a period of validity, after which the supplier must be re-evaluated.

Read it in context: Procurement and process control, in the UNE 73401 Academy

Structure

Fields the template should include

Supplier, site and scope requested
Quality assurance level required by the items
Evaluation method: audit, questionnaire, track record, third-party evaluation
Supplier’s quality assurance programme and the standard it applies
Findings and their closure
Outcome: approved, approved with conditions, not approved
Approved scope and conditions
Validity and re-evaluation date
Follow-up: source inspections, receiving inspections, nonconformities

Example

Example: evaluation of a non-destructive testing laboratory

Company, people and figures are fictitious: the example only shows what a properly completed record looks like.

Field	Content
Supplier	Ensayos Leire (fictitious company) · in-shop non-destructive testing
Scope requested	Radiography and liquid penetrant testing of welds on safety-class supports
Method	Audit at its premises on 21 January 2026, with a checklist based on UNE 73401
Programme	ISO 9001 certificate supplemented with the requirements in the UNE 73401 annexed tables
Finding	One radiography operator with an expired level II certification
Closure	Operator withdrawn from the work until renewal · evidence received on 10 February
Outcome	Approved for radiography and liquid penetrant testing
Validity	Three years · re-evaluation in January 2029 · source inspections on every order

At the audit

Mistakes auditors commonly flag

Suppliers on the list whose evaluation has expired.
Purchases outside the approved scope: the supplier was evaluated for another type of item.
ISO 9001 suppliers accepted without checking the additional UNE 73401 requirements.
The supplier’s nonconformities never reach its re-evaluation.
The supplier’s own subcontractors are not controlled at all.

In Kimobox

How this record is kept in Kimobox

1Suppliers are evaluated and approved through the supplier portal, with their questionnaire, evidence and approved scope.
2Critical suppliers are audited, with their qualification evidence on record.
3An alert is raised before each approval expires.
4Each supplier’s nonconformities and receiving inspections build up its history in the same file.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask us before getting started

Is an ISO 9001 certified supplier acceptable?

Yes, according to GS-10.1, provided it supplements its quality requirements with those set out in the UNE 73401 annexed tables, to the extent they apply to its activities.

Is an audit always needed?

An audit is the most common method for suppliers of safety items, but not the only one. The method is graded according to the significance of the supply and the supplier’s track record.

What if the item is commercial quality?

If it is going to be used in a safety function, it must go through a dedication process showing that it has the required characteristics. That is a separate record, explained on its own page.

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Sources

Where each figure comes from

References to the official text in force. If a standard is revised, this page is updated and the review date says so.

Guía de Seguridad GS-10.8 (Rev. 1) — Garantía de calidad para la gestión de elementos y servicios para instalaciones nucleares (Quality assurance for the management of items and services) Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (Spanish Nuclear Safety Council) · January 2001
Guía de Seguridad GS-10.1 (Rev. 2) — Guía básica de garantía de calidad para instalaciones nucleares (Basic quality assurance guide for nuclear facilities) Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (Spanish Nuclear Safety Council) · February 1999
UNE 73401:1995 — Garantía de la calidad en instalaciones nucleares (Quality assurance in nuclear facilities) UNE, Spanish Association for Standardisation · Edition of 19 June 1995, confirmed in 2024