During the construction stage there are three main processes that can be developed in parallel:

• The physical implementation of the design, solving the emergent problems

• The safe, reliable and efficient development of the construction and manufacturing activities

• The installation handover for commissioning.

The large number of organizations, interfaces, activities and persons involved in this stage and under tight coordination requires a quality assurance pro­gramme to be adequately established and implemented in order to reach reasonable confidence of final success.

The IAEA has established internationally accepted criteria and practices on quality assurance in construction (IAEA, 1996b).