Industry based performance indicators for nuclear power plants

This report presents the results of the first phase of a two-phase study, performed with the goal of developing indirect (leading) indicators of nuclear power plant safety, using other industries as a model. It was hypothesized that other industries with similar public safety concerns could serve as analogs to the nuclear power industry. Many process industries have many more years of operating experience, and many more plants than the nuclear power industry, and thus should have accumulated much useful safety data. In Phase 1, the investigators screened a variety of potential industry analogs and chose the chemical/petrochemical manufacturing industry as the primary analog for further study. Information was gathered on safety programs and indicators in the chemical industry, as well as in the nuclear power industry. Frameworks were selected for the development of indicators which could be transferred from the chemical to the nuclear power environment, and candidate sets of direct and indirect safety indicators were developed. Estimates were made of the availability and quality of data in the chemical industry, and plans were developed for further investigating and testing these candidate indicators against safety data in both the chemical and nuclear power industries in Phase 2. 38 refs., 4 figs., 7 tabs