OE Management at Chashma Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 1, Pakistan

Full text: Brief description of nuclear facility. One PWR unit of 325 MWe, in commercial operation since September 2000, second unit under construction. Overview of OE arrangements. A plant level system is in place consisting of in-house and industry OE streams. These are looked after by a dedicated section currently under a training manager. The in-house system comprises a higher level event notification report (ENR) process and a low level plant condition report (PCR) process. To augment increased utilization of industry experiences during routine activities at the plant, the contents of the WANO website have been made available on LAN for ease of access and convenience during retrieval of required information at times of need by general plant personnel. Similar efforts are on going to make available information from US NRC, IAEANEA IRS, and other sources of OE for prompt and easy use by personnel. Overview of OE resources. At present, one engineer is assigned to the OE programme, with a possible further increase in the number of personnel in the section in the near future. Separate computerized databases are available for the in-house and industry OE streams, both of which are coupled with tracking and follow-up facilities. These databases are intended to be transformed into an Oracle based system in the future. The plant condition report system has already started to be developed as an Oracle system. This reporting system is currently available, and other facilities are being added with the ultimate aim of making available a full-fledged paperless system. Management arrangements. Attributes. The OE system is centralized and provides a single point interface. Key focus areas: Development of supporting software; Backlog monitoring/reporting; Standing of OE as an independent and respected function within the organization. Successes: Procedures made available covering the whole range of OE functions; Complete WANO website is available on the LAN, which is kept up to date for use by plant personnel. Challenges: Organization wide recognition/acceptance of OE as a tool; Qualified RCA specialists; Computerized tools to support RCA; Development/transition in a LAN-based database system for OE; Timely completion and thoroughness of investigations. Good practices to share: Multi-disciplinary investigations; OE process throughput is reported to management via monthly reports, and varying area specific representations, as and when required; Use of recommendations instead of corrective actions in investigation/analysis to help expedite timely availability of reports