Distributed engineering: a new scenario in operation support engineering services

Engineering information required during the lifetime of a nuclear power plant for analysis and execution of improvements, is held on a logical level in various databases and physically consists of documents handled by personnel. This information includes the data left over from the project, construction, erection and start-up phases and specific data from the operating phase drawn up both at the plant and by external organisations. From the information management point of view, operation support engineering at a power plant consists of a flow of activities aimed at issuing new documents, modifying existing ones and keeping up-to-date the information in the configuration control system databases. Advances in communication systems technology, based on high speed lines such as Frame Relay and RSDI, have allowed tasks to be redistributed to personnel located in remote workplaces. This has resulted in operation support engineering personnel coming into closer contact, at the same time as keeping the rest of the personnel in central offices, thus forming part of a distributed group of people within which engineering and design know-how residues, and which transcends the limitation of an individual power plant. Once the adequate communication channels were established, Empresarios Agrupados used the most advanced tools, in one of its projects, with respect to the following areas: information sharing independently of the location where it is stored, sharing editing tasks on documents and drawings, enabling communication and reducing travel time. The document management system GesDoc, was used to manage work flows and to facilitate access, viewing and navigation through documents, drawings and photographs of the plant. (Author)