Diagnostic capability of cause and corrective action data from LERS

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the use of cause codes in March 1989 to identify potential programmatic deficiencies as reported in licensee event reports (LERs) as a new indicator for their performance indicator program. This paper presents the results of an assessment of cause code and corrective action data for 1989 performed by staff of the Nuclear Operations Analysis Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to evaluate their usefulness in diagnosing plant performance. Trending analyses of the cause and corrective action data supplement other evaluations of operational data for identifying potential problem areas for further review