by Steve Heiser
Recent events in the nuclear arena have placed the highest priority on safety. This applies to both existing plants and new plants underway. Good safety decisions are based on good information at every level––planning, operation, maintenance–– and dealing with unexpected events. The more information you have, the higher the quality of that information–– and the more context you have for that information––the more you will be able to make decisions that increase safety margins, increase efficiency, and save time and money. Likewise, when faced with an unplanned event, trustworthy, accessible information, in context, will enable you to be able to make decisions that will mitigate, reduce, and hopefully even prevent injury and losses.
Highly Engineered Systems
We could think of a nuclear facility as another highly engineered system––a California super highway where there are ten lanes of traffic moving at high speed in two directions with literally hundreds of thousands of independently operated, non-networked objects moving at high kinetic energy velocities and weighing thousands of pounds. These objects, operated by controllers of radically different skill levels, vary dramatically in shape, size, and acceleration/braking capabilities. They are subjected to perpetual environmental changes that affect safety margins, including lighting changes, road surface changes, and changes due to ongoing maintenance.
An additional, critical dynamic is that these objects are perpetually changing speed, changing trajectory, changing lanes, entering the system, leaving the system, and typically moving at very close proximity to one another. Engineering rules would state that no two of these objects are ever supposed to make physical contact with each other. But the engineering design basis restricts physical contact based on a standard, common set of rules and messages (white lines and signs) transmitted to operators who may or may not be totally focused on the rules and dynamics they are experiencing.
In the end, we are relying on hundreds of thousands of independently specified and highly varied objects to conform to and adapt to all of the perpetually changing variables to operate within perpetually changing safety and predictability margins to produce the desired effect: to have every object move in its intended direction and travel from its point of origination to its destination without making physical contact with another object. It only takes one object, veering from the rules, or caught off guard by changing dynamics, to cause an accident.
Avoiding Safety hazards
We can think of all these cars and roads and signs and conditions as components of a nuclear facility, They become pumps, flanges, valves, monitors, and computers. Each one has a specific function. Each must conform to the plant’s design basis. Each is part of a larger system. If an owner/operator could thoughtfully plan for the optimal operation of the plant, just as in our highway analogy, travel would be safer and every vehicle could arrive at its destination sooner, use less gas, and avoid safety hazards. Apply these same principles to a nuclear facility and you increase compliance and safety for all parties.
Compliance vs. Proactive Action In the Safety Paradigm
Compliance, on some levels, can be seen by some as doing the bare minimum necessary mandated by regulators in order to be permitted to operate. Proactive action, on the other hand, looks at the entire dynamic and evaluates all of the assets and liabilities related to the dynamic in order to produce the widest possible safety margin.
Compliance = we did everything they told us we had to and won’t do anything else until we are told to.
Proactive action = a perpetually changing dynamic that can be influenced to your benefit.
By using all available tools – including information assets, best practices knowledge, and new tools, materials, methods, and technologies––you can constantly ensure that your safety margin stays at the top of the bell curve, that point between less than optimal safety and the point of diminishing returns. Solutions that combine these tools, such as Bentley’s AssetWise, can improve operational performance by improving safety, increasing infrastructure availability, shortening downtime and outages, and improving maintenance efficiency.
Learn more in a free on-demand webinar, AssetWise for Power Generation and nuclear: www.bentley.com/NIRMA.
Bentley is a global engineering process partner that provides software solutions for asset lifecycle information management, empowering stake holders to apply proactive action to their safety standards and practices.
About the Author: Steve Heiser is the former editor of nuclearstreet.com, and currently Principal of The working Dog Group, www.workingdoggroup.com, “Business communications for today’s energy industry.”
Reprinted courtesy of the NIRMA Newsletter
The Nuclear Information and Records Management Association (NIRMA) is a leader of nuclear industry guidance and will host its 36th annual Conference, August 12-15, 2012, in Summerlin, NV. See details at nirma.org.