ML17179A821
| ML17179A821 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Dresden  |
| Issue date: | 04/01/1993 |
| From: | Martin T NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III) |
| To: | Wallace M COMMONWEALTH EDISON CO. |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9304070064 | |
| Download: ML17179A821 (10) | |
Text
,.
Docket No. 50-237 Docket No. 50-249
- e Commonwealth Edison Company ATTN:
Mr. Michael Wallac~
- April 1, 19~
Chief Nuclear Operating Officer 1400 Opus Place - Suite 300.
Downers Grove, IL 60515.
Dear Mr.* Wallace~
SUBJECT:
DRESDEN OVERSI~HT TEAM SITE VISIT, March 9~12, 1993 As you are aware, Dresden Units 2 and 3 were placed on the NRC wat~h list after the January 1992 NRC senior management meeting.
As a result of Dresden being placed on the watch list the Dresden Oversight Team (DOT) was formed.
The DOT_ will continue to make periodic visits to Dresden to evaluate the progress of the efforts to improve performance, to provide feedback to the Commonwealth Edison Company (CECo).on the status of ~he improvement programs, to provide fecommendations on the NRC i~spettion effort at Dresden, and to provide a periodic status of CECo's efforts to improve Dresden's performance.
The DOT made its fifth.onsite visit to Dfesden on March 9-12, 1993.
We conducted numerous interviews and reviewed documentation in each of the areas discussed in the attac~ed report.
M~ny of the DOT issues represent impressions and viewpoints derived primarily from these i~terviews.
The overall impression of the DOT was that progress continues to be made in a variety of *~reas, including procedµre upgrade, work planning, communication of management expectations, hirdware reliability, and work control.
However, the*
- self assessment and internal monitoring of your improvement efforts was considered weak.
The Unit 2 refueling outage is going well and your response to the Unit 3 forced outage appeared to be an effective use of time and
. resources.
Once again, the team was pleased with the level of candor in our discussions and interviews with the plant staff.
9364070664 930401
~DR ADOCK 05000237 PDR
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Commonwealth Edison Company 2
April 1, 1992 If you have any questions or comments on this report or other DOT activities, please contact me
~t (708) 790-5603.
Attachment:
As stated cc w/attachment:
- J. M. Taylor, EDO J. H. Sniezek, DEDR T. E. Murley, NRR C. J. Paperiello, Rill E. G; Greenman, Riii C. E. Norelius, RIII B. Clayton, Rill J. G. Partlow, NRR B. A. Boger, NRR J. A. Zwolinski, NRR
C. D. Pederson, Riii Sincerely, original signed by T. 0. Martin, Acting Director Division of Reactor Safety-S. Stasek, SRI, Davis Besse L. 0. Del George, Vice President, N~cle~r Oversight & Regulatory Services M; Lyster, Site V1ce President C. W. Schroeder, Station Manager J. Shields, Regulatory Assurance Supervisor D. Farrar, Nuclear-Regulatory Services Manager OC/LFDCB Resident Inspectors - Dresden, LaSalle, Quad tities Richard Hubbard J. W. Mccaffrey, Chief, Public Utilities Division Robert Newmann, Asst. Director State of Illinois Licensing Project Manager, ~RR State Liaison Officer*
- .Chairman, Illinois Commerce Commission
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REPORT ON THE FIFTH VISIT OF THE
- ORESDE~ OVERSIGHT TEAM MARCH 9-12~ 1993 I.
Scope and Participants The Dresden Oversight Team (DOT) made its fifth onsite visit to Dresden on March 9-12,1993.
During this visit the DOT focused on the progress of the Unit 2 outage and the programs and actions taken to improve ~erformance. The following DOT members participated in this visit:
T. 0. Martin, DOT Chairman.
J. Dyer
. J. -Stang M. Jordan
. S. Stasek II.
Overview and Conclusions Adequate programs have been. developed to address the fundamental weaknesses, however progress is slow.. Improvements were noted with regard tp the.
reorganization, adding a site VP (Mike Lyster), and the onsite addition of engineering resources.* Some longstanding materiel condition problems are bein~
addr~ssed. Outage and work planning has im~roved. Much remains to be done with regard to materiel condition and housekeeping.
The licensee's self assessment program is lacking.*
The makeup of the site management team has changed considerably in the last 12 months and has not been stable long enough to clearly
- a*ssess their impact.*
The self-assessment ~nd overall strategic plannin~ effort were weak.
The licensee made some major adjustments in their self-assessment and improvement plan strategy.
New goals were put into effect for 1993, which were a departure from the 12 improvement initiatives that were used in the past.
The new goals were safe tiperations, cost reduction, personnel development, and self assessment.
Objectiv~s and strategies w~re not yet developed to fully implement these new goals:
At the time of the DOT visit there was a lack of a good self-assessment tool to measure performance. Also, based on *review of findingi generated, the CECo QA organization was not providing a significant evaluative input.
A system for tracking performance, similar to the one used at Zion (windows), is being planned.
This system will replace the Dresden Performance Improvement Report that has not been issued since December 1992.
Because so little concrete work had been done in this area, the Dbl ~as not able to assess the potential effect of these changes.
1
A reorganization and several significant personnel changes have recently been made; but it was too soon to assess their effect.
A new site VP has been added (Mike Lyster), the scope of the plant manager'~
(Chuck Sch~oeder) responsibilities have been limited to focus more on operations and mai.ntenance, ~ersonnel were added to engineering; ~nd most design functions
~ere moved td the site. The assignment of additional operator~ in the control room to facilitate the outage was considered very positive.
With regard to personnel changes, Sig Berg, the previous techn1cal superintendent was replaced by Roger Flahive, and Herb Massin, previously responsible for CECo BWR~ngineering; was assigned to the site in the new position of site engineering and construction manager. These personnel chan~es were vi~wed as positive. One concern however was the* limited amount of BWR experience of the new technical superintendent.. His* prior experience was entirely in PWRs.
Communication within the station was good.
. A lot had been done to co~m~nicate expectations to the plant staff, and ~e saw evidence that the message of quality consciousness and doing the job right the ffrst time was received at all levels.
Interdepartmental communications has improved, and teamwork appears to be good.. One concern was the limited amount of time that site management spent in the plant. The notable exception to this
.was Mr. Kotowski, the operations manager.
III. Plant Status During the visit, Units 2 and 3 were shutdown.
Unit 2 was in the middle of a refueling outage and Unit 3 was in a forced outage due to damage to the high pressure turbine caused by material (wrench, bolt, and piece of bar stock) that was apparently left on a stationary blade when the turbine was reassembled. The integrity of the turbine casing was maintai~ed, but a row of stationary and a row of rotating blades were peened over.
IV.
Operations Empowerment of operations to be the production leader has occurred, but n~t all of op~rations was convinced.
The station has been work1ng on empowering the operations department to be the leaders of the station. This has improved over time and operations department management has accepted this role.
Howe~er, not all levels of the operation organization agree that this empowerment has occurred.
Some of the* non-:
supervi sory operations personnel feel that operations does not exert enough influence to decide which work will be done.
As evidence of this they saw long standing equipment problems such as check valve leakage from the diesel generator day tank, unavailable service water radiation monitors, and a malfunctioning air compressor crossover valve..
The team observed the operations department establishing priorities for work requests at shift briefings and work planning meeting~.
Howe~er~ r~ther than addressing work activities collectively for the unit, they were addressed on six separate s~hedules for each involved work group, with the appearance of passive endorsement by operations.
2
Assignment of th~ Shift Outage Manager and Control Room Outage SRO was of beriefit to control of outage and non-outage activities.
The. ~tation assigned* a Shift Outage M~nager and an extra Control Room Outage SRO to assist the shift with the refueling outage for Unit 2. *These individuals were SRO licens~d, provided oversight of outage work activities, and addressed outage related problems from' the contr9l room.. This enabled the Shift Engineer and Shift Control Room Engineer to dedicate more attention to the operating unit.
The team considered this initiative to be very positive. Operations personnel interviewed also thought this initiative was positive and beneficial to safety, Communications of the management's expectations Management has put forth considerable effort to com~uni6ate their expectations for performance to all levels of the operations department.
This was clear in that all levels were knowledgeable of management expectatioris for self-checks prior to doing work.
However, some of the department felt th~t management was not willing to receive and address some of their concerns, such as system training for auxiliary operators and incorporating some improvements in the out-of-service program.
Additionally, several operators.commented that they are being held to higher standards than the technicians and that this did not seem
- fair to them.
Considering that the operators are the ones holding an NRC
- license, holding them to higher standards is appropriate.
v:
- Maintenance The maintenance department was recently reorganized.
The Quality Control department was moved into the maintenance organization and no-w reports to the maintenance superintendent. This was done to a 11 ow for better c:oordi nation and teamwork between the workers and the QC inspectors.
- Those interviewed believed this change will result in better communication between the workers and QC inspectors.
The work control process was improved.
Aspeets of the current work control process was reviewed during this visit.
Those. interviewed indicated that the work package quality had substantially improved. Work instructions were better and reference documents included in the work packages were, over a 11, of higher quality.
However, some materi a 1-was deemed unnecessary.* Specifically, when only a portion of a controlled procedure is to be used, workers indicated it was common to include the whole procedure, making for some cumbersome work packages.
Also, the quality of some of the vendor supplied information was not very useable and in some cases inaccurate.
Discussions with plant management revealed that both areas of concern were being addressed.
Materiel condition and housekeeping improvements were difficult to asses during a dual unit outage.
Tours of both units ~s ~ell as building exteriors ~ere conducted during our visit.
At the time, the plant was in a dual unit outage, therefore, a direct 3
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comparison of materiel condition and housekeeping to previous visits co~ld not be done.
However, housekeeping appeared to be about average when compared to
- .outages observed at other plants~ There was much material stored and staged in the plant to support work activities.
Just prior to the DOT visit, the position of materiel condition coordinator (MCC) that had been established within the past year was eliminated.
Management indicated that the intent was to make housekeeping a responsibility of the individual work g~oups and is t~ be formalized following the unit 2 refueling outage. In the interim, the outage expeditor has informally assumed some of the MCC duties to help fi 11 the gap until the new program can be developed and imp l emen.ted.
One noteworthy suc~ess story was the recently completed cleanup of the unit 2*
reactor building equipment drain tank area.
A reduction in radiation and contami~ation lev~ls by a factor of 4 to 5 resulted from the.licensee's efforts in that area.
To help improve overall equipment reliability, a progr~m was being develtiped to monitor equipment performance on an ongoing basis. Parameters and components to be monitored were being determined at the time of our visit.
The program was very much in its infancy but holds promise if implemented as described.
Some chronic equipment.Problems appear t6 have been resolved.
Some of. the longstanding equipment problems appear to be reaching resolution.
In particula~, the licensee believes the reactor recirculati6n pumps and the
- reactor feed pump seal problems have been corrected. Jo this end, the licensee made effective use of consultants who were instrumental in determining the root cause for many of the problems and aided CECo personnel in implementing the necessary corrective actions. A true test of their correctiv~ actions will be improved operations following the outage.
Work backlogs were being reduced.
An initiative to reduce the backlogged work within maintenance was being implemented at the time of oui visit. The lic~nsee indicated that their short term goal would be to minimize the number of unit 2 o~t~tanding work requests at
. the completion of the curr~nt refueling outage.
Maintenan~e management recently instit~ted a trending program to monitor progress. However, specific long term goals were not yet developed. The number of non-outage related work requests was not considered excessive.
VI.
Engineering and Technical Support Issues from the vulnerability assessment team (VAT) were integrated into the equipment reliability issues database (ERID).
. The intent of the ERID is to ensure a uniform prioritization of the more significant materiel deficiencies in the plant.
Items identified by the vulnerability assessment team (VAT) were integrated with the priorities of the
- other items in the ERID. A listing of 50 equipment problems, referred to as the -
4
ritop 50", was genefated to provide uniformity within the ~tation of the most
~ignificant equipment problems. This was a new initiative. The DOT will review the imp act of this 1 i st in the future to determine whether higher priority i terns are appropriately addressed.
-The current uriit 2 refueling outage work planning protess did not utilize input from the Equipment Reliability Issues Database (ERIO).
The ERID database was not sufficiently developed to provide input to the Dresden, Unit 2, work planning process prior to the start of the outage.
Approximately 2 weeks into the. outage, licensee management reviewed* the known material.
condition of important systems and identified a significant amount of emergent work frir the outage.
Additional work w~s subsequently identified when systems were opened up-during the outage.
At the time of the DOT visit, licensee estimate~ of outage work package growth were approximately 20%, which could extend the outage by appro~imately 2 weeks beyond its originally scheduled 91 day duration. Licensee management.established a goal to accomplis~ all outage work to improve the materiel condition of the plant.
The DOT will follow-up on the performance of outage work items during the ne_xt vis it.
The organizatiorial changes in engineering were positive.
The changes to both the technical staff and site engineering and construction organizations appear to -be positive.
Approximately 15 engineers from CECo headquarters were transferred to the site i r::i the last year.
Other engineering resources were moved within the sit~ to strengthen the onsite engineering and
~onstruction organization.
These_ chahges sh~uld allow site engineering to be much more resporis i ve. -
The o~erall experience level of the technical staff has been stabilized and is improving.
The technical staff organization was streamli.ned by eliminating several assistant technical supervisor positions. These more experienced persons were incl~ded in the line organi~ation as system erigineers.
Other experienced staff were added.
Some improvement was also noted in improving the career path for tech staff in that more senior engineers were being allowed to_fun~tion in a system engineer role.
Although positions* were created for component specialists, the staff assigried were not yet actively performing these rol~s..
VII.
Procedures Upgrade Effort & Corrective Actions A new corrective action prog~am was impl~mented, bu~ some departments were slow to implement the program.
In August 1992, the CECo. corporate Integrated Reporting Process (IR.P) was implemented at the Dresden statfon.
The program provides a methodology to identify problems, establish methods of investigation, identify root causes, and develop corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence and provide data for trending.
A problem identification form (PIF) is used to input data into the system. P!Fs are screened by the event screening committee. The committee meets every day to disposition any PIFs generated in the last 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />.. During the visit, _the team*
attended an events screening meeting.
The meeting was well attended by most departments at the station, and communications between the various departments 5
was good.
During *the week the team interviewed a number of personnel at the*
Dresden station concerning corrective action progiams.
The IRP system made it
. substantially easier for plant personnel to identify, track, and trend problems because all problems can be identified on one form (PIF) ~nd put into one system (IRP).
- The team had several concerns with the IRP system.
Root cause analysis may not be performed on problem situations that are corrected by work requests.
There is a provision in the IRP system for assessing root cause if a problem corrected.
by~ work request repeated itself 3 times, but the team considered this threshold too restrictive. Some departments (Engineering, Operations, and Technical Staff) appear to be slow to implement fully the IRP system. If a.less rigorous system, specific to the work group, is used to analyze, resolve, and track problems, a PIF may never be written.
I~ such cases, tracking and trending of problems may not be getting to the cbrrect level of management for proper review.
Additionally, craft personnel were apparently not used as a resource to input PfFs.
Craft personnel interviewed were not fully familiar with the IRP system and had questions on how to write a PIF.
The procedure upgrade effort was on track.
The procedure upgrade program began in 1992 and was intended to upgrade approximately-3700 procedures including the.Dresden Administrative Procedures (OAP).
The program was scheduled to be completed in April 1993. Since the last DOT visit, the-program has been successful in reducing the backlog of procedute
-changes and reducing the backlog of temporary procedures requiring change.
Per.sonnel interviewed by the team were enthusiastic about the program, with the operators indicating that the program was long over due.. Interviews also revealed that the Dresden Administr~tive Procedures were.cumbersome and that "work arounds" were common practice.
These procedures were not yet upgraded.
The overall quality of the_upgraded procedures was much improved but considered average overall.
It is noteworthy that the licensee has been aple to maintain the schedule f6r this effort.
The Technical Specification Upgrade Program (TSUP} was on track; This program will upgrade both the Dresden and Quad Cities Technical Specifications (TS) to align them more like the Standard BWR TS.
CECo currently has submitted 5 applications for review and approval.
Another 7 packages are expected.
The NRC plans to finish review and approval of the entire progr~m in early 1994.
The people interviewed by the team seemed very enthusiastic about the program.
Licensed operators were.temporarily assigned to the Regulatory Assurance Group to ensure that all operators ar~ properly trained on the new TS and that they are implemented correctly.
The team viewed this as a positive step.
VII I. Outages Preparation for the Dresden, Unit 2, outage was an improvement over previous outages at the site.
The 1 i censee was using a computer software program to p 1 an and monitor the 6
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progress of scheduled Work d~ring lhe outage.
This. tool improved the coordination of work and estimates of outage duration for key systems and components.
The Dresden, Unit 2, outage was initially planned to be of greater scope than previous outages to correct many long-standing equipment problems.
- Several significant systems and components were being overhauled for the first time in the plant's life. Goals were established to h~ve the materials and work packages ready for a 11 i dent ifi ed work at the start of the outage.
Although these goals ~ere not met in all cases, a signific~~t improvement was obse~ved from previous outages.
Interviews with licensee management indicated that they were approximately 90-95% ready to accomplish identified work at the start of the outage. However a signi.ficant increase in workload was created by the additional emergent work identified after the ~tart of the outage.
Control of outage wo~k.for the Dresden, Unit 2, refu*ling outage improved over previous outages.
The Unit 2 Operating Engineer was the *focal p*oint for the coordination with different station organizations for outage work prioritization and.
accomplishment. His goal was to accomplish all outage work during the outage but acknowledged that ~ith the emergent work, the schedule could be extended. He led discussi~ns on planned and accomplished ~ctivities.at the daily o~tage meetings and held the various organizations accountable for their performance.
Additionally, as mentioned above, the licensee stationed two additional SRO 1 icensed personnel on. shift to facilitate outage control.
The Shift Outage Manager reported to the Shift Engineer arid tontrolled Unit 2 outage activities throughout the site, including shutdown risk management.
The Control Room Supervisor report~d to the Shift Outage Manager and was responsible for tontrolling Unit 2 control room activities and coordinating with the Unit 3 Shift Control Room Engineer (SCRE).
These additional personn~l were held accountable for safe execution of the outage plan by the Unit 2 Operating Enginee~. The team identified no significant concerns with the process for controlling outage work activities.
The response t6 the unit 3 forced outage appeared to be an ~ffective use of time and resources.
During the DOT visit Unit 3 was in a forced outage due to damage to the high*.
pressure turbine. The licensee appeared to effectively diagnose the sequence of events leading to.the turbine damage and was aggressively continuing their investigation. Further confirmatory analysis of the foreign material was still occurring during the DOT visit.
A short term* corrective action plan was deveioped to repair the damaged turbine, but no long term corrective actions were decided to prevent recurrence.
The license~ was effectively using the forced outage tim~ to complete several maintenance items on plant equipment that would improve the over_all reliability of the plant. A floating schedule of prioritized work items _was developed and fitted to the outage time provided by the turbine work. The Unit 3 Operating Engineer was aggressively pursuing-accomplishment of the identified work items with the co~tractor and resources dedicated to Unit 3.
7
IX.
Exit Meeting An exit meeting wi.th the.licensee was held on November 6, 1992.
Mr. A. Bert.
-Davis, Regional Administrator, was in attendance as, the senior NRC representative. Mr. Mike Lyster, Station Vice President; Chuck Schroeder, Plant Minager; and other Dresden representatives were preseht.
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