ML20197C317
| ML20197C317 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/30/1986 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8611060060 | |
| Download: ML20197C317 (57) | |
Text
a
/
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the matter of:
1 l
COMMISSION MEETING Meeting with Members of INPO Plant Managers Course (Public Meeting)
Docket No.
l Location: Washington, D.
C.
I Date: Thursday, October 30, 1986 Pages:
1 _ ma l'
I 8611060060 861030 PDR 10CFR PT9.7 PDR ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES
('
Court Reporters 1625 I St., N.W.
Suite 921 Washington, D.C.
20006 (202) 293-3950
+
4 1
D I SC LA I MER 2
3 4
5 6
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on S
10/30/86 In the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, 9
'N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
The meeting was open to public 10 attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited,
- a. J lt may contain
. f 12 inaccuracles.
- g, I
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript 17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No 18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in 19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may 21 authorize.
22 23
~
24 25
4 1
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 MEETING WITH MEMBERS OF INPO PLANT MANAGERS COURSE 5
i 6
PUBLIC MEETING 7
8 Nuclear Regulatory Commission l
9 Room 1130 10 1717 "H" Street, N.W.
i l
i 11 Washington, D.C.
12 1
13 Thursday, October 30, 1986 i
14 j
i 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 16 notice, at 2:20 o' clock p.m.,
LANDO W. ZECH, Chairman of the l
17 Commission, presiding.
I i
18 19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
4 20 LANDO W.
ZECH, Chairman of the Commission 21 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 22 JAMES K. ASSELSTINE, Member of the Commission i
23 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Member of the Commission I
24 KENNETH M. CARR, Member of the Commission 25
4 1
l 1
STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
..-s 2
J. Hoyle 3
W.
Parler 4
Z.
Pate 5
K. Strahm 6
R. Byram 7
S. Catola i
8 R. Dawson 9
R. Fleischmann 4
l 10 T. Henderson I
11 B. Hickle j
12 S. LaBruna
{
13 J. Walker 14 i
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 i
25 i
3 1
PROCEEDINGS 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Now, Mr. Pate, you want to leave?
3 Are on a schedule?
I know you said you wanted to leave but 4
can you give us the presentation and can you stay through the 5
next one or do you have a schedule that you have to meet?
6 MR. PATE:
What I would like to do is brief you on 7
this course and then take a minute and get the members of the 8
course up to the table so the commission can more easily talk 9
to them and then I will excuse myself and turn it over to Ken 10 Strahm at that point.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Rather than do it quite 12 that way if we may, if you could give us your introduction and 13 then perhaps before you call them up there allow me to see if 14 my fellow commissioners have any general questions they would like to ask you and then we will call your group up and you 15 16 may be excused.
All right, proceed.
17 MR. PATE:
I would if I may make one additional 18 comment reflecting on my answer to Commissioner Asselstine's 19 question about accreditation.
I don't want to sound downbeat 20 about improvements in performance.because I am very optimistic 21 about that.
I just think it will be evolutionary rather than 22 a step change.
23 We are excited about --
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Before you start this, let me just introduce it very briefly and say that I know that you are 25
4 1
going to tell us about your pilot program and the plant 2
manager course.
I think I should probably emphasize that I 3
. believe you are here because we have heard about the course 4
and ask you come and discuss it to allow the Commissioners the 5
opportunity to interface with this pilot program and to tell 6
you perhaps our views and to give you at least from a 7
regulatory standpoint how we see the plant manager role.
]
8 So let me just say that in this particular briefing, 9
we have kind of asked you to come and we appreciate very much 10 your allowing us to talk about this pilot course with you and 11 we recognize you have not necessarily firmed the course all up 12 yet but I just think that all of us are interested in the 13 plant manager role.
.f
\\
/
l 14 We have visited enough plants to know his great 15 importance and I think it is important perhaps that we see 16 your first course and to be able to give some of our own views 17 early on so we thank you for this opportunity and for 18 responding to our request.
Please, proceed.
19 MR. PATE:
Thank you.
The senior plant managers 20 course is a new activity under the National Academy for 21 Nuclear Training.
The target audience for the course is the 22 promising managers out in the plant that are serving as 23 operation superintendents, as maintenance superintendents, as 4
i 24 plant manager or who are prime candidates to be in positions I
25 like those in the near future.
c.---,-,-
,,--.,---.--.~..,,,-,,.,,,.,,,.w.-,,.
.n.,
,.,n.
r,
5 1
The course description for the pilot course anyway 2
is six weeks, three of those weeks in Atlanta with INPO and 3
three in the field participating in INPO field activities and 4
other things like this meeting today and like the meeting this 5
morning with senior members of the NRC staff.
l 6
We have limited the class size to eight and we have 7
eight in the current class to facilitate good discussion and
(
8 to facilitate the logistics We do bring a mentor as we call 9
him in to join each class from time to time and usually for a 10 week at a time.
11 The mentor is an experienced plant manager who, in 12 effect, has proven himself in that job.
We have dedicated 13 INPO staff working with the members of the class.
This is the 14 first.
It is a pilot and we plan three more in 1987 and after 15 announcing the class just a couple of months ago, we already 16 have 42 applicants.
i l
17 The approach in the course is not a lecture format, 18 not a traditional, I guess, college classroom format.
It is 19 rather to promote discussion and the exchange of ideas among 20 the attendees in the course.
We jut a great deal of emphasis 21 on case studies as do other kind of graduate level courses in 22 the country and the medical field and the business school 23 field and so on.
24 We go back and examine TMI in detail ask one of the 25 students to present the lessons learned from TMI to the class
l 6
i andthelessonslearnedfromamanagementstandpNint.
They 1
2 are taught the Davis-Besse event in detail and the Rancho Seco 3
rapid cooldown event in great detail.
4 They also do case studies on management problems, 5
the kind of workplace problems that we know they will all 6
face in the jobs at the plants.
7 They talk about supervision and simulator training
'i 8
and they actually go out in the field and see the INPO
]
9 observations of simulator training.
10 In effect, in the course we are seeking to promote 11 high standards, to promote excellence among the attendees in 12 the course.
13 The people we bring in to be mentors with the class 14 are people like George Harriston who ran the Farley Nuclear 15 Station for several years, like Harry Kaiser who ran the j
16 Susquehanna Nuclear Station, like Maurice McIntosh who ran the 17 Mcguire Nuclear Station.
18 They spend the time in the classroom with the 19 attendees, with the students.
They also stay in the same 20 motel in the evening.
We set aside a study room with study 21 materials for discussion and study in the evening.
We 22 actually assign homework and we have that person like the 23 George Harriston or the Harry Kaiser with the class during the 4
24 evening.
25 As I indicated we take them out in the field with
I 7
i 1
INPO and we let them observe parts of a simulator evaluation 2
with some group of licensed operators or non-licensed 3
operators in the simulator actually doing their training.
4 They observe part of an accreditation team visit in the field 5
and they observe part of an INPO evaluation in the field.
6 We actually give them exams.
I have indicated that 7
it is a part of the National Academy.
It is under Ken 8
Strahm's direction.
I will just take a minute and introduce 1
9 the members of the first class and I will ask you to raise 10 your hand as I introduce you.
11 We have Robert Byram from Pennsylvania Power and 12 Light, assistant superintendent for plant outages at i
13 Susquehanna.
1 14 We have with us Stan Catola who just joined Detroit 15 Edison and will be chairman of the independent safety review 16 group; Robert Dawson, Florida Power and Light, technical 17 advisor to the plant manager at St. Lucie; Dick Fleischmann, l
I i
18 Philadelphia Electric Company is manager of the Peach Bottom i
19 Nuclear Station; Tim Henderson, Yankee Atomic is technical 20 director of the Yankee Nuclear Station; Bruce Hickle, Florida 21 Power Corporation, Nuclear Plant Operations manager at Crystal 22 River; Stan LaBruna, Public Service Electric and Gas, 23 assistant general manager at Hope Creek and John Walker, TVA, i
24 deputy site director at Browns Ferry.
25 Mr. Chairman, that completes my brief description of f
8 1
the course and I propose that we subject to your comments 2
allow the gentlemen that I just introduced to join you at the 3
table.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Before we bring them up and I know 5
you want to leave, let me ask my fellow Commissioners if they 6
have any general questions they would like to ask you, 7
Mr. Pate.
Commissioner Roberts?
8 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
No.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Asselstine.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
No, maybe just one quick 11 comment.
I think this is a kind of an exciting and 12 interesting idea.
I think that management and particularly
^-
13 the junior level managers that are going to be moving up into I,
14 significant management positions like plant managers in the 15 next few years are really the key to the future success of the industry and I think this is a really good idea and a very 16 17 interesting program.
18 MR. PATE:
We are very excited about it and 19 appreciate that comment.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Bernthal.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I agree but I would like to 23 hear what they have to say.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Carr, anything.
25 COMMISSIONER CARR:
No, Mr. Chairman.
1 i
9 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you very much.
~
2 Please bring up your plant managers and we will continue the 3
discussion with Mr. Strahm.
Mr. Pate, thank you very much for 4
being with us today and for your very informative and helpful 4
5 presentation.
6 MR. PATE:
Thank you for allowing me to be excused.
7
[At this point in the proceedings, Mr. Pate was 8
excused and the previously mentioned course participants were 9
seated at the Commission table.]
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Do you wish to say anything more, I
l 11 Mr. Strahm, or should we just start in?
12 MR. STRAHM:
No, sir.
Go right ahead, I wish you t
1 13 would.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
Let me lead off then very j
15 briefly and then I will ask my fellow Commissioners to give a
16 you their views.
j 17 Let me first of all just make a few comments.
I 18 certainly agree that the management involvement is one of the i
19 keys to success of nuclear operations.
I visited a number of 20 plants in our country as you well know as well as a number of 21 plants overseas.
22 It always strikes me how important management involvement is in the safe and reliable operation of our 23 24 nuclear power plants and I have given the same words many, 25 many times at my exit briefings to plant management personnel i
i 10 1
and I can't tell you how important I view management
..s 2
involvement.
3 Sometimes I wonder if my words are always understood-4 because sometimes they sound pretty fundamental.
I discuss i
5 such things as the importance of shifting from a construction 6
mode to the operational mode and it has been a little 7
disappointing sometimes when I have looked back and seen that 8
in spite of what I thought were pretty important comments of 9
mine and the plant did have problems.
10 That doesn't mean that they weren't trying to shift 11 from construction to operations but they had a hard time doing l
]
12 it.
My point here is that I hope your plant managers course i
13s has at least emphasized that particular point.
\\
14 Just yesterday I was visiting the plant at Nine Mile 15 Point and yesterday or the day before, time goes by, doesn't 16 it, but in any case early this week and they are at the point 5
17 now where they are going through that very phase.
I have 18 vi' sited any number of plants in our country that are 19 approaching the fuel load stage and to those of you who have 20 had experience during that phase of the operations, you well 21 recognize that that is a very demanding period on the 22 operators as well as all the construction people.
4 23 They are all trying to get their particular jobs 24 done and there is a lot of activity.
A lot of coordination is 25 needed.
Management simply must understand the demands on
)
.,-..,_.n.
11 1
everybody during that very crucial shift.
2 It is my view that shifting from management to 3
operations is very difficult and frankly, it almost takes 4
experience before you understand.
It is very difficult if you 5
haven't done it before to appreciate that specific things that 6
have to take place.
t 7
For example, the shift supervisor in the control 8
room simply has to be in charge.
I always try to sense 9
whether he really is in charge, how many people are standing 10 in line asking him to sign off some test or system, how many l
11 alarms does he have on his board, how many times is the paging 12 system going off perhaps distracting him from his duties, how i
13 many people in his own control room shift are asking him 14 questions.
15 In other words, you can very easily sense the 16 control room atmosphere.
Is it too crowded?
It is too 17 noisy?
Is it too hot?
Are there a lot of people in there l
18 with hard hats?
Is there general confusion or is there a 19 smooth quiet efficient running organization?
It makes a big' J
20 difference.
21 If you don't address that kind of thing, if the 22 plant manager doesn't' appreciate at least in my view the 23 necessity of allowing your operators at that stage to be in 24 charge and to give them the responsibility, the authority, the 25 accountability and everybody should know who is in charge but I
- - ~ -,,. -.. -.,
c-.
I 12 1
they shouldn't overwhelm the supervisor, for example, at that 2
stage.
3 So that is just one small example of how the plant 4
manager in his own ability to sense the situation can 4
5 contribute to a smooth and safe start-up period.
6 Your standard as a plant manager and your influence 7
on your whole organization is very, very important.
Even your 8
attitude, the way you conduct yourself, and I have seen all 9
kinds of plant managers do it different ways, some effective 10 and some perhaps not as effective as they could be.
I 11 But nothing beats your own confidence, your own 12 professional knowledge, your own real confidence, not over 13 confidence and that is a very important difference in my
^
14 mind.
You shouldn't be over confident at all but you should 15 be confident and you should be knowledgeable.
Nothing beats 16 professional confidence.
i 17 You have to know your stuff.
You have to~ recognize l
18 this demanding technology.
You have to recognize in my view j
19 any way that attention to detail, following procedure is 20 important.
21 Do your people know the procedures?
Have the a
22 control room people and others been involved in writing the 23 procedures?
You have to get down, the plant manager in my 24 view is you have to get right down into the details.
You have 25 to get your hands dirty.
i
-. -. = - - -
13 1
You have to know what is going on.
You have to 2
crawl around the plant and look at the construction.
You have 3
to be confident and sensible about systems, not just the 4
4 components but entire systems.
You have to understand what s
5 goes on in the plant fully and thoroughly.
6 It is a demanding technology.
The plant manager is 7
the key in my view to successful operation.
The plant manager 8
has to be supported.
You can have the best plant manager in the world and if his senior corporate people don't really give 9
10 him support, he is going to have a struggle.
11 on the other hand, if he does get good support and 12 the plant manager knows his stuff, is a real professional, 13 generally speaking he can do a very fine job.
j 14 It is important that communications between the
]
15 whole of the organization work and work smoothly.
The plant 16 manager is the key to this.
He is the key to making sure that 17 the entire range of operations, maintenance, training, outage 18 planning and all come together and the people can communicate i
19 and your relationship with the NRC is extremely important.
20 My view is and my experience has shown that those
(
21 plant managers that have an open candid respectful i
22 relationship with the NRC, they are going in the direction 23 that is helpful to them.
They are doing things for their 24 plant that is important.
They are listening to the NRC and 25 NRC people are listening to them.
2
.__.....___m
~.. -
]
14 1
You have residents at all your plants that are there 2
on a daily basis.
You have regional people that are 3
inspecting freque.ntly.
You have people from headquarters
~ 4 coming.
If you do not have an attitude of candidness and 1
5 openness with the NRC, I don't think it is in your best 6
interest.
1 7
We are going to do what we think is right.
We are 8
going to carry out our regulations.
We are going to demand 9
compliance but it seems to me that it is in your best interest l
10 to be honest about mistakes that are made, to be forthcoming i
11 and to recognize that the utilities and the NRC have the same
.c.
4 12 ultimate goal and that is safe operations.
13 We have different roles.
We have a regulatory role 14 and the plants have an operational, maintenance, construction, 15 management role.
But the goal is the same, safe operations 16 and providing a service, a safe service, to the American i
17 people.
So your relationship with the NRC is important, too.
i.
18 I am not going to go on any more.
I have given you l
19 some of my very general views.
My fellow Commissioners, I
{
20 know, have other thoughts and I would like to give them the 21 opportunity now to ask you questions or to give you any 22 thoughts they may have.
23 Commissioner Roberts, do you want to say anything?
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
No comment, Mr. Chairman.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Asselstine.
l F
w y
m-r-
- -. - ----,v-
- - ~ - -,. - - -, - - - - - - - - - - -
y e--
pe--e-~,-,
,-,,---n e
m-,+,.-
co~
--v,~g
n'e~
--~e
15 r
1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Maybe just a couple of 1
2 questions to,get a sense for what you all are getting:out of 3
this program.
We have talked a lot about maintenance.
The 4
, Chairman hhe~ highlighted meme of our views on management and 5
the importance of managerant.
i 6
Certainly when we look at performance of plants over 7
the past few years we see management is perhaps the most' 8
significant factor of all and I would be real interested in 9
~your thoughts about what you think makes for effective 10 management or ineffective management.
You have looked at some 11 case studies or drn'in the process of looking at some case 12.,
studies.
1;
\\
13 When we look at the places where you have come from, 14 it looks like you have a good range in terms of geographical 4
15 diversity, different utilities, different approaches and 16 concepts and differences in performance, some on the very top 17 end of the scale, some with ups and downs.
18 So I would be interested in what you all are getting 19 out of the program and what you think are the most significant 20 aspects of effective management in terms of being able to run 21 a plant safely and reliably, meet your regulatory commitments 22 and obligations and do so in a manner that provides for 23 economical generation of power for your company as well as 24 good regulatory and reliability performance of the plants 25 themselves.
f
.~ - -. -
4 16 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Who wants to be the first
/
2 volunteer?
If not, we will pick somebody.
3 (Laughter.]
4 Okay, I think I see a volunteer.
This is 5
Mr. LaBruna, I think.
They are allowing you to be the first 6
hitter.
7 MR. LaBRUNA:
Yes, sir.
Stan LaBruna, from Hope 8
Creek Public Service.
You asked a lot of questions there.
I 9
think talking for myself personally, the past four weeks 10 certainly has been a fantastic opportunity for myself to 11 become thoroughly sensitized to so many of the issues that i
12 relate to excellence in performance both through awareness, 13 from a standards standpoint, and constantly reflecting on my 14 own personal programs that I participate in back at our plant 15 much as the same ao the other members in the class have.
16 Reaching out and recognizing those areas that need 17 more work, recognizing from a programmatic ctandpoint and also 18 from a haman resource standpoint the importance of many of the 19 things that have been mentioned so far at this table today 20 from an accreditation standpoint and from Mr. Zech, your 21 opening remarks, the importance of communications, the morale, 22 the attitude of the people and the reflection of those things 23 on the success of the utility, of the plant, the importance of 24 the training and probably most important, for the plant 25 manager to have a sensitivity to all of that to assure that
a a
17 1
his philosophies are being conveyed, that he gets out there in 2
the plant, lives with the people, understands their issues 3
and concerns and takes appropriate action not only from his 4
own personal feeling but from the feeling of his people and is s
5 sensitive to their needs and the things that he must do to 6
take action to be supportive of those things to assure that 7
they are all one team moving forward and striving for 8
excellence, not just to have excellence out there as a thing 9
we are trying to achieve but something that we are living 10 with.
11 It is a daily opportunity for the advancement of the 12 industry.
Those are kind of general statements but it is the 13 type of issues.
If you look back on a number of the case 14 studies that we had, the opportunity to discuss so many of 15 them relate to a failure of management to stress adherence to 16 standards and management's attention to detail.
17 It is really concerning to us and certainly it is a 18 place that we have to dedicate the appropriate amount of time 19 as we prioritize our activities back in the plant.
20 CHAIRMAN ZECJ' Does anybody else want to
'21 elaborate?
Commissioner Asselstine, do you have another 22 question?
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes, just to follow up on l
24 a couple of the points you made.
I would be real interested 25 in your thoughts on morale of plant personnel, operators as
9 18 1
well as your other plant people, at your plants, what you i
2 think the situation is, what you think are deterrants to 3
improving morale, what are the barriers or the obstacles, 4
which of them are ours, which of them are yours and what could 5
be done to improve the situation to build morale and spirit on 6
the part of plant staff's both from our standpoint as 7
regulators and from your standpoint as future plant managers.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
In 25 words or less.
9
[ Laughter.]
10 MR. LaBRUNA:
I would like to respond but I would 11 like to give someone else the opportunity.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let's give somebody else a chance.
i 13 Thank you.
Who else wants to be a volunteer?
14 MR. FLEISCHMANN:
I am Dick Fleischmann from 15 Philadelphia Electric Company, Peach Bottom.
16 I think from the morala standpoint my experience 17 over the last two or three years has been during two major 18 outages so obviously the continuous extra time that is 19 involved there and the fact that the power plant is not l
20 generating which is what we are all there.for.
When we are 21 down working at a nuclear power plant, we are to generate 22 electricity and that has a bad effect on the morale.
23 Besides the fact that we are not doing what we are 24 supposed to be doing or what our goals are, we are working 25 long hours to do it and as we are coming out of our two or two
19 1
and a half year outage period, I am seeing a definite increase
~
2 in morale.
3 I haven't thought about what the Commission or the 4
NRC could do in that regard so I would like to pass on that.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Go ahead, at your own peril.
6 (Laughter.]
7 MR. FLEISCHMANN:
I haven't thought about it at 8
all.
I would like to pass on that one if I may.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Go ahead.
Do you have a 10 recommendation for NRC?
11 MR. FLEISCHMANN:
Well, I understand there is an 12 effort to work on tech specs and the tech specs are very 13 restrictive in some areas and in some areas don't appear to be 14 structured to meet their goals.
I think an effort to make the 15 tech specs more reasonable, more realistic, do less 16 surveillance during operations and take some of the things 17 that are in the tech specs now that restrict us that don't 18 really need to be in there, perhaps the organizational 19 structure, specific requirements in the administrative 20 sections and things like that so we can change our operation 21 when we need to and yet not have to go in for a tech spec 22 change and wait for the period of time it takes for that.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think we would generally agree 24 with that as a very constructive comment and certainly we have 25 an effort along that line as you know and I think most of us
20 1
are very well aware that the tech specs do need improvement 2
and part ps they have grown to the extent that they are not 3
serving as useful a purpose as they should.
4 I think your comment is very well taken and I 5
appreciate your making it.
Thank you.
6 MR. DAWSON:
Is there a way that we could ask 7
questions from this side of the table?
8 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Sure, go right ahead.
It is your 9
turn.
10 MR. DAWSON:
Several come to mind.
)
11
[ Laughter.]
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
At your peril again, of course.
13 MR. DAWSON:
Certainly.
14
[ Laughter.]
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
No, this is an open and candid 16 discussion so you just go right ahead.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Ycu guyc cra a resource.
18 We are going to take advantage of you.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
that's right.
20 MR. DAWSON:
We are all working in an industry that 21 has seen a flat or declining capacity factor meaning that we 22 are just not running the resources that we build.
At the same 23 time, our O&M budgets are all on a fairly steep rise.
j 24 I was just wondering how you all felt sitting on 25 that side of the table with the shape of the industry and what i
21 l
1 do you think it is caused from and what can we do to go the 2
other way?
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I will be happy to take the first 4
crack at it.
It is a very good question, of course.
5 First of all, inflation and prices are rising in 6
other parts of our country as well as the nuclear world as we 7
all know.
You can just look around at the price of housing in 8
the past few yehrs and the price of cars and the price of just l
9 about everything.
i 10 on the other hand, I think the industry at least in 11 my experience and my view can help itself a great deal by
)
12 performing as best as they can and performing with 13 excellence.
I think INPO's emphasis on excellent performance 14 is absolutely the right way to go.
15 I think that management of the plant that you all l
16 have been involved in in your course and your corporate 17 management also can do a great deal to improve performance 18 because you can inprove your economic situation, you can 19 improve the generation of electricity if the plants operate 20 more reliably.
21 My view is that safety and reliability is wrapped up 22 right together.
So when you make your plant operate more 23 reliably and you are going to make it operate more safely, 24 that is why your training programs are so important because 25 some people, you know, when I first started visiting these
22 1
commercial plants I had some people tell me how expensive 2
training programs were, tell me how expensive the simulators 3
were.
4 I recognize that.
Those are investments.
My answer 5
was that I think it is in your best interest to do that.
It I
6 is not just an overhead expense.
That is an investment in 7
reliability and in safety and in performance.
8 When plants and utilities realize that they must 9
invest a certain amount and they are doing that now and it is 10 encouraging to me that just about every plant has a 11 simulator.
Just about every plant is involved in the training i
12 program in a very real way.
Those are investments that I 13 think is in the industry's best interest.
14 When the industry performs to its real capacity 15 which in my view can be improved, then we are all going to 16 fell better about it and that just takes a lot of hard work, a 17 lot of team work, a lot of dedication.
This is a demanding 18 technology and there is no easy answer in my view.
It takes a 19 lot of people working hard willing to make the sacrifices in j
20 time and resources that this technology demands.
21 So I think that the answer frankly for the future is 22 improved safe and competent performance.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I agree with that, Lando.
24 I think that is absolutely right.
You are absolutely right.
K 25 We haves seen a dramatic increase in O&M costs.
I think they i
=
23 have about doubled in the past five years or so on average and 1
2 that is not only for the new plagts but for the existing 3
plants as well.
4 I think a large part of that has been because there 5
are some things that just needed some more attention.
As 6
Lando said, training is a good example of that.
Training 7
needed to be improved.
Your people needed the kind of 8
training and experience and knowledge to do their jobs 9
effectively and some of that needed to be upgraded not only 10 for operators but also for maintenance and I&C folks.
11 I think we are not yet to the point where we have 12 really turned the corner on some of that particularly in the 13 maintenance and surveillance testing areas.
How much more 14 they will go up, I don't know.
I suspect that we will 15 continue to get some surprises from the plants and it will 16 mean some additional changes.
17 A lot of plants, your company is a good example, 18 have undertaken some major programs to go back and review the 19 engineering basis for the plants.
What you are doing at 20 Turkey Point, that is a commendable program.
I think it was a i
21 needed one but it doesn't come cheap and some of those things 22 still need to be done.
23 I think the best way to deal with that and the l
24 demand situation is to run the plants better and I think most k
25 of those things ought to pay big financial dividends as well
24 1
as safety dividends.
2 There is no reason why plants in this country ought 3
to have an average capacity factor of 60 percent.
They ought to be higher than that.
Other countries can do it.
We can do 5
it here, too.
It is simply a question, I think, of getting 6
the right people, getting them trained well and having them do 7
their job properly and making sure that we have a system that 8
fosters their ability to do their job effectively and the 9
benefit should be not only better safety performance of the I
10 plants but also better reliability and better economic 11 performance of the plants.
12 I think in terms of the future, it is worth keeping 13 in mind that we already have a tremendous commitment to 14 nuclear power in this country far and away above what any 15 other country has in the world and the challenge that we face 16 and that you all will face in the coming years is to make 17 those 125 plants or so operate efficiently and safely and i
18 reliably and in a way that gets the biggest bang for the buck 19 in terms of safety performance and operational performance of 20 the plants.
21 MR. DAWSON:
I think that is what we need to focus 22 on.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I agree with that.
24 MR. DAWSON:
A lof ot times in the past we have 25 focused on programs and maybe we have met the intent of every
25 1
program and been audited against a program and still the 2
performance wasn't there.
So your comments earlier about 3
looking at simulator programs and training programs and 4
focusing on their results are on target.
5 Right now it is tough.
We don't have a measurement 6
of performance in that area so we probably won't know when we 7
got better but that is what we need to look at.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's right.
The 9
Chairman has said on a number of occasions that the plants 10 really grade you and I think he is absolutely right on that.
I 11 The plants do grade you.
12 If you find that people are going on and they are 13 working on the wrong train or they are working on the wrong x
14 unit, that tells you something.
That tells you something 15 about the training of your people.
It tells you something l
16 about their attitudes.
It also tells you something about the 17 effectiveness of your management controls and your management i
18 system.
19 If the various parts of your operation aren't working together as a team, if maintenance and engineering and 20 21 operations aren't working together to make sure that problems 22 are identified and get fixed correctly before some operating 23 event happens or they contribute to an operating event, then 24 that tells you somehow the system isn't functioning very 25 effectively or very properly and the management controls
26 1
aren't working to bring about a safe and reliable plant
.. ~,
2 operation.
3 I think what the Chairman has been advocating for 4
some time is taking a hard look at what kind of indicators 5
plant performance can give you in terms of where you ought to 6
be putting your attention and where we ought to be putting our 7
attention.
8 I know the industry has done a fair amount in that 9
area and it is something that ought to get more attention by 10 both of us.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I think one of the points 12 that the Chairman has made and he has used the word that you 13 are making an " investment" here and since Three Mile Island,
~'
14 if I may again recall the event, there has been a tremendous 15 change in this business.
16 You all have felt it.
The Commission has certainly 17 felt it as well but what you have done since that time, I t
18 think in many respects is a kind of catching up, making an 19 investment in operations that ought to have been made along 20 time ago and I would point although I have not been there, at 21 least two people at the table I know have visited Japan and I 22 believe if my understanding is correct, Japan by law in its 23 early years of their nuclear power program which by any 24 measure, I think, is one of the best in the world, by law 25 required three months shut down per year, isn't that it?
27 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes, three months per 2
year.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
A considerable shut down period.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Right away they were down to 5
75 percent capacity factor but that was considered necessary 6
to make that investment in preventive maintenance, for 7
example, and whatever else they decided would make sure that 8
the plant after that three month shutdown was reliable for 9
whatever it turns out to be, I suppose 90 or 95 or close to 10 100 percent of the time in the remaining months.
I don't 11 quite know what the number is.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Very close.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Very close to 100 percent,
\\
14 yes.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
There is a message there, I 16 think, for us, that that kind of investment up front was made 17 there.
We are doing it a little backwards in this country but 18 then we started out first in this business and I think we are 19 catching up now and I don't doubt that when we have gone 20 through this transitional period here, this catch-up, if you 21 will, of making that investment in preventive maintenance and 22 training, management techniques, treating the nuclear power 23 enterprise more like you would treat the program at Cape 24 Canaveral than at the Four Corners Plant in New Mexico, then
\\
25 we are going to achieve very high capacity factors and
/
28 1
standards in this country as well.
2 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Roberts, I believe had 3
a question.
4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
I had a question for Ken.
5 Could you please tell me how these gentlemen are chosen, how 6
many people were there who were lining up for the eight slots?
7 MR. STRAHM:
We announced the course last November 8
to the CEO workshop that would be this fall and then the 9
second step was to send out a letter with a general 10 description of the course and the fact that it would be six 11 weeks and something about pretty much what Zack told you today 12 about the course in advance.
13
'g We sent that to the executive points of contact, 14 generally speaking the senior nuclear person in the country at 15 every utility, and told them when the courses were and the 16 first four courses, October 6, April 6, August and then 17 October of next year and asked for applicants.
18 Applicants started rolling in and at the time we 19 selected these people, we had 38 applicants for the first 20 class and we selected almost like you observed, a diversity of 21 operations, how they were doing in operations, a diversity of 22 parts of the country.
We didn't have any requests west of the I
23 Mississippi.
We have two in the next class that have 24 requested but all the requests pretty much were from as you 25 can tell were down the east coast.
i l
29 1
Then the next thing I did is where there were one or 2
two from a utility, then I would call that senior nuclear i
3 person and say, "You have selected several.
Which one do you 4
want to go first?"
Then he would tell me to go first and that 1
5 is how we selected the class.
6 We also selected, excuse me, in the initial letter 7
that went out we said, "We need your plans for that person" so 8
we will know and an example is Bob Byram who will be plant 9
manager at Susquehanna on 1 January, I think is the date you 10 take over, you know, that kind of plan.
Dick was already a 11 plant manager and John Walker is assistant site director.
So i
12 where they were in that person's plan when we looked at those 13 38 people, if they said that he will be plant manager in five 14 years, then we didn't him near the top of the list.
We were l
)
looking for people that were headed in the right direction so 15 16 we could get to them sooner.
17 Does that answer your question?
'i 18 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Yes.
Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Any other questions from the other 20 side of the table before we proceed?
21 MR. LaBRUNA:
Earlier this morning we had a little 22 discussion in regards to recognizing plant performance, 23 utility performance and collectively correcting it before a 24 utility found th'emselves too far off afield.
25 Recognizing today that we have several utilities
. - -, -., - - - - - -. -=-----
'~"
30 1
that are shut down and not providing a return on investment as
.~m 2
well as making us collectively not look as good as we know we 3
can be, I was wondering what your thoughts are in that regard, 4
what types of things will we be doing in the future to 5
mitigate having plants being shut down for extended periods 6
of time.
l 7
What kinds of things can we do collectively to 1
8 recognize those things earlier and take prompt collective 9
action?
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let me start because this has been a 11 subject of great interest to me and then I will ask my 12 colleagues to respond.
13 It is a very important question and I think it 14 deserves an awful lot of thought.
What inspired me to get 15 really involved in this was recognition that we did have some 16 serious accidents, that what could we in the NRC, how could we 17 have foreseen those declining performances and what could we 18 have done.
19 That is why I got interested in the performance 20 indicator program.
INPO has a program, they have had it going 21 since 1981 as you probably know, performance indicators so it 22 wasn't anything new.
23 I was well aware of their program but we at NRC did i
24 not have such a program.
So we are developing one now.
I 25 must say, it is not approved by my fellow Commissioners yet.
1 1
i
31
. = = =
I must emphasize that clearly because it has not been approved 1
2 at our level.
I hope that it will get approved but it has not 3
been approved yet.
i 4
In the meantime though, the staff is working on a 5
pilot program if you will.
The whole thrust behind my effort 6
though is to see if we can't design a system that can help us 7
look into the future, that will show plant performance in 8
various categories and let me first of all say that this is 9
only a tool because I have been involved in this kind of a 10 program in the past.
11 There are great number of pitfalls when you design a 12 program like this.
You have to be careful.how you define the 13 indicators or else they can be gimicked.
You must be very 14 careful how you design it and then you must recognize they are 15 only a tool that shows you something to look at and make you 16 ask the question, why.
17 It doesn't indicate by itself sufficient performance 18 in my view any way to make any decisions at all but it does j
19 call to your attention perhaps declining performance.
20 You say, "Why is that curve going down?" and they 21 must necessarily trend the performance.
This is my view any 4
22 way and my experience so when you see the trends going down, 23 for example, and you see plant trends going down for any 24 reason and maybe not all the trends, maybe just a few of them 25 because some will continue to be good but you should
_ - _ _ =,
~
32 1
question.
All you do is why, why, why.
Why is that 2
particular curve going down?
What is going on?
3 So collectively all those curves may possibly give 4
you a clue to declining performance.
It is very difficult to 5
predict.
But if you design a correct set of performance indicators in my view you may be able to detect declining 6
7 performance.
8 What you would say is, "What do you do then?"
- Well, 9
you say, my view is that doesn't show you anything except 10 something to bring to your attention.
It is a signal.
It is 11 a red flag if you will.
So you say, "Is there a problem or 12 not?"
f-13 Then the next step in my view is you have to follow 14 up with an inspection, a special inspection group.
We have a 15 number of different kinds of inspections at NRC and they do at 16 INPO, too.
17 But we would send out in my view then an inspection 18 team that would focus on that particular plant, would focus on 19 that particular declining performance with the plant people 20 and would say, "Why is this happening?"
Perhaps we could help 21 before anything serious happens.
That is the goal, of course.
22 It is a very ambitious achievement and is very 23 difficult, but I think the effort to do that is truly 24 significant.
If we could perhaps prevent one event, it would 25 be worth it but measuring performance is something that
- - - ~
~
~
33 1
performance indicators are designed to do in my view and 2
perhaps prevent the kinds of incidents that we have had.
)
3 That is something that is a responsible action on 4
our part to do as far as I am concerned and perhaps we can 5
prevent problems and cause improvements to take place and 6
frankly, we will see how we get responses from a utility.
7 If we have to send a team out and ask a lot of 8
questions and say our curves are showing us that there are 9
problems, then we are going to see what kind of a response we i
10 get from the utilities and we expect to get some response.
I 11 would expect it.
12 If we don't get it, then we are going to watch it a 13 little while longer and then perhaps if declining performance 14 continues and we don't get the response, we will just shut the 15 plant down and say, "Well, now let's talk about it."
I hope 16 we wouldn't have to do that.
17 But I think a program that is designed to follow 18 performance, ask the question, "Why?", try to get a sensible 19 answer, a good plan, a good execution, make the curves go up, 20 this is what we are trying to do but it also is a tool for
(
21 hopefully perhaps being able to help us predict problems.
22 So those are my thoughts on it.
I am sure other 23 colleagues have other views they would perhaps like to t
24 express.
Anybody else?
Jim.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
A couple of thoughts r
.,n
34 1
maybe.
I agree with much of what the Chairman has just said.
2 There are a lot of indicators or tools that I think you can 3
use.
I think part of it boils down to first we need to make 4
it clear to you all what it is that we expect of you in terms 5
of performance of the plants.
6 I am not sure that we have always as clear as we 7
should be in terms of what we are looking for and on your side i
8 of things, I think you really need to work aggressively to 9
find the problems and to get them fixed early on and not 10 tolerate them.
11 There are a lot of ways you can do that.
12 Performance indicators, I agree, is one way of doing it.
I 13 think it can be a very effective way.
When you certainly look 14 at some of the case studies that you all have been studying, 15 I think any reasonable set of performance indicators would 16 have told you or should have told the plant management that we 17 have some problems here and if we don't get them fixed sooner 18 or later one of them is going to come back to bite us and 19 sooner or later in a couple of those cases, that is exactly 20 what happened.-
21 Using the indicators not as ends in themselves but 22 as tools to tell you how well you are doing or how poorly you 23 are doing in particular areas is the key.
There are a lot of 24 tools you can use.
Performance indicators is one.
Talking to 25 our people is another one.
i
35 1
One of the things I have been asking plant managers 2
as I go around the country recently is how often do you stop 3
by and talk to the residents, just walk in and say, "How well 4
are we doing?
What we we doing effectively?
What aren't we 5
doing effectively?
Where do you think the soft spots are?
6 Where do you think the strong spots are?"
Get another i
7 perspective on things.
8 Those people are there for you to use as well as.for 9
us.
I found in many instances those people can be quite 10 effective and I am amazed at the number of times when I ask a 11 resident how often plant management has stopped by to see 12 them, they say, "Never" or "Very rarely."
That is a tool you l
13 can use as well.
14 I think some of the keys in terms of avoiding a 15 serious operating event really are your personnel 1
16 performance.
Are you seeing maintenance, I&C and operator 17 errors beyond the range that you should be seeing?
Equipment 18 reliability, how often do you have to shut down the plant to 19 fix something, how often are you in an LCO because equipment 20 just continues to break down, is it the same equipment over 21 and over again that gives you problems and if that is 22 happening,what is the problem, what is the root cause and why 23 aren't you getting it fixed?
i 24 Those are the kinds of questions that I think you 25 have to be asking yourselves and also particularly for the
36 1
older plants, I think it is a question of saying do we have a 2
control of what we have.
Do we have configuration control?
3 Have we always made sure that when we made changes to the 4
plant we understood what the implications of those were that 5
we don't have design vulnerabilities out there lurking that 6
sooner or later are going.to come back to get us.
7 When I look at the operating events, an awful lot of 8
it falls into those three kinds of areas.
9 I think the last thing I would urge you to do and I 10 get mixed impressions in terms of the effectiveness of the 11 plants around the country is don't just rely on us to tell you 12 what is wrong or to tell you where your problems are and don't 13 be satisfied with us telling you what you ought to do to fix
\\
14 them.
15 The most effective plants, I think, are the ones 16 where the company takes and the plant management takes a very 17 aggressive attitude in terms of we don't want the NRC to find 18 problems.
We want to find them and get them fixed first.
19 One of the interesting things about Japan, Fred 20 mentioned that a couple of us had visited Japan earlier, the 21 attitude of the industry over there is that when the 22 government inspectors come in, if they find things that is a 23 tremendous loss of face on the part of the plant staff and the i
l 24 utilities go to great lengths to maka sure before the 25 inspections take place that they have gone through the plant, l
37 1
that they have identified the problems and that they have 2
gotten things taken care of so that when the inspectors come 3
through, there are very few items.
4 In a perfect world, that is a nice objective.
You 5
are not always going to accomplish to achieve that but that 6
kind of an attitude, we are going to find our problems and we 7
are going to get them fixed and we are not going to wait for 8
the NRC to do it, we are going to beat them at their own game, 9
I think is a good attitude and a good approach to take and I 10 would encourage you to do it.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Carr, do you have any 12 comments?
13 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I have a few words.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Go right ahead.
15 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I once worked for a gentleman 16 who told me there were only three reasons for failure and that 17 was lack of knowledge, lack of effort or lack of follow-up.
18 Most of the things that happen give you some kind of 3
i 19 warning and in retrospect, you can always recognize those 20 warning signs.
The problem is trying to recognize them at the 1
21 time.
22 It has already been said but you need to set your 23 own standards.
That is the first problem.
The second thing 24 you have to do is hold to them and the third thing you have to 25 do is make sure that everybody knows what they are.
l
38 1
I just visited a plant that had a model roem 2
concept.
The model room was finished like a model room in 3
a model house You walk in there and everything was perfect, 4
painted, arrows, flow directions, labels, everything just like 5
you would like to have it if you invented it, painted it and 6
never used it.
7 He marched everybody in his plant through there and 8
said, "Okay, that is my standard."
It was very clear what he 9
meant and trying to get the people to understand what your 10 standards are is a very important part of that problem.
11 One thing about our impression of your plants and I 12 have only been here a short time but the impression I get is 13 what goes by in the paperwork.
So it is kind of the things 14 that I see daily.
Did you scram or didn't you scram or did 15 you have some kind of a problem or didn't you have some kind i
16 of a problem?
t 17 The other impression I get from your plants is when 18 I visit and believe me that impression when I visit your 4
19 plants starts at the gate.
20 It is amazing.
I have visited six or seven plants 21 and by the time you get through the security system, you have 22 a pretty good idea of how much in charge the plant manager is, 23 what kind of an outfit he is running.
24 As far as what you want to know what we think you 25 all can do to keep your plants from going downhill, if you
39 1
think there is somebody else running a plant better than you 2
are running it, why don't you go over there and see what he is 3
doing that you are not doing.
4 It is very hard to get people to visit somebody else 5
and learn from them but I would recommend it if you get the 6
opportunity.
7 As far as morale, success breeds success.
If you 8
can get your people to thinking their good, they will be good 9
and they won't want to bring any kind of degradation down on 10 your outfit because they will have a lot of pride in the 11 outfit.
12 On the other hand, you have to remember that you are 13 not running a popularity contest.
As the gentleman says, you 14 are producing power and your object is to produce power so 15 hard but fair is a policy that is appreciated by all your 16 subordinates.
As long as you are fair and they can count on 17 you, they know what is expected, they will produce.
18 Having said those words, you are on your own.
19
[ Laughter.]
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It reminds me of an old 21 story but I won't tell it.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
You don't want to tell your story?
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
No.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are there any other comments from my 25 fellow Commissioners?
40 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let me just second one point 2
that Ken has made because I have said it more than once.
You 3
have said that they ought to talk to each other and that is 4
absolutely right.
It has been striking to me that it is not 5
happening nearly as much as it used to because of INPO, I 6
guess, primarily, but I was always amazed at how little 7
communication there was from one utility to another.
8 You know there are good plants out there.
There are 9
people who are running very good operations and some of them, 10 I trust, are sitting at this table.
If you think are having a 11 problem, talk to them.
12 The point I used to make a lot, I didn't want to be 13 accused of urging boondoggles on utilities but if you get the 14 chance and if a couple of your top people get the chance, go 15 to Europe and go to Japan and look at some of those 16 operations.
17 I visited I think you are talking about Braidwood 18 when you talk about the model area concept and it is a great 19 idea.
I would like to see the whole plant look that way and 20 there is nobody at this table, I think, appreciates 21 housekeeping and what it means more than these two individuals 22 here that have spent time under water were housekeeping counts 23 the most, I guess.
24
~
I would almost go so far as to say that if you show 25 me a plant that has poor housekeeping, that is dirty, I will
41 1
show you a plant that is going to get in trouble.
Think about 2
it.
You go out and look at the ones that have gotten in 3
trouble, I think without exception that has been the case.
4 There might be one that had beautiful housekeeping that got in 5
trouble, but I am not aware of it.
6 It is terribly important for reasons that all of you 7
know.
8 Again, I want to stress this idea of talking to the 9
people who are running good operations, and if possible go 10 look at some of these foreign operations if you ever get the l
11 time because some of them have some things to teach us as l
12 well.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I agree with that and I
\\
14 think as important as the managers going, it is also important 15 to get your working level people going.
I know that Public 16 Service Electric and Gas did that with Sweden.
17 MR. LaBRUNA:
We just came back from Japan in 18 September.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That is a good idea, too, 20 both in this country and abroad, give the working level people 21 a chance, too.
22 One of the things I am always impressed by going 23 around plants in this country as well is the number of very 24 interesting and creative ideas, enthusiastic ideas that you 25 see from plant to plant.
The difficulty is in communicating 1
42 1
and sharing that kind of experience and ideas and there is not 2
enough of that that goes on.
4 3
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
When I visit plants and you get a 4
way to do it but one of the things I look for, several things 5
I look for.
I look for a clean plant.
I look for a quiet 6
plant.
I look for a taut plant.
Let me just briefly tell you 7
what I mean by that.
8 The clean plant, I agree with Commissioner Bernthal 9
and others who have expressed similar views on cleanliness.
l 10 It tells you an awful lot.
First of all, it does tell you a 11 little bit about morale.
Is there pride in the plant?
It 12 tells you a little bit about safety.
What do I mean by that?
(
13 If you crawl around and look behind the corners and 4
14 in the dark places and in the tough places to get to and if 15 those are clean, you are liable to find out things about that 16 plant that you didn't know if you didn't crawl around and try 17
.to make it clean.
18 So when you are making it clean, you really can.
19 Sometimes you can find the problems.
You can find 20 deteriorated piping.
You can find frayed cabling.
You can 21 find things that concern you about other parts of the plant.
22 But I do think that when you are trying to keep a 23 clean plant, you get a lot more than superficial cleanliness.
24 Also,. housekeeping is part of cleanliness but you can prevent 25 fires.
You can prevent personnel damage and problems to
.m-.
e-.-
n-
,.en..
g
43 4
1 people if you have your plant well orderly and picked up and 2
the housekeeping is good and it is clean.
3 Cleanliness is important.
It shows an awful lot 4
aboutmanadimenttome,corporatesupport, also.
1 5
A, quiet plant is just something that I think is I
6 awfully=important.
I don't think people operate in a rea.
7 noisy climate as efficiently as they do in a quiet climate but i
s 8
also I use the quiet to remind me of all your senses.
You
'9 know, when you look at a plant, plant managers and those'of'us 10 who look at plants as well, in my view you should use all your
~
- 11 senses, your sight, your smell, your taste, your touch.
~
12 When you va1k around a plant, you can tell an awful i
13 lot just by continually being observant and using all your 14 senses'but a quiet plant is usually one in my view that 15 operates better and can respond to problems.
1 I
16 1
A taut plant is just a plant that operates in my 17 view with consistency.
In other words, everybody knows what
{
18 he is supposed to do and as commissioner carr has pointed out, 19 the standards are set so people know what to expect.
It is fair, tough but fair.,That is important.
20 21 Everybody knows'where he stands.
Everybody knows whatheissuppokedtodo.. It is not that difficult and 22 23 communications comes into that, too.
Do you communicate 24 between departments, up and down the corporate level, 25 horizontally, vertically? JThose are the things that I mean.
i e
/
.n-.
+
,n s ---
44 1
You try to sense kind of that as you go through a 2
plant and I am sure you do, too,-but those are the kinds of 3
things to look tar;, I think.
At least they are helpful to me.
4 Another thing you need to look for in my view is 5
attitude, very hard but not impossible.
Look for confidence 6
and not over confidence I look for that if I can.
Sometimes 7
you can tell it.
Sometimes you can't but it is worth looking 8
for.
9 Look for procedures.
See if your procedures are 10 being used.
See if they are worn and marked up and used.
11 Talking about Japan, when I was in Japan I asked for the 12 procedures in the control room of a very well run plant and I 1
13 had not found too much to criticize.
(
14 So I said, "Show me your operating procedures" and 15 they brought out this nice beautiful book, brand new and I 16 started turning a few pages.
It was pretty clear it had not 17 been used and I kept turning more pages and didn't find any 18 writing or any dirt on it or anything and I said, "Is this the 19 book you use?"
20
+ "Oh, yes, yes, this is the book "
I said, "You 21 know, that doesn't impress me at all br ee' a every plant 22 that uses operational procedures doesn't have it looking this 23 shiny clean.
"Oh, wait a minute, that is not the book we 24 use," they said.
25
[ Laughter.]
i 1
+
45 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
They quickly ran around the corner i
2 and they had given me the book, the show book but they quickly
'3 ran around the. corner and produced for me a dog-eared, old 4
dirty book.
I said, "This is the one you really use, isn't 5
it?"
They said, "Yes, that is the one we really use."
6 Well, I could tell they used it because it looked 7
used.
Those are little things to look for and you know those 8
things as well as I do but some times they are small things 9
but they can be helpful in trying to dig behind, you know, we lo visit your plant and you always put on your best face 11 naturally.
Of course you would.
Everybody does.
We expect 12 that.
13 But if there is some way we can find out whether you 14 are really using those procedures or not, that is kind of 15 important, I think, but those are little things that I look 16 for and you can even sense sometimes the attitude by the way 17 the plant managers and others, do they'know their people. You 18
- know, "Hi, Charlie.
Hi, Joe" going through the place or do 19 they, obviously, when they don't know each other, never seen 20 somebody.
21 If a vice president goes with me and has a visitor's 22 badge, why that is kind of impressive to me, you know, and 23 sometimes it happens.
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's true.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
So those are little things that 4
e
__m
46 1
don't seem very important but they kind of add up sometimes.
j 2
Management involvement is the key and I think your course at 3
INPO is very valuable.
I certainly commend INPO and all of 4
you for your efforts and your dedication to this demanding 5
technology.
t 6
Are there any other final comments by anybody?
7 i lt. DAWSON:
Yes.
I would like to take this 8
opportunity, I would feel real bad if I went away without 9
asking this question.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Sure, go right ahead.
11 MR. DAWSON:
With regard to the degreed SRO 12 concept--
13
[ Laughter.]
\\
14 MR. STRAHM:
It didn't have anything to do with us.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I will answer that question happily.
16 MR. DAWSON:
At Florida Power and Light we have gone 17 through a lot of emphasis on finding the problems in our plant 18 and addressing solutions that will take care of what we 19 consider our top rated problems.
20 I was just trying to put that degreed SRO in that 21 l
context of an industry problem that we are solving by a 22 degreed SRO.
Maybe I am not on the right wavelength thinking 23 of it in those terms but that is what I would like to ask 24 about.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Sure.
Well, let me try it because I 1
y w-v M
47 1
am the one, I guess, that started this and I know I do not 2
have the support of all my colleagues I understand their 3
position, too.
Let me just say this.
4 I think nuclear power plants are very complex 5
machines.
I also recognize that we have power plant 6
operators that are high school graduates and they do a very 7
good job.
In our nuclear navy, they are generally high school 8
graduates also although we did have officers qualified that i
9 were in charge of the plant in our nuclear navy.
10 But in the commercial field, we have generally 11 speaking and the NRC does not have any requirements for other 12 than a high school degree and we have high school graduates in 13 our control rooms in our country and they are doing a very s
14 good job.
15 But my view is training and education are 16 different.
It seems te, me that most of the airline pilots, I i
17 think, are college graduates and they have a pretty 1
18 responsible job, driving that airplane.
19 I think in many of our responsible positions in our 20 country we recognize that education is important as well as 21 training.
My view is that even though our current operators 22 are doing a very good job and they are doing a good job, it 23 seems to me that we should gradually increase the level of 24 education as well as training amongst our control room 25 operators.
48 1
My proposal was to have the senior reactor operators 2
not the junior reactor operators, but the senior reactor 3
operators have a college degree by 1991.
In my view, that is 4
a very modest proposal, not.very demanding.
5 I also in my proposal recognize the necessity really 6
and probably the proper thing to do would be to grandfather 7
all those in 1981 that were high school graduates that were 8
SRO's but after that time anyone who wanted to get an SRO in 9
my view, it would be appropriate to have him degreed.
10 What does that do?
It simply upgrades the 11 discipline.
It upgrades the education level of our control 12 room operators, senior operators.
I think education is good 13 as well as training.
I think for the long haul and that is 14 why I made it a gradual program, we really should upgrade our 15 education of our control room operators.
16 Many of our control room operators now are already 17 degreed as you know.
Many utilities, many of them have 18 excellent programs for helping their operators to obtain 19 degrees.
20 I suppose behind it all as much as anything is my 21 view that we do have high quality people in our control 22 rooms.
They need to be challenged.
Shift work is demanding, 23 I recognize, but if a good utility recognizes the talent he 24 has got in that control room, he will want to keep that 25 talent.
He will want to keep that talent in his corporate
4 g
49 1
level.
2 I would think that a control room high school 3
graduate reactor operator could some day look forward to being 4
the chief executive officer of the company and in very few 5
companies today that is possible because he doesn't have a 6
degree but in my future, the reactor operator out of high 7
school with a good utility would be able to attain a degree, 8
then become a senior reactor operator, then become the plant 9
manager, then become the vice president for nuclear operations 10 and then become the chief executive officer.
11 What do you do?
You provide a career path.
You 12 provide a future.
You provide challenge for those young 13 operators who really are capable.
14 If you believe in the quality of your operators like 15 I do, I think you would want to have some kind of an 16 opportunity for them to not only get college degrees but to 17 someday move up in your corporate level and those are i
18 fundamentally the reasons I think it is important.
19 Commissioner Asselstine.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I will give you a slightly l
21 different view on the issue.
I have come to the conclusion 22 that it is probably not a good idea to require the degrees.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Do you see how the way it works on 24 the Commission?
\\.
25 (Laughter.]
l t
.e 50" 1
COMMISSIONER' ROBERTS:
When did that happen?
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That is the way my vote 3
came out.
It was three to two, Tom.
Actually,~I voted to 4
issue th'e proposal but had a different view.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You will excuse me for 6
interrupting for a moment, I can't tell you how pleased I was 7
when Chairman Zech joined the Commission because as the only 8
former academician on this panel, I knew that I was going to 9
be blamed for this.
10
[ Laughter.]
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
It does seem to me that 12 there is a need and if you aren't going to end up with a 13 degree requirement, it seems to me that the industry has to do 14 something on its part and let me tell you what I think that 15 is.
16 I would say at the outset that one of the things 17 that I hear from operators just about everywhere is concern 18 about this.
They say, this affects our potential career 19 path.
It is unsettling to us.
It is what really bothers us.
20 I don't know how many times I have heard that when I ask 21 operators what is it that we are doing that we shouldn't be 22 doing or what should we be doing that we are not doing to make 23 your lives and your jobs easier to do and this is the one I 24 keep hearing about.
l(
25 The need I see is for the operators particularly the
---w-
-..----r-
,,~,-,p..
-,.g, c..-
.a 51 1
SRO's to have enough of an understanding about how the plant 2
is behaving so that they can deal with all of the possible 3
situations that they have to deal with.
4 I think in terms of normal operations and even 5
design basis transients, the existing training programs do 6
that pretty well particularly considering that you also have 7
an STA built into the process one way or the other.
8 But I am not convinced that those people have enough 9
of an understanding of what is going on in an accident 10 particularly if you get into serious accident or severe 11 accident situations and what I would like to see is a
]
12 bolstered training program that focuses on giving those people 13 the engineering knowledge they need not only to understand how
(
14 to work the machine but to understand how the machine is 15 working even under serious accident conditions.
1 16 I think if the industry can come up with a way to do 17 that and at the same time maintain the kind of experience 18 level that has been built into the existing group of 19 operators, that we would be better off than if the NRC 20 required degrees for SRO's beyond a certain point in time 21 whether it is 1991 or whenever that is because it would 22 upgrade all of the skills of the people who are SRO's.
23 My own view is that is the way we ought to go and it-24 ought to be achievable to do that.
I am concerned about 25 losing the operating experience that we now have, about v----
s-
- - -.,.... - - ~ -..., - - - - - - -, - - -
s 52 1
deterring people who might be very good reactor operators from
^
2 staying in the business and using the experience that they l
3 have to work on up to become SRO's and shift supervisors and I 4
guess I am also a little concerned that you may not attract 5
the kind of motivated qualified engineer to do shift work that 6
we would like to see in those kinds of important jobs.
7 Another thing that I think needs some thought is hou 8
you use the STA.
That is one way of building in that 9
engineering knowledge and experience but my impression is that 10 there are lots of different ways to do it and some of them are 11 a lot more effective than others and I think that is another 12 one where the industry can take a hard look at how best to 13 utilize the STA, build in that engineering knowledge and
(
14 capability and still preserve the cadre of experienced and 15 knowledgeable operators that you now have.
16 MR. DAWSON:
Have you received any feedback from the 17 industry along those lines?
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I have not started t o look 19 at the comments.
I have heard from a number of uti.cies when 20 I visit plants that they have provided comments on the 21 Commission's advanced notice of proposed rulemaking and I 22 guess I am kind of interested to see whether there are some 23 creative ideas in those comments about rather than the NRC 24 imposing a degree requirement, here is an alternative that we 1
25 think can accomplish the objective that can preserve the group
, ~ "
53 1
of experienced operators that we now have, give them a career 2
path within the organization and at the same time make sure 1
i 3
that we have the engineering knowledge built into the shift so 4
that a shift could deal with whatever problems they have to 5
deal with.
6 I also think that the kind of programs that the 7
Chairman talked about is absolutely the right way to go.
t 8
Building in more engineering degreed people into shift work as 9
a career path in the organization is an excellent idea and a 10 lot of utilities are now doing that.
I guess I would stop 11 short of requiring that you have somebody in that SRO position 12 at least beyond a certain point but bring'ng those people into i
13 shift and moving them to other jobs in the company I think is
\\
14 the right way to go.
15 In fact, there are a couple of companies that have 16 people who started out as licensed operators.
I think your 17 company now has a CEO who started out as a licensed operator 18 and there ought to be more of those.
You would get the kind 19 of perspective, operations perspective, that you want to see 20.
at senior management levels.
21 But I guess I stop short of saying we ought to 22 require it but I think the burden is really on the industry 23 now to come forward with a good alternative because as you can 24 sense, there are clearly some people who feel on the 25 Commission that a degree requirement under some sort of
.e 54 l
1 approach is good idea and there are good arguments on that 2
side as well.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let me just make a short 4
comment.
I don't want to turn this into a meeting en an issue 5
that we will have meetings on at some point.
I will just say 6
that I think Chairman Zech has eloquently expressed perhaps an 7
idealistic but a most worthwhile idealistic view of the value 8
of education versus training.
I 9
I heartily concur in that.
I think most of you know 10 what my background was some years ago and I understand, I i
i 11 think, the value of experience and I did not intend and do not l
l 12 intend and I do not think as.far as I know none of us intend 13 that those people with experience get pushed aside in favor of 14 some person who has a degree behind his name.
15 I have met more fools with degrees than any other i
16 kind and people with advanced degrees, either get wiser or 17 turn into even bigger fools.
So I think I have a fair i
18 appreciation for what education can and cannot do for you.
4 19 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
That is a very interesting 20 comment.
21
[ Laughter.]
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It is true.
23 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
That reminds me of something 24 Bill Kerr said before us several years ago.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I, as you can sense, have i
i
+
... -, ~
,s e
55 1
also felt that we need that general upgrade.
I have an open 2
mind on this issue and I certainly want to grandfather those l
3 people that have the experience and nobody wants us to lose 4
that.
I am inclined at this point to agree with the views of 5
the chairman on this issue.
l 6
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Does anybody else want to make a 7
speech or anything?
l 8
COMMISSIONER CARR:
One more vote and you are in.
I 9
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes, that's right.
10
[ Laughter.]
I 11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I am still working on it.
l 12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Lando, one last quick 13 comment if I could on the cleanliness issue.
I agree with
(
14 everything that was said about the importance of that and 15 certainly if you see a dirty or sloppy plant, that really is a j
16 good indication of the management attitude and the level of
\\
17 performance.
9 18 But I do get the sense that you all have gotten the 19 message about cleanliness and what we look for in terms of 20 cleanliness.
I guess the one comment I would give you 21 especially since I see a lot of "Wat Paint" signs when I visit 22 plants these days, just one comment.
23 Don't neglect material condition of the plant in l
l 24 favor of cleanliness because I have also been to a couple of 25 plants where I see a lot of fresh paint on leaking valves and
..m.
.m
_.___._.,,,---,__-._,__.m,.,
m_-
,__....__...,I
,, s C
56 4
1 pumps.
That is not the answer either.
2 Cleanliness is good.
It is a good sign but please 3
pay attention to material condition as well and don't get the i
4 feeling that I think when we come around, just a lot of 5
housekeeping is going to be the be all and end all in terms of 6
a good impression.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Beauty is more than skin 8
deep.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Exactly.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think we all agree with that I am 11 sure.
It is very true.
I really would like to thcnk you, 12 Ken, and all of you in this first pilot program again for 13 coming up here today and spending some time with us and I hope 14 that perhaps some of our thoughts have been useful to you.
15 We appreciate your thoughts very much and we wish 16 you and your organizations continued safe operations and we 17 certainly commend your continued serious approach to this 18 demanding technology that we are all involved in and your 19 dedication to competent performance and safe performance.
20 Thank you very much, Ken, we appreciate it.
21 MR. STRAHM:
Thank you, sir.
i 22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
The meeting is adjourned.
23 (Whereupon, the commission meeting was adjourned at 24 3:40 o' clock p.m., to reconvene at the Call of the Chair.)
25 i
-~
r 1
2 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3
4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5
meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
6 7
TITLE OF MEETING: Meeting with Members of INPO Plant Managers Course (Public Meeting) 8 PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
9 DATE OF MEETING: Thursday, October 30, 1986 10 11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the Commission taken
' ('
13 stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by 1
14 me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and 15 that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the 16 foregoing' events.
17 t
18
- y-
_1_,___,_____.
j l
19 Y"
l 20 i
21 22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
23 24 25 3
y,--w
-+-rww---wgr wey w
-w~-r r
w-3 ww w
yr-----r-w
,.y-
,--w
-c w
--r
--cp y
e
=
ywmt
.-,-v
.----+-s
T e
1 2
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3
4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5
meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
6 7
TITLE OF MEETING: Meeting with Members of INPO Plant Managers Course (Public Meeting) 8 PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
4 j
9 DATE OF MEETING: Thursday, October 30, 1986 l
10 i
11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the Commission taken 4
(
13 stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by 14 me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and 15 that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the 16 foregoing events.
17
_LE____'_i__
f_c______
la 9
Marilynn M.
Nations 20 21 22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
23 24 i
l 25 i
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNkWNNNNgVgygVNNsVgVgyNgygVSfggigggg;gg TRAt!SMITTAL T0:
X Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips ADVANCED COPY TO:
The Publ c Document Room
// II N 33 DATE:
3
/
3:
SECY Correspondence & Records Branch 3":
FROM:
33:
3:
Attached are copies of a Comission meeting transcript and related meeting F
a !.
3 ll document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and f
placement in the Public Document Room. No other distribution is requested or 3 gl f-required.
3.'
Meeting
Title:
e.e k A
wt&
becaheC5 nh b O
) \\ o_ nk oasetS bt ( se_
s Open X 3
Closed 5!
Meeting Date:
\\o l%o k to 3 :
3 :
3 :
F 3
3 j Item Description *:
Copies Advanced DCS 3
'8 to PDR Cg S j y
1 3:
3
- 1. TRANSCRIPT 1
1 3 !
I q
3 o
a 33:l p
3 U
s I
3 33!
2.
3 3
p a:.
y 3
3.
m h_!
h 3
?
Y' 5
3 4.
1 a
l 3
3B 3
3ll S.
^
l l
6.
- PDR is advanced one copy of each document, two of each SECY paper.
C&R Branch files the original transcript, with attachments, without SECY papers.
hW
&& M IM M N &&&#if&&&&r E. M & M
-. _ _. _.