ML20205H934
| ML20205H934 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/23/1986 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8601300037 | |
| Download: ML20205H934 (89) | |
Text
(JujL-uiluf4L wh UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the matter of:
COMMISSION MEETING Briefing on INPO (Public Meeting)
Docket No.
Location: Washington, D. C.
Date: Thursday, January 23, 1986 Pages:
1 - 79 8601300037 e60123 PDR 10CFR PT9.7 PDR ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES Court Reporters i
1625 I St., N.W.
g
'~
Suite 921 Washington, D.C.
20006 (202) 293-3950
)
f 1
O I SCL A I M EP 2
3 4
5 6
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7
United States Nuclear Regu l a t ory Ccce l ss i on held on a
1/23/86 in the Commission's office at 1717 H 7treet, 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, and it may contain 12 inaccuracies.
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 cpinion 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 s t a t'emen t 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Cemmission may 21 authorire.
22 23 24 25
1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 BRIEFING ON INFO xx*
6
[PUBLIC MEETING 3
?
mum 8
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9
Room 1130 10 1717 H Street, Northwest 11 Washington, D.C.
12 13 Thursday, January 23, 1986 14 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant 16 to notice, at 10:00 a.m.,
the Honorable NUNZIO J.
PALLADINO, 17 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
18 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
19 NUNZIO J.
PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission 20 THOMAS M.
ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 21 JAMES K.
ASSELSTINE, Member of the Commission 22 FREDERICK M.
BERNTRAL, Member of the Commission 23 LANDO W.
- ZECH, JR.,
Member of the Commission 24 2'5
2 1
STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
c 2
S.
CHILK 3
M.
MALSCH 4
Z.
PATE 5
K.
STRAHM 6
S.
ROSEN 7
W.
COAKLEY 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
3 1
P R O C E E D I NG S-2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Would you please come to 3
order.
Commissioner Asselstine's ottice has advised us that 4
he's been delayed but he will be here shortly.
5 We are pleased this morning to have with us Mr.
Zack 6
Pate, president of the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations 7
and other members of the institute, known as INFO, for its 8
annual progress meeting with NRC.
INFO has indicated a desire 9
to brief the Commission on tour topics.
These are selected 10 program highlights, Nuclear Plant Reliability Data System, 11 accreditation of training programs, and National Academy for 12 Nuclear Training.
i 13 We last met with the INFO accrediting board on June i
14 luth, 1985.
And prior to that we met with INFO on February 1$
Sth of 1985, 16 Since its formation in 1979 INFO has been developing 17 programs aimed at promoting excellence in construction and 18 operation of nuclear power plants in an ettort to improve 19 safety and reliability of operations.
Much has been 20 accomplished to date and the NRC continues to encourage INFO 21 ettorts directed toward industry self-improvement And we are 22 pleased to be able to cooperate with them on these efforts.
23 Let me ask, do any of my tellow commissioners have 24 any additional remarks at this time?
2$
COMMISSIONER ZECH:
No.
1
~
=
4 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, then let me turn the 2
meeting over to Mr.
Pate, and I presume you will introduce 3
your colleagues.
4 MR. PATE:
Certainly.
Mr. Chairman, commissioners, 5
we appreciate the opportunity to briet you on the Institution 6
of Nuclear Power Operations technical programs.
Let me 7
introduce my colleagues.
Ken Strahm on my left is our vice 8
president of training and education, and is a director of the 9
National Academy.
Walt Coakley on his left manages our 10 accreditation activities.
And Steve Rosen on my right is our 11 vice president of analysis and engineering.
12 And we have with us Joe Colvin, who manages industry 13 and government relations; Hon Seiberling who is the principal 14 to our vice president for radiation protection and emergency 15 preparedness; and Angie Howard who manages our communications 16 activities.
17 Today we'll cover just briet highlights of 18 evaluation and assistance activities.
And then we'll go into 1
19 some detail on the accreditation program and the Nuclear Plant i
20 Reliability Data System.
21 Taking them in that order, let me first give you 22 those briet highlights on evaluation and assistance.
The l
23 evaluation program remains a key cornerstone of our 24 activities.
The program consumes more of my personal time 25 than any of our other' activities, although today accreditation
1 runs a close second.
2 At this point in time we've conducted 20$
3 evaluations of operating plants.
We've conducted $4 4
evaluations of corporate support and monitoring of the 5
operating nuclear stations in the country, and 32 special 6
assistance visits to near term operating license plants.
And 7
those are aimed at helping the plants in the final stages of 8
construction get ready to operate.
9 A key activity over this past year has been the 10 development of guidelines that cover the key functional 11 areas.
And those have included a guideline like this one 12 which covers operations at nuclear stations.
And the others 13 are a similar guideline in maintenance, a similar guideline in 14 radiation protection, one in technical support, and one just 15 finished covering organi=ation and administration.
16 We have provided the Statt with copies of these 17 guidelines as they come as we distribute them to the 18
- industry, And I'd be pleased to leave a copy for each 19 commissioner to look through after we finish the briefing.
20 And as I say, copies are readily available to the Statt.
21 These documents have been among our best received 22 technical documents.
We think, in effect, it's a manual for 23 the operations department at a nuclear power station.
And we 24 are seeing widespread use and adaptation of the principles in 1
25 the documents.
6 i
As we brietea the ecmmissioners in the a past 2
meeting, we are now taking senior reactor operators from 3
operating nuclear plants with our evaluation teams to similar 4
plants to bring in that technical expertise of a guy who on a 5
day-to-day basis is faced with the plant operations and is 6
participating in simulator training and requalification 7
training; other forms of requalification training on an 8
ongoing basis.
9 So that he is current technically and he is also 10 current in the type of plant we are evaluating.
We*ve taken 11 100 senior reactor operators from all over the industry now on 12 each of the last 68 operating plant evaluations.
13 In a similar fashion, we take senior executives from f
14 the utility management with us to accompany the corporate j
15 evaluation teams.
And we've taken 5$ executives with us on 16 each of the last 30 evaluations.
So you can see that has 17 averaged almost two executives for each evaluation.
18 A third very important and relatively recent 4
19 activity for INFO is the inclusion of an evaluation of 20 simulator training as an ongoing part of each evaluation.
And 21 we now do that each time we evaluate an operating station.
22 Sometimes the simulator training is not conducted i
23 during the time that our team is at the operating station, 24 And 11 that's not the case, we in every case send that team to 4
25 look at the simulator training in advance.
Maybe two weeks,
9 8
?
I sometimes more than two weeks in advance.
But we make that an 2
integral part of the station's evaluation.
3 We've now conducted 70 simulator evaluations.
We've 4
found that to be an area where considerable improvement is 5
needed, and we've put tremendous emphasis on that as a part of 0
both the evaluation program and as Ken will cover in a few 7
minutes, as a part of the accreditation training programs.
8 Just over two years ago we brieted the Commission on 9
the implementation of a new program, construction project 10 evaluations.
We implemented that program, in considerable 11 measure, in response to a speech by Chairman Palladino, I 12 believe in December of 1981, with the sense of the speech 13 being that the industry to take the initiative and prove the 14 quality of construction in its construction projects-15 Over time we had 116 loan personnel involved in that 16 from all over the industry from 34 ditterent utilities.
In 17 every case, in virtually every case, with recent construction 18 experience, from 11 suppliers and from three international 19 utilities.
20 We conducted 21 evaluations of construction 21 projects, and that was usually with a team of 20 or more 22 people.
We phased that program out at the end of 1985, and 23 our principal regret is that we didn't we weren't able to 24 start that program 10 years ago.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Excuse me, Zack.
1 got
e a
8 1
diverted and I lost the lead-in sentence on that last point 2
MR. PATE:
All right, sir.
I just summarized the 3
construction project evaluation program, Mr. Chairman, and 4
noted that we had 116 loan personnel involved at one time or 5
another from all over the industry.
And that we conducted 21 6
of those evaluations.
We hit every construction project at 7
least once, and most twice, and one three times.
Our regret 8
is that we didn't -- we couldn't have begun that 10 years 9
ago.
10 We are closing that program out as a formal program 11 at the end of
'85, but we still have many of the people who 12 were involved.
And what we are in the process of doing now is 13 writing down guidelines covering 70 topics or areas that are 14 important to construction.
And a guideline in this case will 15 be anywhere from three to maybe 30 pages.
So we'll end up 16 with a volume of what we will call the lessons learned or the 17 lessons we want to capture from this experience.
18 And those guidelines will range from things like 19 seismic considerations, to cable pulling methodologies, to 20 pipe hanger erection, uhich we all know is a complex thing 21 which has been done well at some construction projects and not 22 done well at others.
23 So we're trying to get down on paper what we saw 24 through the involvement of those llo loan personnel and about 25 20 of our own statt, to have that document available for a
9 I
1 future generation of construction projects.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I think that's a very good icea e
3 and I commend you for doing that because you have learned a 4
lot in the process and it would be a shame to lose that.
5 MR. PATE:
Yes, sir, I appreciate that.
And it's 6
our plan to make those documents or those chapters available 7
to the NRC Staff for review and comment as they come ott the 8
line.
We hope to end that process with a document that has 9
the best knowledge of many utilities, because we'll give them 10 to them for review, the INPO statt and the NRC Statt.
11 The permanent resources as they finish work on these 12 guidelines are being phased into a concentration on outage 13 management and engineering support of operating plants.
14 Kind of an overall summary in progress in the-15 evaluation area: we believe we are seeing good solid progress 16 in many areas.
We evaluate eight functional areas.
17 Operations is covered by this guideline, maintenance, 18 technical support, training, radiation protection, chemistry 19 and others.
20 Today I'll just take one example and talk briefly 21 about what we're seeing in that area, and that's chemistry.
22 That*s really an area we added after we began evaluations in 23 the o ':
-/ seven functional areas with INFO *s first round of 24 avaluations, which as !*m sure you recall, began as soon as 25 the institute was formed in 1980.
10 1
Eut in late 1981 we did add chemistry.
And we took 2
advantage of work that the industry had already started, and 3
that was the steam generator owner's group working under the 4
auspices at EPRI to develop chemistry guidelines, And key i
people involved in that ettert from the industry in a 6
chairmanship role or similar role were Fat MacDonald ot
?
Alabama Power and Eart Weathers from Portland General B
Electric.
J 9
And over time the owner's group developed chemistry 10 guidelines that we thought were quite good and quite 11 aggressive.
So we have simply endorsed those guidelines.
And 12 ettectively, we evaluate each chemistry department against 13 those EPHI and owner's group guidelines.
14 What we*ve seen in the past three years is chlorides 3
15 chlorides being a principal chemical contaminant that leads 16 to corrosion or stress corrosion and cracking -- we've seen 17 chlorides in the key liquid systems in the plants come down by 18 more than a factor of 100 over the past three years.
In fact.
19 it's well over a factor of 100.
20 That's being controlled in the parts per billion 21 range where the measurements were in the, and the 1
22 concentrations were in the parts per million range just three 23 years ago, 24 A key area, and a key area of interest by the 25 definition of the owner's group is steam generator tube i
i
, - - ~,
11 1
preservation and steam generator tube denting and pitting 2
caused by impurities has been a principal area of concern, and j
3 it has been a principal cause of long outages and very costly 4
steam generator replacements for a few utilities.
5 Conductivity of the water in the steam generators is 6
a good measure -- perhaps the best measure of the overall
,l 7
concentration of contaminants that lead to denting and 8
corrosion or one of the best measures.
And we*ve seen 9
conductivity in pressurized water reactors come down by a 10 factor of five in the period 1982 to 1985.
s 11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Anybody understand why 10 chlorides are corrosion initiators?
13 MM. PATE:
That*s a question that*s been studied by 14 many and a tough question to answer in specific terms.
And 15 I'm certainly not an expert, Commissioner, but I think it*s 16 well accepted that chlorides contribute to corrosion in steam 17 generators and in other and all other metallic parts of the 18 system.
19 We*d be pleased to furnish additional information on 20 the that gives an understanding of chloride stress i
21 corrosion 11 you*d like.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, it it*s a one-pager I 23 might be interested in seeing that, yes.
l 24 MM. PATE.
Chemistry, we think that the work done by 25 EPHI, and the work done by the owner *s group, and the work
e 12 1
and the follow-up work done by IMFO has resulted in improved 2
component reliability, extended lifetime, and a reduction in 3
radiation exposure during maintenance.
4 There isn't any doubt that this attention to 5
chemistry has brought about, is bringing about and has brought 6
about an overall reduction in outage time for the industry.
7 This has been a briet update on evaluations with 8
some comments on just one of the functional areas.
And I kept 9
this briet to allow ample time for discussion of accreditation 10 and the National Academy.
And subject to your questions, I*11 11 turn the discussion over to Ken Strahm and ask him to talk to 12 those matters.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Could I ask you one question, 14 Zack?
With regard to your construction review activities, 15 have you come to feel that you no longer need to address any 16 of the construction issues at particular plants?
There still 17 are plants being constructed.
And you may have examined them 18 all and tell they*re all in good enough shape that you don *t 19 need any follow-on.
20 But the imp 1tcation that you -- or your statement 21 that you're stopping it as of the end of '85 caused me to ask 22 the question.
23 MR. PATE:
Yes, sir, I understand.
It*s a matter of 24 best use et our resources, Mr. Chairman.
By looking at our 25 schedule of the places we visited, and looking at those that
4 13 1
are still really in the construction phase as opposed to the 2
close-out of the documentation, the testing, the preparations
'J tor start-up, we estimated we would only make two at most 4
three *risits to plants that would be a tull-scope construction 5
evaluation in 1986.
I 6
And we also telt that we couldn't do a good job i
]
7 unless we had a full-size team.
And those projects are so a
I 9
complex it really takes 20 or more people to do that well.
So a
l 9
rather than do a piecemeal evaluation and, in ettect, claim we 10 were doing it, but not be doing it to our standards, we 11 elected to focus those resources in other areas such as outage i
8 12 planning and outage management.
i 13
[ Commissioner Asselstine entered the room.]
14 MR. PATE:
And we don't want to convey the 15 impression that INFO teels that the construction projects l
16 are all in fine shape.
p 17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I gather then you say you don't i
18 have the resources to do those two or three projects the way i
i 19 you'd like to see them done.
l 20 MR. PATE:
Let me put that a different way.
In I
21 order to do the two or three projects that are att11 that 22 would be scheduled in
- 80, that we hadn*t done in late *85 for 23 example, we would have to have a standing torce of 40 people.
24 And that would not be a good use of those resources.
2$
And the other element of that is we've been to every
14 1
place at least once and felt like we'd made the contribution i
2 most of the contribution that we could make.
So I think
}
j 3
that our principal reason for phasing out that program is we l
4 telt the return on our investment of these resources would not i
5 be that good for our member utilities.
F l
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You have been to each one of 7
these construction -- plants under construction at least once?
1
)
)
8 MR. PATE:
Yes, sir.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, thank you.
4 10 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Just one comment.
I appreciate
]
j 11 your emphasis on chemistry and I think it's very appropriate.
12 My observation has been that, in years past, that chemistry L
13 has not been emphasised like it should have been.
And I'm 14 pleased to see that there is a current emphasis on it.
I 15 I'd only say that you need to tollow through and to keep it up, because there is still room for improvement, 17 although I recognise that improvements have taken place.
L 18 There's still room for improvement in chemistry.
19 And also, I think as much as anything, to get the 20 utilities themselves to appreciate the real importance of 21 chemistry.
And as ! visited the plants I always make a point j
22 of visiting the chemistry lab, because in my first low visits
'3 I was rather disappointed.
J 24 But I give them
! usually talk to them along the l
l 25 lines so the chemists appreciate their importance in the whole
t 15 I
1 business.
And as far as I'm coneerned, the chemistry is kind 2
of like a blood test.
It really does tell you what*s going 3
inside a plant better than many other tactors.
And I believe 4
that it's appropriate.
And it*s a safety factor really, 5
because it can cause you problems of deterioration and 4
i 6
corrosion and so forth.
4 7
As far as chlorido stress corrosion is concerned, I L
i 8
think you're well aware, and your people are well aware too I
9 that chloride stress corrosion is not a new phenomenon.
It*s 10 been around for a long time.
And I'm not an expert in that 11 business either, but it seems to me that, if I recall, it*s i
12 a combination of chloride and oxygen and stress.
And it has i
13 been causing cracking and other problems in piping for some 14 time.
And it has been studied considerably.
15 But there*s no question about it, when you can 16 reduce the chloride, as you*ve indicated you're doing that j
{
17 you're going in the right direction in that program, t
le So I really commend you for your chemistry 19 emphasis.
But I do feel that it*s something that needs follow 20 through and needs continuing emphasis.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay, thank you.
Any other 22 questions.
23 MM. PATE:
We tully agree with that.
24 COMMISSIONER BEHNTHAL:
I just have to say that as j
25 an old professor of chemistry, !*m encouraged, I'm pleased, I i
16 1
couldn't agree with you more.
I've felt for a long time 2
chemistry was a central discipline, and I'm very happy to 3
hear Admiral Zech say that.
4 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Well, I believe it.
5 MR. PATE:
And we fully agree.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
This doesn't mean that the rest 7
of us don *t believe it 8
LLaughter.)
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay, any other comments?
10 LNo response.]
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, go ahead, Zack.
12 MR. PATE:
Thank you.
13 MR. STRAHM:
Gentlemen, good morning.
14 Accreditation.
Just report that solid progress is 15 being made towards improving training programs and accrediting 16 those training programs in all the utilities.
1*d like to 17 take a minute, if you'll bear with me just to review the 18 accreditation process a second so we're all talking about the 19 same thing.
20 The utility when they're upgrading their training 21 program then we have a book of criteria.
And they take those 22 criteria plus also some instructions on how to fill out a 23 self-evaluation report And they develop a self-evaluation of 24 their own training program, take a particular program.
And 25 when they find problems then they correct those problems that
.=
1
+
17 1
they have.
2 When they think that their program is about ready, 3
then they send in their self-evaluation to INFO.
We evaluate 4
that self-evaluation report to see that they did tell what 5
their problems were.
You know, they didn*t skip that over and 6
say that everything was great.
And based on the
?
self-evaluation report and our visits to the plant, which 8
would mean that the utility is ready for a team visit.
9 So then we send a team out to that plant for one to 10 two weeks depending on how many training programs we're going 11 to look at, how many of the 10 programs we're going to look 12 at.
And when we're there we write recommendations again 13 against their criteria that we find.
14 Then the utility again goes to work on those 15 recommendations and eventually writes us responses of what 16 they*ve done to correct those recommendations.
And when we 17 feel satisfied that that program is ready for accreditation we 18 submit it to the National Nuclear Accrediting Board, which 19 either awards or deters accreditation.
)
20 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Could you just give us about a
{
21 30 second dissertation on what you actually do when you're out 22 at the utilities and reviewing their training programs?
For j
23 example, do you sit in some of their training classrooms?
Do i
24 you watch them on the simulator?
Do you observe them during i
25 their one-week training period?
18 1
How do you interface with, specifically with the 2
people that are doing the training and the trainees?
3 MR.
STRAHM:
I was smiling because you were giving 4
my dissertation.
You were giving a good job of what we do.
5 Yes, sir.
6 We take the self-evaluation and study it before we 7
go.
We select peer evaluators from utilities.
We have a bank 8
right now of 413 of them, of experts we've found during our 9
evaluation processes and visits to plants, that we*ve put in a 10 bank and we pick out some key people to go in those plants.
11 A team is split up between what we would call 12 process people -- usually with an advanced degree in education 13 and content people.
So it we're looking at chemistry, then 14 we would take people that are in chemistry, either in 15 evaluations at INPO or chemistry programs at a utility.
So i
16 then you have process and content to go along with the team 17 manager.
And as I say, peer evaluators and INPO people.
18 And then they have the criteria.
And then we also 19 have all those criteria and ob}ectives backed up by many, many 20 questions that we've developed over time.
So we go in and we 21 talk to the training people.
22 But most important, to the plant people, because the 23 training really is the responsibility of line management.
So 24 we talk to the line management and the training people.
We 25 look at all their records.
We look at their job analysis and 1
l
19 1
their task analysis.
We do sit in on classes.
The simulator 2
evaluations are part of the accreditation process.
3 In several cases, when they didn't do well wnen 4
the simulator evaluation wasn't done well, we had to go back 5
and give them problems that we saw in their simulator 6
evaluation and go back at a later date to see that they've
?
corrected those problems before we would submit that program 8
to the board.
9 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Thank you, that's fine.
I 10 MR. STRAHM:
And we talk to the people in the plant 11 also.
12 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Good.
13 MR. STRAHM:
Observe on-tne-job training, et cetera.
14 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Okay.
Get your hands dirty.
15 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
16 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Good.
17 MR. STRAHM:
The self-evaluation comes in and it got 18 to the board.
And where I was at is that once their 19 accredited, then the process doesn t stop.
Because in two 20 years, for a program that*s r.ccredited they have tc submit a 21 report back to INFO and i '. ' s reviewed by INPO and the 22 accrediting board to accept their report.
And that tells any 23 changes, or major changes or things they've done to the 24 program.
And so far it's been advancements to the program.
26 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
They just give a report?
Do
20 1
you visit again?
2 MM.
STRAHM:
In two years --
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
At the end of two years?
4 MR.
STRAHM:
there*s a report.
In four years, 5
they go all the way through the accreditation process again.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Two years you give a report?
?
MR. STRAHM:
They give us a report back.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But no visit necessarily?
Then 9
four years you visit?
10 MR.
STRAHM:
Y e's.
That*s a little misleading, 11 because on every evaluation team, which is anywhere from 12 12 months to 15 months, then we have training evaluators who also 13 do accreditation visits.
A n'd they check up on the programs to 14 see that they are still in progress and they're doing what 15 they say.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But you go through the full 17 accreditation cycle after four years?
18 MR.
STRAHM:
In tour years, yes, sir.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay, thank you.
20 MR. STRAHM:
I*11 go a little more into the process 21 as we go along, but l$rst the industry commitment.
The 22 industry commitment was that they would have 610 programs --
23 and that was at 61 utilities that had fuel loaded by the end i
24 of
'84.
They would have these programs ready for I
l 25 accreditation by the end of 1986.
1
21 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Can you teil us how we're 2
doing.
3 MR.
STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
To be ready for 4
accreditation programs must be in operation sufficiently so that they can measure with their own systems on how well those 6
training programs are doing, and get feedback into the 7
program and see that the feedback is put in there.
8 Next is where we stand.
Self-evaluation reports.
9 As of 15 January we've received 330, $4 percent of the 610 10 self-evaluations.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
How many?
12 MR. STRAHM:
330.
Yes, sir, $4 percent of them.
13 Sixty-nine of those when we received them weren't adequate and 14 they took additional team visits and rework by the utility.
15 And only eight of those 69 are still outstanding as not 16 adequate, and they're not counted in the 330.
17 We're also right now, we've gotten in-house 21 19 reports that have been sent in for different programs around 19 the utility that are still in review.
So they're really 20 things are really going well.
21 The self-evaluation report covers again the training 22 organization, the staff, the staff levels, facilities that 23 they*re using, including simulators, the training system, and 24 the feedback methods, program content, program materials.
You 25 know, again as I say, the system for measuring program
22 1
effectiveness that the utility itself uses.
2 Team visits.
There have been one or more team 3
visits, accreditation team visits at 4$ different sites so 4
far.
And I say -- because at Susquehanna we've made three team visits to, and several others we've made several team 6
visits as they've gotten salient.
Because it they've got 10 7
programs accredited, so we've made several visits.
8 And 188 training programs have been reviewed by team 9
visits so far in the utility industry.
And there are, as I 10 mentioned earlier, we do have peer evaluators on every team.
11 And the advantage of-that -- and you can relate that to 12 academic accreditation -- is that they're not only helping us 13 out but they're learning.
And so we try to pick people again 14 at plants that are coming up and programs that are coming up 15 s +< that they can take the information back to the utility.
16 The NRC has had 14 people go on 10 of these visits 17 to sites, on the team visits.
Accreditation board members 18
-- our accreditation board members also to keep up to date we 19 push and are receiving at least one visit a year by each 20 member, and try for two.
And overall, there's really a lot 21 more effort put into this than team visits and accreditation, 22 because to get ready we*ve done things like, we've held 23 training system development seminars.
24 We've had 12 of them; six of them in-house and six 25 around the utility industry, have covered over 34 different
23 1
utilities.
We have seminars in job task analysis, material 2
exchange programs between utilities.
A good example is, two 3
weeks ago three people were at an assist visit.
Not a team 4
visit, this is an assist visit before they ever get their 5
self-evaluation in, at a utility and there were some problems 6
they were having in their maintenance programs.
7 And so because of their visits these same people 8
who do accreditation visits -- they were able to call other 9
utilities and have them overnight material in to that utility 10 to give them.
And they called three different utilities, had 11 all the stuff the next morning and were able to use it in 12 helping that utility get ready, get their programs ready.
13 But we've made over 50 assistance visits; we did in 14 1985.
And then along with that, 37 team visits.
And on these 15 assist visits, when it*s deemed necessary, then either Walt 16 Coakley or I go up at the end of that.
And 15 ditterent times 17 we've gone at the end of those visits in order to make sure 18 things come out right.
19 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
These are all assist visits for 20 training?
21 MR.
STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
22 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
I mean, is it for accreditation 23 training, or is it assist visits just for operational 24 performance?
25 MR.
STHAHM:
These are assist visits to upgrade i
24 1
training, to help them upgrade training perhaps.
2 COMMISSIONER 2ECH:
All right, thank you.
Eut you 3
also do assist visits, as I understand it, on a broader scale 4
than that.
5 MR. PATE:
Yes, sir.
In '86 we did 102 assist 6
visits in various other things like maintenance or radiation
?
protection.
8 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
If they're requested, for 9
example, or if you think they're necessary?
10 MR. PATE:
Virtually all of those -- in fact, 11 Commissioner, all of those were requested.
Sometimes we 12 twisted their arm to request it.
13 COMMISSIONER 2ECH:
Right.
14 MR. PATE:
And those are not included in 15 accreditation numbers.
16 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Yes, that's what I wanted to 17 make sure was clear.
Thank you.
18 MR. STRAHM:
The accrediting board.
We*ve 19 strengthened the accrediting board by adding some additional 20 highly qualified members.
And there are now 20 members on the 21 accrediting board.
If you would take them, I was going to 22 hand you out this list of 20 members with just a short bio of 23 each one of them.
I've got one for each of you, if you'd 24 like.
25 MR. PATE:
We're pretty proud of the accrediting
25 1
board and the job they're doing in support of this effort and 2
thought the Commission would be interested in seeing the 3
caliber of people that comprise this board.
4 MR.
STRAHM:
A majority of the 20 are non-utility, 5
60 percent.
And on any five-man decisionmaking board, a 6
majority of that board has to be non-utility.
7 There are tour members that have been nominated by 8
the NRC.
And our charter requires that when we have a 9
sit-down of five of them to decide on some programs that one 10 member of those has to be a member that was nominated by the 11 NRC.
I'm just going to review those nominated by the NHC.
12 On the first page, Mr.
Lincoln Clark, associate 13 director of the Nuclear Reactor Laboratory and director of 14 reactor operations at MIT.
These are people that you've 15 recommended and we appreciate because they're all good 16 people.
17 The second one there, Mr.
Frank Fogarty, associate 18 general manager, experimental programs, EGSG Idaho.
He*s 19 responsible for their non-nuclear operating facilities, waste 20 programs, reactor training, all out there at EG&G 21 Laboratories.
22 And then in the back, Dr.
Forrest Remick, who's the 23 first one you recommended, professor of nuclear engineering 24 and associate vice president for research at Penn State.
And 25 he is a member of the ACMS right now and used to be on your
26 1
staff.
And Dr. Gordon Robinson, also of Penn State.
He 2
serves as a consultant to PP&L and also to the Regulatory 3
Commission.
4 But we appreciate the four members that you've recommended.
6 There are so far right now 125 programs have been 7
accredited at 29 different plants.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
How many?
9 MR. STRAHM:
125 programs are accredited as of today 10 at 29 plants.
It we just look at the --
11 MR. PATE:
Let me interject one thought before Ken 12 talks about a key part of that.
And that's the operator 13 programs.
And that is to say that the charter of the 14 accrediting board now requires that for any decisionmaking 16 board, three of the five members be from outside the utility 16 industry.
And one of those will be the person nominated by 17 the NRC.
But the other two of those three will be someone 18 like Chuck Sener from Bell Labs or someone like Ed Carroll 19 from United Airlines.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
When you come to accreditation, 21 do you take a panel from this board?
22 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir, we take five members.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Five people.
24 MR. STRAHM:
Two from the utilities, one nominated 25 by the NRC, one from outside of the nuclear industry in a
l 27 1
technical training area, und one from academia.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Ken, you mentioned 129 3
programs that now have been accredited?
4 MR. STRAHM:
125.
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
125, okay.
Does every 6
utility, every plant now have at least one program accredited?
?
MR.
STRAHM:
29 plants have programs accredited.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay, 29 out of the 61?
9 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So half have not made it 11 through the process yet on one program?
12 MR. STRAHM:
Of getting accredited, yes, sir.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
Does that give you 14 any cause for concern since the deadline is-the end of this 15 year?
16 MR. STRAHM:
The deadline is that they will have the 17 programs ready for accreditation by the end of this year, and 18 I'll go into that a little more here as we go along, too.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
It does seem to me though 20 that there's a value in getting one program through the 21 process so that you understand what*s expected of you and what 22 needs to be done, not only in the self-evaluation, but also to 23 satisfy the whole process.
I'd be a little concerned about 24 those utilities that don't have a single program yet that's 25 made it all the through the process.
a 28 1
MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir, we push that also.
We agree 2
that if you can get some through the program you understand it 3
better.
And we feel better about that utility.
4 I was just going to go in -- sort of answering that 5
question -- if you look at just the operator programs, three 6
at each plant, the non-licensed, the control board operator, 7
and the SRO and shift supervisor, those three programs then --
8 and this is a good indicator of process -- 80 percent of the 9
plants have turned in self-evaluations; satisfactory 10 self-evaluations on this program.
So at least 80 percent have 11 satisfactory self-evaluations and are getting ready for team 12 visits.
13 60 percent of the plants have had operator programs 14 with team visits, which is the next step.
And 40 -- over 40 15 percent have programs that are accredited in just the operator 16 areas.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How many utilities have 18 all their programs accredited now?
19 MR.
STRAHM:
Two.
Pennsylvania --
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Susquehanna and --
21 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, Susquehanna and Salem.
22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's good.
It might not 23 hurt to drop a note to those 32 that don't have one program 24 accredited yet and point out how well PP&L and PSEG have done 25 in getting all their programs through the process at this
29 1
point.
2 MR. STRAHM:
We have.
And for example, at PP&L has 3
received since July of
'84 350 requests for information and 4
visits.
And has resulted in over 109 mailings to other 5
utilities.
And they sent us all this information of who 6
contacted and what they did, and that's just one utility, 7
because we*ve also been sending them over to Oconee and up to 8
Salem and different plants, depending on what programs they 9
had accredited.
Just one utility has had that much 10 interaction.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
12 MR. STRAHM:
So people realize that Susquehanna is 13 accredited.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
It looks like the efforts 15 by those two utilities in particular really are commendable.
16 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
They got everything 18 through.
19 MR. STRAHM:
They really are.
All of the utilities 20 are striving towards accreditation.
There aren't any 21 outliers, to use your word from a year or so ago, because all 22 of them are working towards upgrading their training programs 23 and seeking accreditation.
24 And we expect that we'll make the commitment.
25 However, some people, as you've pointed out, have more to do
30 1
between now and the end of the year than others do.
And there 2
has been a lot of sharing of information.
3 We've received a two-year -- I talked about earlier 4
-- biannual report from Oconee, because they were accredited 5
two years ago last summer.
And that's been reviewed by INT 3 6
and the accrediting board.
And it was interesting, it showed 7
that they didn't stop.
They've continued to improve their 8
training programs a lot since the --
9 And one big thing they've done is they didn't have a 10 simulator.
They were using the McGuire simulator and 11 contractors.
And they now have their own simulator since they 12 were accredited.
So things don't stop when they're 13 accredited.
They'll just keep right on getting better.
14 Training and accreditation is a dynamic process and 15 it will, as I mentioned earlier, will call on the utilities 16 and us to work out methods.
It's not enough just to get 17 accredited.
They've got to keep their programs up and 18 continue to get better as they go along.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How do new plants get 20 factored into this process?
You mentioned you basically 21 started with the 61 that had OLs.
22 MR.
STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
And when you're fuel-loaded, 23 then you have to give us a schedule which means you'll have 24 all your self-evaluations in, satisfactory self-evaluations, 25 within two years after tuel load.
I 31 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
2 MR.
STRAHM:
And they*re factored right in the 3
process.
And some of them are accredited.
Not in operator 4
programs, you know, before you get on-line.
But you can 5
accredit your maintenance and things befort you get on-line, 6
and some of them are accredited.
?
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay, how many of the --
8 is it 30 plants then that have come in?
Or these are 9
stations, I guess, right?
10 MR. STRAHM:
I*ve got that data.
Because the plants 11 that are --
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
The new ones beyond the 13 61.
14 MR. STRAHM:
That*s what I was looking here, to see 15 what the plants -- the plants, Oconee, Arkansas, Sequoyah, 16 Robinson, Calvert Clitis, Summer, Farley, TMI-1, Salem, 17 Dresden, Peach Bottom, Brunswick, Susquehanna, Browns Ferry, 18 Watts Bar, they have I&C programs.
McGuire, Zion, Quad 19 Cities, Calloway, North Anna, LaSalle, Salem and Surry.
Fermi 20 and Shearon Harris are the new plants that have programs.
And 21 one program at Watts Bar, the I&C program.
22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
23 MR.
PATE:
We are acutely aware of the pending 24 December *36 commitment to have all of these programs ready.
25 And we fully understand that you have an interest in that and
a 32 1
a right to know how that stands because you've endorsed the 2
accreditation program.
3 It's our plan to release a statement in April 4
1% sting all of the plecc2 that are accredited, but also 5
listing any stations that we think will have great difficulty 6
meeting that December '86 commitment.
And we have notified 7
our members of the plans to do that in a letter just sent out 8
a few days ago.
And we will notify an individual utility in 9
advance it we expect them to be on that list.
And we'll also 10 notify the NHC in advance of releasing that statement.
11 We'll release a statement to all our member 12 utilities, to the NRC, and to other publics that have a right 13 to know that for the National Academy for Nuclear Training.
14 At this point in time we can't say that a given 15 station can't make the December deadline, because every one is 16 working on it, every one has made progress.
Eut we're 17 confident that by April and we did put a caveat April or 18 late May -- but we're quite confident that by April we'll have 19 a good sense of whether station A and station B and station X 20 are far enough along to meet that December '86 commitment.
21 And it we think that they won't or unlikely to be 22 able to meet it, or even 11 it looks like it will just simply 23 take heroic effort to meet it, then we'll raise a caution on 24 that plant by putting that information in an appropriate 25 public statement.
8 a
33 1
Our objective is to have everyone meet that 2
deadline, and even in April we won't give up on that.
We're 3
optimistic that everyone can meet it, but some stations will 4
require quite a bit 91 progress in '86 to make it.
And we are 5
quite aware of that and are pushing in that direction.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
What 11 they don't make it?
?
Have you thought through -- what 11 they don't make the 8
deadline?
Have you thought through what options?
9 MR. PATE:
We think that it we end up with someone 10 who doesn't make it, my perception now is they'll just barely 11 miss it.
And so, our objective would'be to get those programs 12 ready as soon as we could.
But there's no dou.t that that 13 utility is going to suiter considerable public embarrassment 14 throughout the industry for not h2Ving made that deadline.
15 If the utility is honestly working on it and is 90 16 percent complete, we don't envision any punitive measures by 17 INFO, nor do we think that would be appropriate.
It somebody i
18 gives up now and just stops working on it, then by definition 19 we'll end up suspending that utility from our membership, 20 because meeting that commitment is part of their obligation of 21 INFO membership.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I was thinking more 23 motivational actions rather than purely punitive, unless it 24 gets so bad that you have to take some action.
25 MR. PATE:
Yes, sir.
At the moment we don't see
34 1
anyone falling short on motivation.
But there are several 2
that are falling short on progress and we are working 3
diligently on those.
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Zack, we talked last year 5
about the potential for a utility coming in witn 10 6
self-evaluations the last quarter of 1986.
And you indicated 7
last year that that was a concern to you all and that you were 8
working on avoiding that kind of a problem.
How are you doing 9
on that?
Do you think anybody's going to fall in that 10 category?
11 MR. PATE:
Last year at this time, and as a part of 12 this discussion a year ago, we had a large number of utilities 13 that had their self-evaluation report due in in the tourth 14 quarter of 1986, becsuse many of them took as long -- made a 15 commitment that was as far out in time as they could.
16 And through a letter to each CEO and a phone call to 17 each CEO by me, in every case but a few -- and in those cases 18 by Ken -- we got about 100 programs shifted from the fourth 19 quarter to the third.
100 of the 610.
And then are still a 20 tow that are kind of on the trailing edge and we are working 21 on those.
22 A recent objective that we're talking about is to 23 have all of those programs in by the time et our next CEO 24 conference.
It comes up in November Se there's time for 25 interaction between then and the end of the year, it we get i
i l
35 1
one that doesn't look like it measures up.
So we're pushing 2
very hard, and have since the meeting a year ago, to get all 3
the programs pushed back in time.
4 And also as you indicated earlier in your question 5
to Ken, to get each utility to get -- usually instead of one 6
it*s three, because the operator programs go tcgether or the 7
maintenance programs go together -- to try to get at least 8
some of their programs done well in advance so they understand 9
the process and the pitfalls.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So nobody should really 11 miss the boat in terms of ccming in with things really late in 12 the year that miss the mark in terms of what the board is 13 looking for and what you all are looking for?
14 MR. PATE:
That's our objective.
And we are about 15
-- we are well over 90 percent successful in getting everybody 16 pushed e a r l i e r 'i n the year.
And there are some we're still 17 working on.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good.
That's good.
19 MR. STRAHM:
Of the 40 people that continued to 20 select the last quarter of
'86 for a schedule date, six of 21 those programs are already in.
So even though they scheduled 22 them, six of them have turned in satisfactory 23 self-evaluations.
And so even though they committed, they 24 were a year ahead in getting them in.
So it we get the -- do 25 the same with the other 34 --
36 1
MR. PATE:
So as it. stands right now, there are 34 2
out of the 610 that are due in the last quarter.
All the 3
others are due earlier.
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Very good.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You know, one of the things 6
that we all understood at the outset when INPO was formed 7
that, in order to make your organization work you had to 8
maintain some confidentiality about individual performance '
9 records.
But I'm wondering whether it would be possible 10 and this particular case is an example -- I don *t know whether 11 you have in mind the kind of information T*m thinking of But 12 I wonder if it would be possible here and elsewhere for you to 13 provide us from time to time with a grade distribution curve, 14 if you will, that tellt us how you see the spectrum of performance throughout the industry.
16 And for example here, it I asked you sitting here 17 today, on a scale of one to ten to rate the distribution of 18 training and accreditation performance capabilities, whatever, 19 how many programs are eights, how many are twos?
Where are we 20 in this business as you see it?
21 To me that would be very helpful to know whether 22 we've got a wide variation in performance in the judgment of 1
23 INFO.
Whether people are clustering toward pretty good 24 performance, or what*s happening out there.
25 MR. PATE:
The accreditation program is set up, to 1j
37 1
the best of our ability, so that when a program is accredited 2
it reaches a good, high standard of performance in training.
3 And we simply don't recommend it to the accrediting board 4
until we feel that that program is up to that good, high 5
standard.
6 And the accrediting board really takes -- goe; 7
through a rigorous line of questioning with the vice 8
president, nuclear, the plant manager and the training manager 9
to assure itself that the program being proposed for 10 accreditation is a good program.
And I think, as we all 11 know, just as recently as a couple of years ago, or even a 12 year ago, many utilities simply didn't have a formal training 13 program for maintenance technicians.
Or for that matter, for 14 chemistry technicians, 15 So what we've seen is a change from strictly 16 on-the-job training, where the techniques and the chemical, 17 analytical methodology was passed on from gent who'd been 18 there for a few years to the new guy and he learned strictly 19 on the job.
What we've seen is a tremendous change.
20 Basically the installation of a formal training program that's 21 aimed at getting that guy ready for his job.
That includes 22 the on-the-job, but that"s an integral part of the whole 23 training program.
24 So I don't think that we could, in any way, rate the 25 programs that are accredited.
At this point in time we'd rate
i i
38 1
them all pretty highly.
And if they're not accredited --
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
The ones that are 3
accredited.
4 MR. FATE:
-- we'd rate them all pretty low by 5
definition.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, now I guess I
?
understand how the accreditation process works, and it you're 8
a university you either make it or you don't make it.
And the 9
accrediting agency doesn't try to give you an A, B,
C, D or 10 whatever it might be.
11 But in some of the other things you're doing, it may 12 be more appropriate -- and I'm still curious though won't 13 let you off the hook quite yet.
Let's say before you started 14 this process in your initial look at -- call it two years ago, 15 it you will -- I gather from what you've already said about 16 the non-existence of certain formal training programs though 17 that ycu were already -- or at that point there was a wide 18 variation and distribution in competence and capability in 19 training people in various areas in the plants.
20 Is that a fair statement?
Your people probably know 21 this as well as anyone.
22 MR. PATE:
Commissioner, I think that the statement 23 that there was a wide variation in the training programs is I
24 certainly true.
The thing that we did see is that there were 25 quite a number of stations that had on-the-job training
39 2
1 programs that had* developed over the years, and the people had 2
been there since the station was constructed, and they knew 3
the station, and they knew the methodologies, and they knew 4
the procedures.
So the station was running pretty well, 5
But what we also know from experience is when those 6
experienced people leave -- and every station goes through 7
that period when the guys that were there that built it and 8
implemented the procedures, in many cases wrote the procedures 9
-- when those gents retire you lose a lot of that early 10 talent.
And that's when the training, the formal training is 11 so necessary.
12 So the station performance that we saw in the early 13 days of INPO didn't always correlate with the degree of formal 14 training because of the nature of that situation.
For 15 example, we're all aware of plants that have a cadre of people 16 who have been there for 10 or 15 years and who operate quite 17 well, but that didn't have all that formal training.
18 In a way, the timing of this accreditation business 19 is good because it comes along at a time before most of those 20 older stations begin to lose to retirement a lot of the 21 old-timers that wrote the procedures and that know the station 22 quite well So it would be very hard for us to corretate 23 station performance to the degree of formal training that 24 existed.
25 I think we saw, just subjectively we saw good
40 1
correlation between what we perceive as the quality of 2
training -- the combination of the on-the-job training and the 3
formal training and the license training that*s been in place 4
at every place for many years -- the overall training taken 5
together with the experience of the people and station 6
performance.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
Well, I appreciate 6
what we're trying to do here, in a sense, is and I hope
~
9 we're succeeding is a standardization, not in power plant 10 design but in training, the credentials that power plant i
11 operators have.
12 We talk a lot about standardization in other 13 contexts.
I guess that's really what we're trying to do 14 here.
So one hopes one doesn't see a lot of variation, I 15 suppose, as time goes on.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But at least it will be above a 17 certain threshold.
18 MR, PATE:
Yes, sir, we're striving very hard for 19 that.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
At least in the operator 21 area, through the requalification program, we have a check to 22 ensure that there's that kind of consistency of performance i
23 throughout the industry.
And to the extent that we find 24 plants where, when we give a requalitication exam, there are 25 very high failure rates, that's indicative. I think, that
41 1
maybe the program isn't working as it was intended to.
3 MR. PATE:
If you're ready for me to go on, sir?
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Ready to proceed?
Yes.
4 MR. PATE:
Let me ask Ken Strahm to talk in a little more detail about the National Academy before we go on with 6
Nuclear Plant Reliability Data System.
1
?
MR. STRAHM:
The National Academy.
The National 8
Academy for Nuclear Training was established September 18th, 9
1985.
10 Purpose.
The academy otters the utility industry an 11 opportunity to strengthen the progress that's being made in 12 improving training programs.
It*s a unifying torce for 13 recognition of industry and individual accomplishments -- and 14 it's much needed through appropriate recognition of the 15 utilities, the plants, and the graduates of these programs.
4 16 The utilities and the plants through properl;r and 17 prominently displayed brass plaques indicating they are a 18 member and they are a branch of the academy and I'll go on 19 to that in a second.
And through certificates issued by the 20 academy for the graduates of accredited training programs 21 A quality training program coupled with this 22 recognition that the academy attords can be used by each 23 utility to enhance the professionalism and pride of its 24 station personnel.
That*s really important.
That's something 25 we*ve been looking on how to do for five years, it really is.
s
f 40 1
Structure.
The National Academy for Nuclear 2
Training operates under the auspices of the president of the 3
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.
And it integrates the 4
training related activities of the utilities et all the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations training and education 6
activities and of the activities of the National Nuclear
?
Accrediting Board.
8 The National Nuclear Accrediting Board is an 9
independent decisionmaking bod-And it also operates under 10 the auspices of the president of INFO.
However, its 11 activities are an integral part of the operation of the 12 academy.
13 This month the accrediting board met. in Atlanta for 14 its semi-annual meeting of the full board.
We had 19 of the 15 20 people were there.
And they discussed the progress of the l
16 academy, and of course, what's happening in the accreditation 17 process to sort of share ideas on what they see 18 COMMISSIONER EERNTHAL:
I guess I'm a little 19 ountused.
Maybe you can -- maybe you'll explain as you go 23 along.
Are you suggesting that the academy is a paper 21 organization?
In other words, 11 you complied with the INFO l
22 accreditation program and you've put into place in your own 23 utility your own utility training program, then you're a 24 member of the academy?
l 35 In other words, there is no central you're not
)
43 1
planning on a central educational facility whatsoever that 2
would be identified with this academy ettort?
I'm guess I'm a 3
little confused.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I had the same problem; was 5
about to ask a similar question.
6 MM. PATE:
Let me ask Ken to finish the discussion 7
of that and come back and address that question, it that's all 8
right.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
10 MR.
STRAHM:
Just as a review -- this is going down 11 what you've already said -- is that all nuclear utilities 12 right now are provisional members of the academy.
And each 13 member, provisional member has appointed a senior line vice 14 president or nuclear manager as their representative to the 15 academy.
And to become a full member, a member must -- a 16 utility must have all its program accredited at their sites.
17 And there are presently, as we mentioned earlier, 18 two full members of the academy.
And that's Pennsylvania 19 Power & Light Company and the Public Service Gas & Electric 20 Company.
21 C.OMMISSIONEN BERNTHAL:
I see, so I'm sorry to 22 interrupt again.
But it sounds like academy is being used in 23 a different sense than -- I don't want to put words in his 24 mouth -- but I suspect a different sense than Senator Moynihan 25 had in mind when he suggested the establishment of an
44 1
academy.
2 It sounds like you're using it more in the sense of 3
the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of 4
Engineering.
And yet not quite that, because those are 5
individuals.
You're talking about an academy of organizations 6
in that sense, which is an interesting concept, but I think 7
not what Moynihan was talking about.
8 I would have thought that he meant some sort of 9
centralized -- not necessarily bricks and mortar but 10 centralized mechanism for instruction and education.
That*s 11 not where you're headed, the way it sounds to me.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
It sounds like you have branch 13 campuses throughout the nation.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
At every plant.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
And every utility that has a 16 program and is accredited, then they're a full member.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I think it really is an 18 academy in the sense that the National Academy is, except that 19 its membership is not made up of individuals that are elected, 20 it's made up of utilities that are elected.
That's what this 21 boils down to, I think.
22 MR. STRAHM:
If I can go a little further into some 23 of the things we're doing then I agree with what you said, 24 but let me it I could go a little further.
Just give me 25 about two more minutes, then we can answer this question.
^
45 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
As you do that though, 2
Ken, could you highlight what is different about the academy 3
that was not part of, or contemplated to be part of the 4
accreditation process that was in place before the academy was established?
6 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
I'll do that at the end.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
8 MR. STRAHM:
So anyway, all the full members or 9
provisional members have a representative, senior line 10 manager, that is a representative of the academy.
Nine to 12 11 utility representatives selected from either the members or 12 provisional members are appointed to a council And the 13 council meets with the executive of the academy to 14 periodically -- and provides advice on all matters pertaining 15 to operation of the academy.
16 The council met in late October and will meet again 17 in early March.
It was a very lively and productive meeting.
18 It really was.
19 All plants that have any programs accredited --
20 plants that have any programs accredited are branches.
Oconee 21 is a branch.
Salem is a branch.
Public Service Gas &
22 Electric is a member.
And the reason that they are a branch 23 is so they can then issue certificates to graduates of 24 accredited branches.
So once you get operator programs 25 accredited, then you're a branch so you can issue
46 1
certificates.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINC:
You say each plant is a 3
branch?
Or each site?
4 MR.
STRAHM:
Each -- that's a good point that we're 5
kicking around ourselves.
It only affects about three sites, 6
but we'll say it's a plant that's a branch.
7 MR. PATE:
A site makes it -- okay.
8 MR. STRAHM:
Until you get to Millstone 3 and a few 9
other places with an extra --
10 MR. PATE:
In most cases the site is the branch.
11 MR.
STRAHM:
Most cases, the~ site is the branch.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I mean, it's more like --
13 I'm not sure there is an exact academic analog -- an 14 association of accredited universities or something like that 15 who -- at least this is the way I'm reading it who band 16 together and speak to the issues and the standards that they 17 have in common, and the programs that they have or should have 18 in common.
At least that's the way I'm reading this.
19 MR.
STRAHM:
There are presently 29 branches of the 20 academy because there are 29 sites that have programs
~
21 academy.
And right now --
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I thought you had to have all 23 your programs accredited to be a full member?
24 MR.
STRAHM:
Yes, sir, the utility does.
So
'25 Commonwealth Edison has a big job --
1
47 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Can you be a branch even though 2
you only have one program?
3 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
And you can only issue 4
certificates for that program that's accredited.
5 MR. PATE:
A program that's accredited -- for 6
example, there isn't any place that just has one.
But let's 7
say that a place has their operator programs accredited.
They l
l 8
need to be able to issue a certificate and to recognize those 9
graduates because that program is accredited.
So they become 10 a branch.
I 11 But that utility does not become a member until all 12 programs are accredited.
l l
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But they could have given l
14 certificates before that said you graduated from an accredited i
l l
15 program?
16 MR. PATE:
That's correct.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLAD7MD-IN?O-accredited program.
18 MR. PATE:
Thy.*.
crect 19 MR.
STRAHM:
And we issue those certificates.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You do.
21 MR.
STRAHM:
Yes, sir, the academy 2-22 Right now some of the activities we're --
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Now that you've formed the 24 academy, they would issue it.
25 MR. STRAHM:
Yes, sir.
48 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
'But I'm waiting for the answer 2
to Jim's question.
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I thought the answer was 4
going to be the bronze plaque and the certificates, but it 5
sounds like the certificates are out.
6 MR.
STRAHM:
Hight now we're busy soliciting ideas 7
from members and council members from the utilities.
The B
charter has been finalized.
The list of representatives from 9
all the utilities is finalized.
And the council has been 10 formed, and as I pointed out, has already met once, and the 11 next meeting is scheduled.
12 We've ordered the brass plaques for the two members 13 and for the 29 branches.
And we've ordere,d the certificates.
14 And we've also requested from the utilities to tell us the 15 people that have graduated from programs that are accredited, 16 because you've got to graduate from programs that are 17 accredited.
But Oconee has been accredited for two years, so 18 we've got some catching up to do.
And we have to get those 19 out.
20 And the whole idea here is we're trying to foster 21 awareness, acceptance and support of the academy.
But really 22 it's the support of the upgrade in training in the industry.
23 To take some credit for this, we the public, you know, around 24 your plant and other places -- and along that line our 25 communications division developed with their communications
49 1
council has developed a communications plan which we've sent 2
to the utilities, how to communicate it within your utility 3
and how to communicate it within your surrounding area.
4 And the whole idea, again, as I went back to the one 5
thing I talked about at the beginning, trying to put together 6
at a plant -- if I had a plant, I would put together this 7
recognition of graduates within my plant and within my 8
neighborhood, and the fact that tha programs are better and 9
they do a good job.
To try to increase and enhance that 10 professionalism of those people.
And that's really important.
11 Now we get down to the reason for the academy.
12 That's the real reason for the academy.
All the things you 13 said are true, but it's not just to have an association.
It*s 14 to use the association.
To be able to get --
15 We met five years ago.
In fact, it was the first 16 time I came to INPO and I was put on, by Zack, on a committee 17 of training people.
Bill Kimel was there from Kemeny 18 Commission and Forrest Remick was there, and there were about 19 18 people.
And the one problem they couldn't solve was how to 20 enhance their professionalism and pride of the people at the 21 utilities.
22 And with Porrest working for you, I'm sure, 23 periodically he talked to you about professionalism.
He spoke 24 at our CEO workshop -- training manager -- plant manager's 25 workshop on professionalism.
I mean, that's something that
50 1
we've been trying to solve for five years.
And through the 2
academy we now have a method to solve that problem.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Does the academy have a 4
separate board?
Is it organized so it is an independent 5
organization that can do some of the things that the charter 6
calls for?
?
MR. PATE:
Let me try and answer that question and 8
the earlier ones by going back and talking through how we made 9
the decision to proceed with this.
10 We go back to the Kemeny Commission; the Kemeny 11 Commission recommended accreditation of training programs 12 throughout the industry.
And the committee that the President 13 appointed to oversee the initial implementation of those 14 commissions, the INSOC Committee that was normally or 15 trequently called the Babbitt Committee, headed by Governor 16 Babbitt of Arizona, reviewed those commissions and reviewed 17 early industry progress and recommended against a central 18 training facility in recognition of the INPO training program.
19 Early on Dennis Wilkinson formed an ad hoc committee 20 that Ken was talking about to review whether the best approach 21 to accreditation was regional training centers, some kind of 22 national training center, or local training.
Even on top of 23 that, the Congress passed a law requiring DOE to study the 24 need for a national academy in 1981 and required them to 25 report within 12 months.
a
$1 1
'And DOE reported at the end of
'82 that the approach 2
that INPO was taking was a better approach than a national 3
academy located in some central location.
And in every case, 4
the reasons that people came to that conclusion is the same reason that we've all faced many times, and that's a lack of 6
standardization of these plants.
Every plant is different.
7 So the control room is different.
The files that people have i
8 to maintain are different.
And the electronic equipment they 9
maintain is different, 10 So you can't bring them t o r; e t h e r and study one plant 11 that's really representative of all like'the Navy did.
The 12 Navy had submarines and they all -- for the most part -- had 13 the same plan.
So a guy could study that plan and then he was 14 familiar with the ship he went to, in general.
That was not 15 universally true in the Navy.
16 But in the U.S.
utility industry that's not at all 17 true.
If I guy came and studied a central plant, he wouldn't 18 be familiar with any in the industry.
19 So all of those groups recommended that the utility 20 training be local so that it could be site-specific.
As a 21 consequence of that decision, and examination by the ACES and 22 the NRC and INFO and others, every place built their own 23 site-specific simulator.
There will soon be 70 in operation.
24 And every place built, 11 they didn't already have it, a
25 training center that has their site-specific equipment.
52 1
And of course, the other merit of that approach is a 2
guy can return to that simulator and return to that 3
site-specific training center for his requalification training 4
every six months or every year or whatever the requalification 5
cycle is.
And they all do that.
And they're training on the 6
specific equipment that's in their plant.
?
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That's all true, Zack, 11 8
you'll excuse me.
But there also are a lot of things in the 9
literature that you developed, and I -- and some of that in 10 some detail early on when you issued it, and I think it was 11 very good.
I have to applaud the rigor in the programs that 12 you set out.
But chemistry is chemistry, and it doesn't 13 matter what plant you're in.
14 And I guess one of my questions would be -- and it's 15 not clear to me either that a central, especially national 16 facility is the best way to go.
But to the extent that you 17 have teachers, for example -- and I don't even know the answer 18 to this question.
How many teachers are there or individuals 19 that are part-time teachers at each of your academy members, 20 if I can use that term, to the extent that you have teachers 21 at each facility teaching certain subjects?
22 One wonders then whether a centralized effort to i
23 teach the teachers and make sure that they understand what the i
l 24 standards are and what's expected may not go far to 25 eliminating the very kind of non-uniformity that we experience
53 1
in hardware that you allude to.
And you don't want to sort of 2
make the same mistakes -- it wasn't a mistake, it just 3
happened that way -- that this country made, in fact, in 4
non-uniformity in education, because every state developed its 5
own system.
6 That has an advantage because you get creative new 7
ideas.
The disadvantage is that some of them end'up not doing 8
so well.
And I'm just wondering, particularly, about the 9
teachers.
Whether there is some thought at centralized 10 effort to train and enlighten, cross-fertilize the teachers so 11 there's uniformity there.
12 MR. PATE:
I*d be pleased to comment on that.
We do 13 set the criteria and furnish the guidelines.
For example, we 14 have a guideline on instructor training.
To date we've not 15 tried to centralize the teaching of those instructors, but we 16 certainly are setting the standards.
17 We're after uniform training throughout the 18 industry.
Uniformly high standard training, but recognizing 19 that it has to be on plant-specific equipment.
And you're 20 absolutely right, that teaching can be uniform even 11 the 21 subject matter is different.
22 As a result of all of those studies, we proceeded 23 tull speed with the implementation to oversee site-specific 24 training in utilities.
And we've covered this in the past.
25 Spent millions to build training centers, and many of you have
54 1
seen many of them.
And Ken and Walt have seen just about 2
every one.
And put those simulators in place at the local 3
center.
4 And this was all in progress a n.d in motion before 5
Senator Moynihan's proposal Senator Moynihan's proposal 6
served as a catalyst.
I think we would have come to this 7
conclusion anyway.
And I think we would have called it the B
same thing, because a definition of academy allows the broad 9
interpretation, just as the National Academy of Engineering 10 allows or captures a broad interpretation.
11 But the central facility is INPO.
And that's under 12 the managanent of the executive director of thq National 13 Academy.
And he works with the accred,iting board, which we've 14 given you the bios on.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Is the academy -- that's what I 16 was asking.
Is the academy of part of INFO?
17 MR. PATE:
Yes, sir, absolutely.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I see.
It is not an 19 independent organization that's going to take over the general 20 approach to excellence in the training programs.
21 MR. PATE:
It's totally integrated with INFO.
And 22 Pat Beard was unable to be here because he's sick today.
Pat 23 runs our evaluation program.
But an integral part of the 24 whole process is for the evaluation teams, run by Pat Beard, 25 to check on the quality of training, training programs, and
1 accreditation of training programs being managed by Ken Strahm 2
and Walt Coakley.
3 Now the independent feature is the accrediting 4
board, those 20 gents that we gave you in the list of 5
biographical sketches.
Those gents meet to look at the final 6
product.
Is it accreditable?
And that is totally
?
independent.
8 And a feature of the National Academy that didn't 9
exist before is the incorporation in the charter of the 10 accrediting board, the requirement that more than -- that a 11 majority be from outside the utility industry to give it that 12 independence.
And a requirement for that federal presence, 13 the person nominated by the government, by the NRC on each 14 decisionmaking board.
So we think we've set up a truly 15 independent decisionmaking process to serve that check and 16 balance on Ken and his organization, and on me as the 17 president of INFO.
18 But the academy is managed from Atlanta totally, 19 except of course, the training programs at a given branch, and 20 later at a given member of the National Academy, will be 21 managed in that training center and managed in that particular 22 station by the utility management-.
But there's no doubt as to 23 where the standards are set for that training.
And there*s 24 not doubt as to where the check and balance is.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
The accreditation program is
56 1
going to bring about the improvement of the training program?
2 I'm not quite sure what the academy adds except you can now 3
say, instead of INFO giving the certificate, this academy 4
which is a part of INFO is giving the certificate.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I think though that the 6
description that Zack and Ken gave, that's a legitimate 7
explanation.
That this is a way to provide an umbrella for i
8 the accreditation program.
Build recognition and 9
understanding of what the industry has been working on.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But the accreditation program 11 isn't under the academy.
12 MR. PATE:
Oh, yes, sir, 13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I think it is.
I think 14 the academy is the accreditation program.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, that's what I --
16 MR.
STRAMM:
The board's decision is independent.
17 They're in independent decisionmaking body.
And to be a 18 member you've got to get your programs accredited.
But once 19 they're accredited, you*re under the academy.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
I think they're basically 21 one and the same thing.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
That*s what I was t
23 MR. PATE:
Sure.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
They're basically one and the 25 same.
i
67 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
But the idea of building of 2
pride and a sense of ecmmon purpose and calling it an academy 3
is the same that you have in the National Academy of i
4 Engineering, for example.
And I agree with Jim, that's an b
entirely legitimate name and a legitimate objective.
6 I think one of the better ways maybe to get at this 7
question of what is the academy is to ask, what do they do B
when they meet?
What do they talk about and what actions do 4
9 they take as a consequence of the meeting?
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
That's what I was trying to get 11 at.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Maybe that would help us 13 understand what this entity is and is going to do.
14 LCommissioner Asselstine left the room.3 15 MR. PATE:
Of course, the academy includes the 16 accreditation process.
It includes the training support 17 that's necessary to get ready for accreditation and sustain 18 it.
And that is a massive job and task analysis database 19 that's kind of the backbone of this whole thing.
It's a 20 multi-million dollar ettort that's been in progress for live 21 years and is now used extensively by the industry.
22 So it includes the accreditation program managed by I
23 Walt Training support managed by Bill Wiggly who's not 5
24 here.
The National Nuclear Accrediting Board that's 25 independent.
And it includes those training centers
58 1
throughout the country.
So there's really four elements.
2 And that*s managed by Ken as executive director.
As 3
I said earlier, it's also managed by the utility executive 4
who's responsible for training in that utility for his part of 5
it.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What do they do when they 7
meet?
8 MR. STRAHM:
How to do things better.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You said you had a meeting.
10 MR. STRAHM:
Right.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What did they talk about?
12 And what's going to happen as a consequence of the meeting?
13 MR. STRAHM:
That was their first meeting.
And the 14 first meeting basically was, now we have one, what do we do 15 with it?
And a lot of the ideas we're now putting together 16 came out of that meeting.
17 The idea of, hey, we need recognition and the plaque 18 goes in the plant with a copy in the training center.
It it's 19 a member it goes in the corporate headquarters.
We've got to 20 give certificates.
Who do we give certificates to?
How do we 21 publicize it?
How do we use this publicity properly?
22 COMMISSIONEH BEENTHAL:
When are you going to meet 23 again?
24 MR. STRAMM:
The 11th of March.
It's been scheduled r
L5 since the last meeting.
It's right around the lith of March, i
l 59 1
plus or minus a day or two.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What's the agenda for that 3
meeting?
Do you have any idea?
4 MR. STRAHM:
How to do things better.
And it really 5
and how to do things better means, we've seen these 6
problems at these plants, how do we solve that?
In other 7
words, what do we need to change?
What do we'need to add to?
8 And diagnostics, team training, all of these.
These are the 9
kind of things that will come out of that council 10 And on the council are vice president, nuclear, 11 plant managers and training managers as a mix.
And that's the 12 whole idea is, we're in charge, how do we do it better.
13 Two things I didn't mention and you asked I need 14 to answer --
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
However, I would be interested 16 11 the academy is going to look at the broader questions of 17 the qualifications of faculty.
I think that would be a 18 valuable service.
19 MR. STRAHM:
One of the things that came up was, do 20 we issue certificates to the instructors?
Ditterent kind of 21 certificates, that they are an instructor.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Hight.
23 MR. STRAHM:
Because they want to be part of the 24 academy.
Do we give them a uniform so that you know that that 25 guy in the control room is a graduate?
Do you give them, you
60 1
know, plaques, patches, all kinds of things?
2 One thing I would like to get in is that we are 3
already in the planning process of having a twice yearly 4
journal to share ideas.
You said, how do you share ideas?
We 5
have a training manager's workshop every year.
We*re going to 6
put out a twice yearly journal in training, and an 7
every-other-month newsletter getting ideas out to -- you know, 8
good ideas from the industry back out to the people.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Good idea.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, any more?
11 MR. STRAHM:
We'll tell you how we're coming at the 12 next meeting.
13 COMMISSIONEH BERNTHAL:
,Might make it quarterly 14 even.
15 MR. STRAHM.
Yes, sir.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Heady to proceed?
17 MR. STRAHM:
I was just going to hand these out.
18 COMMISSIONEW ZECH:
I have a comment; a brief i
19 comment.
First of all, I think the problem we have, trankly, 2
20 is your use of the term academy.
I think most of us had a 21 different idea when we first heard about this from Senator 22 Moynihan.
23 My thought on that was to support that as a 24 concept.
But frankly, I did have reservations about how it 25 would be executed because of the different custom-built
61 1
plants, and wide variation of training that's necessary.
But 2
what I think you've done trankly, is come up with a rather 3
innovative way to handle upgraded training.
That's what we're 4
talking about.
5 But you see, an academy to me means more uniform, 6
more standardized training.
That's what you're doing, I 7
think, with standards that are high.
Formalized to the degree B
that you can, and also supervised.
And those are things, I 9
think, that it seems to me that you're working on and you're 10 estabitshing.
Increased professionalism, absolutely mandatory 11 for anything that you're going to call an academy.
12 So I think what you're going to hopefully come up 13 with is results that will show that although you don't have an 14 institution surrounded by trees and grass and buildings, that 15 you do, in a sense at least, in a broader sense of the term 16 academy and perhaps you might have used the word 17 institution rather than academy.
18 But in any case, what you've really done, I think, 19 is try to come up with an innovative way to upgrade training, 20 formalise it, supervise it, and that's what it's all about.
21 So I think we should let the process give it a chance and 22 see what happens.
That's my view.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO; I don't think any of us were 24 saying, don't do it We were asking questions, and I think 25 largely I
62 1
COMMISSIONER 2ECF-Well, I think the questions are 2
appropriate.
All I'm saying is, I think we're all a little 3
bit surprised, perhaps.
But I suggest that it is an 4
innovative way and it's something different.
But I submit 5
that we might watch it.
I think the end result could very 6
well be very successful.
7
[ Commissioner Asselstine reentered the room.]
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHhL:
I'm prepared the fact that 9
they don't have a football team yet, I guess.
10
[ Laughter.]
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay, ready to go on?
12 MR. PATE:
Just in closing out that subject.
After 13 this studying this for five years, we have no doubt that wo 14 are approaching it in the best way for the industry.
And we 15 have no doubt that it's bringing about rapid upgrade of 16 training in the industry, and we'll keep the Commission 17 informed on progress.
18 I'll try to be briet on Nuclear Plant Heatability 19 Data System.
That is our last topic.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Just before you leave the 21 academy, Zack, I guess I should say that I'm a tan of the 22 accreditation program.
I think what you're doing with the 23 academy is perteotly legitimate.
I still happen to be of the 24 view that, I think there's a role also for something along the 25 lines of what Senator Moynihan is talking about, in addition
o 63 1
tc*the kinds of things that you all have done.
2 MR.
PATE:
Yes, sir.
Nuclear Plant Reliability Data 3
System consists of the database consists of two parts.
And 4
that*s the engineering summaries that describe each component 5
in the reportable scope.
And each plant has about 4,000 items 6
in the reportable scope.
?
And the second component of the system is a tailure B
report, reporting the details of a failure of one of those 9
4,000 components.
10 To put it in the context of what we're really 11 talking about, let me give an example of a recent usage of the 12 Nuclear Plant Reliability Data System.
And as I'll illustrate 13 later in my talk, there are hundreds of examples of usage.
14 But just picking o n e ~,
D.C.
Cook over the last nine-year period 15 has had 10 reactor scrams due to inverter tailures.
And 16 inverters are the power supply to the reactor protection 17 system.
18 In looking at the Nuclear Plant Reliability Data 19 System results, they were able to determine that many other 20 plants have inverter tallures, but they don *t result in a 21 reactor scram.
And there were two reasons for this.
22
- First, D.C.
Cook *s inverters didn*t have a feature 23 to shift the power supply to another source in the case of an 24 inverter failure.
And second, they had a logic system whereby 25 one failure in tour channels would give you a scram.
Their
s 64 1
number of inverter failures was also higher than the industry 2
average as shown by the database.
3 So what they did is add heat sensitive components --
4 or rather components that were less heat sensitive to their 5
inverters.
Added ventilation to get their inverter failure 6
rate down more like the industry as shown by the database.
As
?
long term actions, they're replacing the inverters and they're 8
changing their plant logic system from a one in four logic to 9
a two in four, much more like other plants in the industry.
10 They began these actions a year ago and they haven't 11 had another inverter tailure.
That doesn't say that they 12 won't, but that*s an encouraging example.
We think it's a i
13 good example of the kind of use that can be made of the 14 database to see what's causing the failures and to see if you 15 are an anomaly in the industry.
16 Without that database, D.C.
Cook has no assurance or 17 no reason to believe has no assurance that their corrective le actions will lead to a solution, and has no reason to believe 19 that they are different from other plants.
20 Going back to those two key parts of the database.
21 There are now 400,000 engineering summaries in the database.
22 There's about 100 plants operating, 100 units, and at 4,000 23 that's 400,000.
So that engineering summary database is 24 complete for the first time in the 10-year history of this 25 system.
1
i 65 r
1 By the end of this past year we had 34,000 tailure 2
reports in the system, and that's more than double the amount 3
in the system less than two years ago.
The typical unit now 4
is reporting about 100 failures per year.
J 5
During each evaluation to make sure that the units i
6 are reporting tailures, we check about 500 work requests, i
7 going through the work history or the maintenance history at B
the plant to see that they are making the failure reports to 9
this database that they should be making.
And as you would 10 expect, we find missed work requests routinely in these 11 checks.
But we find most units making their reports on an 12 honest basis and a reasonably rigorous basis.
13 For some units, although the average reporting into 14 the system is running around 100 a year, for some units 15 something more in the range of 30 to 40 is normal or typical.
16 And those are typically the older plants and the smaller 17 plants, the less complex plants.
18 And it also involves a subjective judgment in each 19 case as to whether a component failed or was replaced as a 20 preventive measure.
The classic example is a leaking valve.
21 If you go in and see a small leak and you go work on that 22 valve, most people would not call that a failure.
But a valve 23 that had a loss of function or a major leak and you go in and 24 work on that, most people would categorize that as a failure 25 of the valve.
Somewhere in between there's a subjective
66 1
Judgment.
2 So the business of making sure that all failure 3
reports are coming in requires a look at the work orders and a 4
discussion with the people at the plant that are making these reports at every plant around the country.
And we are doing 6
that.
For 1985, all but two units made three dozen or more 7
tailure reports.
And as I say, when you're up in the three 8
dozen range for a year, it isn't clear that you necessarily 9
should have made more failures.
10 To take a good example, Prairie Island has been 11 around a long time, relatively small station, well-run 12 station.
In the 12-month period ending in September right 13 before one of our evaluation teams went out, one unit had made 14 29 reports and the other had made 19 reports.
15 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Are you telling us that the 16 older plants are safer, more reliable?
That certainly says 17 something about this agency it that's true.
18 MM. PATE:
What that says, Commissioner, I think is 19 that the newer plants that are larger and more complex and 20 there's no doubt in any of our minds about that.
First of 21 all, they have a larger scope of reportable items because of 22
- that, The 4,000 I give is an average.
23 A plant like Yankee Rowe, for example, will have a 24 lesser number.
A plant like Susquehanna that just came 25 on-line will have a much greater number.
And so, the more i
67 1
complex plants and the newer plants, until they iron out their 2
problems are reporting a greater number of failures.
3 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
All right, 4
MR. PATE:
But in some cases, those are tailures 5
COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
I still think it's an 6
interesting observation.
7 MR. FATE:
In some cases, those 1411ures are 8
tailures of redundant and add-on systems that have been added 9
for safety.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAb:
Well, the other thing is 11 that, I've telt ever since I went there shortly after joining 12 the Commission, everybody should go look at Yankee Howe once.
13 Yankee Howe, I guess, is the oldest Commission plant, licensed 14 plant in the country at this point.
It's been operating since 15 1962.
Very simple plant.
Has an institutional memory that's to within the family literally, goes back to the early days of 17 the operation of that plant.
It's had an extraordinary 18 reliability record.
19 But I don't think anybody would argue that you could 20 build 1,000-megawatt plant as a direct upscale of the kind of 21 systems that this 160 or whatever it is. ISO-megawatt plant at 22 Yankee Howe is.
You buy something and you lose something in 23 the scale-up and the complexity.
And you buy, I think, 24 avoidance of catastrophic accidents.
You lose some of the i
25 reliability, and a lot of little things then can bring your l
I
l i
68 I
1 plant off-line.
2 You know, there are probably a lot of other people 1
3 here like Harold Denton sitting in back there that have a 4
better picture of this than I do.
But you simply could not 5
scale Yankee Rowe to 1,000 megawatts.
I think that's the 6
bottom line.
t 7
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
And you have different problems 8
in the amount of decay heat you've got to handle.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That's exactly the point.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
The responsiveness of the i
11 system.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Of course, you could buy 10 et 13 them.
But then, of course, you'd have 10 times as many 14 components.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Or we could build i
16 500-megawatt plants.
Let's strike a balance.
17 (Commissioner Roberts left the room.]
IU CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Yes.
I was just pointing out 19 though, if you built 10 of them you'd have 10 times as many l
20 components.
21 MR. PATE:
Then the small group of 10 would have 4
22 more failures than the one big plant, 23 COMMISSIONER BENNTHAL:
That's the point.
You have
]
24 more little tallures, but then the chances of a catastrophic l
25 ta11ure are m! Ligated by those complexities, That's about
69 where we are.
1 2
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO.
Well, it"s an interesting 3
observation.
I think one that deserves a continued look, just 4
to see what we learn from it.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Getting back to NPRDS 6
though, Zack.
I take it you're fairly satisfied that you're 7
seeing increases, continuing increases, both in terms of 8
people putting data into the system, and in terms of using the 9
system for the kinds of purposes that it was intended.
That 10 is to learn from the tailure data and apply that knowledge to 11 improve the operations of the plant.
12 MR. PATE:
I think in general that's true, Let me 13 give some examples of what we're seeing along those lines.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
15 MR. PATE:
Picking up on that Prairie Island example 10 where we saw a smaller number of reports than we expected, we 17 sent one of Steve's people on the evaluation team last tall 18 and we looked at all the work requests for the past several 19 months, 1700 of them.
And we found 12 or 15 items that we 20 telt should have been reported in that.
In some cases they 21 had a justification for not reporting them.
And in other 22 cases we convinced them they should report.
23 But they certainly had people looking at it and 24 dedicated to that job.
And we're into that subjective area 25 whether a leak is a tailure or not.
i 70 1
My point though is that we are sending people out in 2
the field to look at the maintenance history, to get after 3
that reporting in every case where it falls short.
For 4
example, in the last several months, in any given month more than 90 percent of the units cre reporting tailures.
In any 6
given month when a unit may be in outage, they may skip that 7
month, but they clean them up later.
8 And since it is a statistical database, we think 9
it's being -- we think the reports are coming in.
We think 10 we're getting a very high percentage of the legitimate 11 tallures that should be reported.
We're still working to do 12 that better.
But, on balance, we think we are' confident we 13 are managing the system and achieving the desired results on 14 reporting.
t 15 The 1Jpo r t ant point I'd make is that the database is 16 now fully ready.
The challenge is to use it to enhance 17 reliability.
There isn't any question that it's a powerful 18 database and that it can strengthen our maintenance 19 ettectiveness throughout the industry.
7 20 To give you some examples of recent usage.
The 21 industry is now using the system to the extent of 1200 connect 22 hours2.546296e-4 days <br />0.00611 hours <br />3.637566e-5 weeks <br />8.371e-6 months <br /> a month.
For the past year, someone in the NRC has been 23 connected to the system and by that I mean, they*ve been 24 sitting at a terminal somewhere in Washington tied into our 25 computer in Atlanta for more than an average for more
)
J I
71 i
1 than an hour a day each working day.
Now that's four hours on s
2 Monday and none on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Eut it averages 3
better than an hour a working day through the past year.
d 4
NRC has seven password holders.
And in the past 5
eight months, conducted 330 individual searches of the j
6 database.
And since NRC doesn't make data entries, all of i
i 7
those searches are some NRC-sponsored ' study aimed at i
8 reliability or aimed at an understanding of failures.
4 i
9 In addition, 20 searches were done by INPO in a case 10 where the NHC person didn't have all the information to 11 conduct that kind of search.
And when we do those, we mail 12 them to the NRC.
And Steve has an example of a readout that 13 really is typical of the kind of data analysis that one of 14 those searches generates.
And then somebody in the NRC has to I.
15 distill that in and try to answer the problem they are seeking 16 to address.
17 And that, for example, includes a study of main 18 steam isolation valves throughout the industry and what the l
i 19 tallure rate is.
And I don't know what the particular purpose 20 of that study was.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But the problem with computer 22 systems is not that they don't provide a lot of information.
2 'J It's the challenge of humans in trying to assimilate it and t
24 put it to the proper use, i
25
[ Commissioner Roberts reentered the room,1
e 72 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
What kind of failure data 2
do you have on check valves?
3 MR. PATE:
I don't know the answer to that ett the 4
cutt.
But I suspect that database could tell us a lot.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That might be interesting 6
to know.
It our people have a terminal, they might check.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
That's a good question.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Why do you ask?
9
[ Laughter.3 1
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Just came to mind somehow.
11 MR. PATE:
In terms of coordination of NRC and INFO I
12 activities on that, Steve Rosen has,been discussing increased 13 NRC access, and we are prepared to more than double the number 14 of passwords assigned to NRC personnel.
We train each of 15 those people in Atlanta on how to use the database.
And I i
16 think NRC now is the biggest single user, and with the 17 doubling of passwords will be by far the biggest user of the J
18 database on a daily and monthly basis.
19 I want to point out that we provide all this service 20 to the government at no charge, except that we do plan to i
21 charge a fair share hourly fee for connect time.
22 As another example of the kind of use, which will 23 lead into my closing 24 COMMISSIONER BEHNTHAL:
Better tell that to CMB.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Sounds fair since we gave
73 1
them the system.
2 MR. PATE:
Pilgrim nuclear station was experiencing 3
tailures of the high pressure coolant injection pumps.
That's 4
an important, very important pump.
It's part of the safety 5
injection system.
It's part of the systems that keep the core 6
covered in the event of a serious event.
7 The failures had to do with the turbine speed 8
control and the overspeed trip device.
By using the NPRDS 9
database the engineers at Boston Edison were able to show that 10 the same kind of failures were being experienced by many other 11 people with the same kind of pump, and the failure was 12 localized to that overspeed trip device.
13 And so they purchased a modification ottered by a 14 major vendor aimed at upgrading that specitio part of the 15 pump, and no failures of the overspeed trip assembly have 16 occurred in the time since the installation.
And I think it's 17 tair to say that the tailures were fairly common prior to the 18 installation of that modification.
That's another example of 19 the kind of usage that shows a direct upgrade in reliability 20 ci a very important safety system.
21 Following up on that, a year ago utilities were 22 conductihg about 600 entries into the system a month for 23 retrieval purpose.
That*s all utilities across the country.
24 And that means that 000 times a month somebody went into the 25 system to get data out
74 1
And a year ago they were conducting about the same 2
number, same ballpark number, and these varied from month to 3
month, to enter data into the system; failure reports or 4
engineering summaries.
5 As of December of
'85, the latest month for which we 6
have data, utilities entered the system 1300 times for 7
retrieval More than twice as many as a year ago.
.And now 8
the usage of the number of times the system is accessed to 9
retrieve data is more than twice the number of times it*s 10 accessed to put data in.
11 We see that as the first major milestone in usage.
12 After 10 years the industry is using the database to enhance 13 reliability.
We see that as a rapidly growing activity.
And 14 one of our principal challenges in the coming months is to 15 help utilities do the kind of work that these two examples 16 represent.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
On the Pilgrim example, who 18 took the initiative to explore this question?
You said they 19 tound out not only were they having trouble with this pump but 20 so were others.
Was it Pilgrim that started it, or was 21 somebody making a study?
22 MR. PATE:
Let me ask Steve Rosen.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO; And then how did it if it 24 wasn't Filgrim, after they found out they were having trouble, 25 how did they get to industry-wide understanding of this
75
- 1 particular component of the pump?
2 MH. PATE:
They got that industry-wide understanding 3
by just sitting down at a terminal at Boston Edison Company 4
headquarters and accessing the computer at INFO and calling 5
out failures of high pressure injection pumps throughout the 6
industry.
And then looking at those results and seeing what 7
component caused the high pressure injection pump to fail, and 8
narrow that down to the overspeed trip device.
9 Now that's how they got the data.
It's on on-line 10 process using the INFO catabase, but using it from Boston.
11 Let me ask Steve to address the question of whether 12 of who took the initiative.
13 MR.
ROSEN:
Well, it was the Boston Edison Company 14 engineering department, no doubt, prompted by their operations 15 personnel and their own ongoing review of operations 16 activities.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I didn't mean -- I was trying 18 to understand whether it was somebody making a search 19 generally or was it some specific --
20 MR.
ROSEN:
Locally initiated by the Boston Edison 21 Company.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Those were two good examples of 23 the potential that exists here.
24 MM. PATE:
What we're trying to encourage is 25 examples of Just exactly what you're getting at, that local
o 76 1
initiative.
The plant can look and see they*re having too 2
many check valve failures.
They go into the database and see 3
it brand A or brand B is better and make a decision on whether 4
to replace a valve or take some other course, like this.
5 These examples are fairly simple solutions to a complex 6
problem.
7 Subject to the questions by the Commissioners, this 8
does complete our presentation.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
We thank you very much.
Let me 10 see 11 we have other questions.
t 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I have one also on the 12 NPRDS.
Does your data on accessing the system for usage, for 13 information use, give you a sense for what the range is among It utilities?
Usage is increasing substantially.
Is it pretty 15 much uniform?
Everybody's accessing the information and using 16 it on a fairly frequent basis?
Or do you have a group that*s 17 using it very heavily, a group in the middle, and then perhaps 18 a group that's not using it very much?
Can you 19 MR.
PATE:
Yes, sir.
We have to say that the usage 20 today is like tailure reporting was two years ago.
Some 21 places are using it routinely.
Some much more than others.
22 And some not at all And as I say, our challenge is to get 23 each place to use it for its intended purpose.
But today, 24 that is not in any sense, uniform usage.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
Are you trying to
a e
77 1
get that message across to those ones in the bottom group?
2 MR. PATE:
Absolutely, yes, sir.
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLA91NO:
Let me say, as usual, this 5
exchange of information has been very valuable.
And I'm 6
heartened to see the progress that you*ve made on a number of 7
fronts, including the NPRDS, and especially the accrediting 8
program.
9 So I do want to thank you for coming and I do want 10 to commend you on the progress being made.
Thank you.
11 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Just one quick question.
You 12 mentioned the NPRDS system and the exchange of information 13 with NRC and so forth.
I know you've had discussions recently 14 about that and trying to make a better and freer exchange.
My 15 question really is, how are your relationships with the NRC 16 Staff?
And are you making progress in that regarw?
And how 17 do you see that as it stands right now?
18 MR.
PATE:
Thought we might escape that tough 19 question today, Commissioner.
20
[ Laughter.]
21 MR. PATE:
We have, as the Commissioners are aware, 22 we have a memorandum of agreement between the executive 23 director and myself And under that memorandum of agreement 24 we have coordination plans that cover NPRDS and cover 25 accreditation and cover the evaluation program.
r 78 1
And those coordination plans delineate how the NRC 2
overviews the INPO programs in which is has an interest, and 3
that's most of them.
And spell out that we'll take NRC Stati 4
with us on the accreditation team visits, on the evaluation 5
team visits.
And spell out how many passwords NRC will have 6
to access NPRDS.
?
And we've had some rough sledding over time in 8
carrying out our coordination under the umbrella of that MOA, 9
and following those coordination plans.
I think that 10 coordination and cooperation results in a positive result, 11 because we're both -- the Stati and our staff -- are 12 determined to bring it to a pos}tive result.
13 I'm encouraged by some recent interactions with the 14 Stati And I think we are seeing better coordination than 15 we've had in a long time, perhaps ever, because the INPO 16 programs are much more mature than they were in the early 17 days.
And I'm encouraged by the strong role that Vic Stello 18 has taken at the outset to bring some of these tough questions 19 to a resolution.
20 And I'm very optimistic that we'll achieve positive 21 results.
I'm also confident that some of the rough sledding 22 will continue.
23 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Thank you.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
That's a good question.
25 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
I appreciate that.
79 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I'm pleased to see some 2
positive indications.
3 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
The only other comment, 4
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make is, I*d like to agr4 e with that 5
I think INFO is making a very significant contribution to more 6
safe and reliable operation of all of nuclear plants.
And I 7
really thinks it's very significant and very important.
And I 8
hope they'll continue to put in the professionalism that 9
they're obviously putting into their work and continue to work 10 closely with the NRC Statt and with the Commission.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay, thank you.
Any other 12 comments?
13
[No response.]
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
We*11 elose on that note.
15 MR. PATE:
Thank you for the opportunity.
16
[Whereupon, at 11: 51 a.m.,
the ccamission meeting 17 was concluded.]
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
r 1
CERTfFICATE OF OFFICinL REPORTER 2
3 4
5 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 6
before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission i r, the
.7 matter of: COMMISSION MEETING e
9 Name of Proceeding:
Briefing on INPO (Public Meeting) 10 11 Docket No.
12 Place:
Washington, D.
C.
13 Date:
Thursday, January 23, 1986 14 15 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 16 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission.
18 (Signature)'
,., /,,
, p.
39 (Typed Name of Reporter) Pamega R.
Briggle 20 21 22 23 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
24 25
~
v
1/22/86 e
SCHEDUl!NG NOTES TITLE:
BRIEFING BY INP0 SCHEDULED:
10:00 A.M.,
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1986 (CPEN)
SPEAKERS:
ZACK T. PATE, PRESIDENT 4
INSTITUTE OF NUCLEAR POWER OPERATIONS (INP0)
KENNETH A. STRAHM, VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR TRA!N!NG AND EDUCATION DIVISION INPO AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NATIONAL ACADEMY FOR NUCLEAR TRAIN!NG (THE FOLLOWING PERSONS WILL ALSO BE SEATED AT THE COMMISSICN TABLE FOR PURPOSES OF RESPCNDING TO COPMISSION CUESTIONS.)
PAT M. BEAPD, VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTcR EVALUATION AND ASSISTANCE GPnUP INP0 STEPHEN l. ROSEN. VICE PRESIDENT AND DIPECTOR ANALYSIS AND ENGINEERING DIVISICN INP0 CUTLINE:
1.
SELECTED PRcG=AM HIGHLIGHTS EVALUATION AND ASSISTANCE DIVISION CONSTRUCTION PROJECT EvAleATION D!v!S!CN ANALYSIS AND ENGINEERING DIVISICN RADIOLcGICAL PROTECTION AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS Dtv!S!cN TRAINING AND EDUCATION D!v!SicN
!!. NUCLEAR PLANT RELIABILITY DATA SYSTEM 111. ACCREDITATION OF TRAINING PROGRAMS IV. NATICNAL ACADEMY FOR NUCLEAR TRAINING
u Training: A National Accomp ishment
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National Academy for Nuclear Iraining c..
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1 U.S. NUCIear One of INPO's missions is to rooms and allow operators to hon a,,,,,,h.,neu,t,,,nupg,ae,ng,,a,n.
,he,, sk,,,,,n eea:ing w,,h no,ma, e ing. This assistance leads to accredita-plant operations-ebnormal events Ut*ll*gl lLf tion of key training programs by the and simulated accidents. Utilities are independent National Nuclear finding that these simulators provide hdlQlQg Accrediting Board.
an invaluable return in better prepan When a plant's first training pro-ing the operators for unusual events.
gram is accredited, it becomes a Six years ago, there were 10 train-branch of the academy and is eligible ing simulators in the industry. Cur-to issue certificates to graduates of rently,48 simulators are in operation, accreditated programs. Accreditation and when those that are planned or uclear utilities have long been of all training programs at all of a util-under construction are completed, aware of the special role of ity's nuclear plants is a condition of 73 will be in operation.
training in their plants. This full membership in the National awareness has grown into an exten-Academy for Nuclear Training.
Training staffs grew as utilities sive, industrywide effort to improve But accreditation and full accelerated imprmements and sustain the training performance academy membership come only Ten years ago, a typical nuclear of all utilities.
after solid commitments and hard plant training staff consisted of one The National Academy for work. Nuclear utilities are building, coordinator and a handful of instruc-Nuclear Training was established to buying, hiring, organizing and work.
tors. Today, an average of 24 instruc-focus and unify industrywide efforts.
ing to ensure their training and tors and five additional training pro-All U.S. electric utilities that operate qualification programs produce fessionals are at work at each nuclear or are building nuclear power plants talented, competent and motivated plant in the country-four times as are members of the Institute of people to operate the nation's nuclear many as just five years ago.
Nuclear Pbwer Operations, INPO, power plants to very high standards and are therefore eligible to be of safety and reliability.
Programs are meeting plant man-members of the academy. The acad-power needs emy provides the framework to coor-Training facilities are on the rise in 1983, more than 4,500 people dinate the various training activities.
around the industry completed formal, initial training The academy is supported and in the past, training facilities at programs for 10 nuclear plant job administered by INPO, which was nuclear plants did not always receive categories. This represents a 43 formed by the nuclear utility industry the attention they needed. Today, percent increase over the number in late 1979 to promote improve-separate facilities and special instruc-completing similar training programs ments in nuclear plant safety and tional areas have been established or in 1982.
reliability. The director of the expanded to enhance training. Util-Institute's Training and Education ities have almost 1.6 million square Additional shifts mean ongoing Division, a corporate vice president, feet of space dedicated exclusively to training for operating personnel serves as the academy's executive training nuclear plant personnel-four years ago, most nuclear director.
more than three times the amount in plants in the country were staffed use five years ago.
with four shifts of operating person-INPO and the academy are whicles Specially designed, state-of the-ne!. This left little time for ongoing for industrywide imprmement art training centers, located conve-training or requalification. Today, l
INPO manages the indu:trywide niently to the plant, are becoming the virtually all plants have fhe or six I
program for the accreditation of train-norm across the industry. Classrooms operating shifts, allowing one shift to i
ing programs for key operations, and laboratory training facilities be in training at all times.
maintenance and technical support include sophisticated training aids, personnel in nuclear plants. Every such as duplicates of many plant-Industry uses the latest in instruc-nuclear utility in the United States has specific components and equipment tional technology accepted this accreditation program and scale models of other compo-Each nuclear utility has adopted a and accepted membership in the nents and equipment.
performance-based, systems approach academy by making a commitment to training. Modern program and cut-to have its plant training programs Multimillion dollar control room riculum development is incorporated cccredited. And the U.S. Nuclear training simulators meet a need into a Training System Deselopment Regulatory Commission (NRO has More and more nuclear utilities model. This approach meets the encouraged and formally endorsed are buying computer-based control unique needs of the nuclear utility this accreditatian process.
room training simulators, an invest-industry. It consists of five steps that ment of several million dollars for produce performance-based training each installation. They duplicate programs: analysis, design, deselop-individual nuclear plant control ment implementation and evaluation.
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nuclear plant training.
This is leading to accreditation and job and task analysis: Using full membership status in the National industry expertise and experience, Academy for Nuclear Training. These INPO has conducted analyses of key utihty efforts constitute an industry-he nuclear utility industry, nuclear plant positions. These wide, self-initiated, self. improvement T through INPO, has dedicated analyses identify tasks performed in program.
resources and expertise to assist each job and set forth the knowledge The impetus behind these efforts individual utilities in upgrading their and skills needed for these jobs. A is a realization that training is a key to training, as necessary. The Institute, computer data base contains this achieving high standards of nuclear as part of its role in the National information, and utilities use it to help plant safety and reliabihty.
Academy for Nuclear Training, assists ensure that their curricula cover the The nuclear utihty industry has utilities in developing, implementing necessary topics.
made strong commitments to accredi-and maintaining their training activi.
Training and qualification tation and the National Academy for ties.
guidelines: Using input from the Nuclear Training. This industrywide INPO is responsible for the day-industry, as well as analysis of jobs commitment to excellence in training to-day administration of the academy; and tasks in key nuclear plant posi-is a national accomplishment.
however, member utilities retain full tions, INPO has developed 17 guide-responsibility for the training of their lines. These guidelines describe the prsonnel.
specific components needed for the An Academy Council provides training and qualification of person-overview and advice to INPO on the nelin nuclear power plant positions.
operation of the National Academy Workshops and seminars: INPO for Nuclear Training. The council is sponsors special workshops and comprised of executives or senior seminars for utility training personnel managers from member utilities. The to assist them in developing their own Academy Council meets periodically training systems.
with the executive director to review Nuclear plant evaluations: INPO academy activities, as well as all evaluates each nuclear plant in the INPO training programs and activities.
United States on a regular basis. On every INPO plant evaluation, both the conduct of training and the results of training-how personnel perform their jobs-are examined. By focusing on how workers actually apply knowledge and skills in the p! ant, these evaluatlns provido INPO and the executis e director of the academy with independent feedback on the quality of training and the quality of the graduates from accredited training programs.
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It can mean the difference between satisfactory and superior performance.
The 55 electric utilities that make up the nuclear utility industry in the United States have embarked on a collective pro 8 ram to upgrade the training and qualification of the people who run their nuclear power plants. Why? Because training plays a pivotal role in nuclear plant safety and reliability. The National Academy for Nuclear Training provides a framework so that the three essential elements in this program can work together: (1) the training activities, resources and facilities of the nuclear utility industry, (2) the National Nuclear j
Accrediting Board and (3) the Institute of Nuclear Pbwer Operations.
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National Academy for Nuclear Training Suite 1500,1100 Circle 75 Parkway, Atlanta, Georgia 30339-3064, Telephone (404) 980-3213 e
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