LEVEL 4 Decision Examples
(See the description of the origin
of these documents, below.)
Nuclear Plant Project Guidance Documents and Management Decisions:
Piping Design Turnover Program
Plant Building Steel Verification Program
Reactor Pressure Vessel Thermal Cycling Evaluation
Remote Shutdown Panel Level Indicator
Replace Rusted Conduits, Cable Trays, & Supports
Rosemount Transmitter Replacement
Containment Atmospheric Control-Dilution System Upgrade
High Pressure Coolant Injection Skid-Upgrade
Seismic Qualification of Equipment
Mounting Brackets for Pressure Switches
The work to develop these Project Guidance Documents and Management Decisions was performed by a team of engineers from SCIENTECH, Inc., a leading nuclear safety inspection company. The technical team was led by Charles R. Jones, the author of all of the nuclear safety inspection documents linked to his nuclear safety Internet page, <http://Technidigm.org/Technuke/nuclear.htm>. Mr. Jones has been and continues to be a focused and dedicated nuclear power plant engineer and manager since 1966, the year that he entered the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program. He served in every aspect of the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, then worked as a Navy officer directly for the Department of Energy on nuclear weapon safety program upgrades before retiring from the Navy to become a nuclear power plant consultant. He served as a consultant to various DOE offices responsible for "production reactor" safety and nuclear weapon fabrication and laboratory safety, and then worked extensively (1998 to 2000) as a consultant on nuclear safety systems for commercial nuclear power plants and the NRC, most recently doing four inspection at the troubled DC Cook Nuclear Plant in Michigan.
At the beginning of the 1992 four month Project Guidance Documents and Management Decisions development effort at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant, Mr. Jones identified and insisted on pursuing a creative course of action to get the effort moving ahead, after being stalled by a lack of cooperation on the part of plant managers and engineers. After taking heat from his SCIENTECH senior managers for being so adamant about how to get the work done, he was allowed to continue doing the job his way, which resulted in getting the work done on schedule. CP&L then used Mr. Jones' methods to develop additional guidance and decision documents for administrative process upgrades.
The 150 Project Guidance Documents and Management Decisions were used by CP&L as the basis of for their integrated schedule of corrective actions. This was fortuitous because the plant managers were replaced right after this project was completed, including most of the middle managers. With a comprehensive plan in place, it was possible for the new managers to step in and execute the plan. Keep in mind that the management decisions had already been made by Mr. Jones in these documents, so the new managers could manage by exception (if they chose to disagree with the decisions made by Mr. Jones).
Also, note that each of the Project Guidance Documents and Management Decisions is precise and clearly written. It is important to make nuclear work plans clearly so that misunderstandings are minimized. One of the problems of the original plant managers was that they could not even describe the required work such that their own management could understand what needed to be done and why. Also, with the increase in the use of computer data bases, there is a tendency to over simplify work descriptions, making it difficult for anyone to really understand what work needs to be done and why.
The prioritization system used to develop the Project Guidance Documents and Management Decisions was modestly complex, but the key to success of the prioritization system was that each project was studied and considered relative to all the other projects by a single person. That is, although each of the members of the team reviewed a number of assigned project management folders, Mr. Jones reviewed each prioritization element of each project, adjusting the weights to conform with his many years of experience. He also provided extensive editing of each document and had the last word on all the words.
Was this work really successful? Was it worth it to CP&L to pay Mr. Jones and his team "litigation rates"? Given all the above, although CP&L brought in some proven managers to execute the get-well plan, the work performed by Mr. Jones and his team from SCIENTECH was still 85 percent in place and unchanged two years later. The plant recovered quickly and got off the Watch List, and it also made the most productive runs in the history of each of its units during the next operating cycles. Now, in May of the year 2000, the Brunswick Nuclear Plant is the best performing plant of its kind in the country. This is described in the following news article.
Brunswick Plant Ranks as Top
Boiling-water
Reactor in the U.S.
May 31, 2000
SOUTHPORT, N.C., May 30 /PRNewswire/ via
NewsEdge Corporation -
Carolina Power and Light's (NYSE: CPL)
Brunswick Nuclear Plant ranked No. 1 in
production and cost in 1999 for Boiling Water
Reactors (BWR) in the United States, according
to industry data.
Performance and cost rankings are based on
three-year average data from the Electric
Utilities Cost Group. In the area of performance,
the Brunswick Plant had a 93.9 percent capacity
factor. The nuclear industry average in 1999 was
80.5 percent. Capacity factor is a measurement
of the plant's generation output as compared to
its rated capability.
The cost data from the Electric Utilities Cost
group also show that Brunswick ranked at the
top of the BWR list.
"It is clearly the dedication and teamwork of the
Brunswick employees that enabled us to achieve
these high levels of performance while safely and
economically producing electricity for our
customers," said Jack Keenan, Brunswick Plant
vice president.
"Our focus on continuous improvement in the
areas of human performance and equipment
reliability is directly improving our overall
performance," Keenan said.
To reduce the potential for human errors, the
Brunswick Team developed a comprehensive
Human Performance program that provides
ongoing training to employees on error-likely
situations and how to prevent them. In addition,
the site adopted a "Zero Tolerance to Equipment
Failure" initiative, which provides a plan for
identifying possible equipment issues and fixing
them before problems occur.
"Both of these programs focus on proactive
performance, which is essential for Brunswick to
continue to reach higher levels of performance,"
Keenan said. "We are committed to the safe
production of electricity, giving our customers
reliable and cost-efficient energy."
The Brunswick Plant also marked another
performance milestone in March by completing a
refueling outage in less than 30 days. Brunswick
successfully completed a 27-day refueling
outage on Unit 1 March 24, beating the unit's
previous best of 33 days.
"Conducting a safe, efficient refueling outage is
critical to our overall performance. The refueling
outage sets the stage for the unit's performance
for the next two years," Keenan said. The
dual-unit Brunswick Plant refuels each unit every
24 months.
CP&L's four nuclear reactors at three locations
produced 46 percent of the company's electricity
in 1999. CP&L provides electricity and energy
services to nearly 1.2 million customers in the
Carolinas and natural gas, through its wholly
owned NCNG subsidiary, to 178,000 customers in
North Carolina.
SOURCE Carolina Power & Light
CONTACT: Ann Mary Carley of Carolina Power &
Light, 910-457-3113, or 24-hour media line,
919-546-6189, or 910-457-1000, or fax,
910-457-2803
Web site: http://www.cplc.com (CPL)