Importance of organisations for safe operation

The effective enactment of the roles and responsibilities associated with the construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning of nuclear power plants depends on the effectiveness of the operating organisation. Throughout the lifecycle each phase of activity will have its own specific needs and challenges. Operating organisations must adapt and develop to meet those requirements. In addition the lifecycle of a NPP will last several decades so the challenge of maintaining organisational effectiveness over the full term of the lifecycle must not be underestimated.

Worldwide experience in peer reviews, OSART missions and event anal­ysis demonstrate that most events and performance deficiencies identified

in those programmes have their genesis in organisational and human per­formance factors.

Conversely, the US utilities achieved one of the most outstanding per­formance improvements on record. At the time of the Three Mile Island Accident in 1979, there were approximately 104 NPPs in service with an average Unit Capability Factor (UCF) of just 60%. Today, with the same number of plants in service, the figure is approximately 92%. That achieve­ment is almost entirely due to improvements in organisational effectiveness and the ability to learn from experience.

One of the great features of that improvement is that it is well docu­mented and readily replicable. Today organisations such as the IAEA, WANO and INPO facilitate the identification, sharing and promotion of good practices between utilities worldwide through, for example, their Technical Exchange, Peer Review, OSART, Technical Publications and Good Practices Programmes.