At a very early stage (around 12 years before the first fuel loading) it is critical to plan the human resources requirements with a long-term vision. The following items must be considered within the human resources planning:

1. Job profiles and selection criteria. Once the decision about the project organization and the future plant organization is made, the next step will be to identify the job positions needed for the tasks to be accom­plished during the different stages of the project, including plant opera­tion and maintenance. With the detailed matrix (job position — number of candidates — year of hiring) already made, it will be useful to group the future job positions into families, such as managers, engineers, instructors or regulators, then afterwards select from them the best candidates for the different jobs.

The number of new employees to be contracted in a specific year will depend on the capability to train them and the predicted allocation of manpower for the different tasks within the project.

2. Training programmes. It will be necessary to design different training programmes as the project progresses. During the first years it will be enough to provide some generic nuclear training with different content for each group to become familiar with the specific areas in the nuclear field. Table 6.1 includes typical training modules to be implemented for the different stakeholders during the first steps of a nuclear programme.

Depending on the activity involved, more specific training will be delivered, complementing the generic nuclear part, in areas such as project management, quality assurance and quality control, licensing, norms and regulations, among others.

E&P C&C EM RB O&M

NPP Fundamentals Applied Thermodynamics •

and Fluid Mechanics Mechanical & Electrical •

Components

Control & Instrumentation •

Strength of Materials •

Nuclear Physics •

Thermohydraulics •

Nuclear Reactor Chemistry •

Design and NPP Design Criteria •

Engineering Safety Assessment •

Technical Specifications •

Design Engineering •

Nuclear Safety and Safety •

Culture

Nuclear Technology Nuclear Steam Supply System

Reactor Auxiliaries •

Systems

Plant Services •

Safeguard Systems •

Water-Steam Cycle •

Reactor Control, Limitation •

and Protection System Effluent treatment systems •

E&P: Engineering and Procurement. C&C: Construction and Commissioning. EM: Electrical, Mechanical and Instrumentation Equipment Manufacturers. RB: Regulatory Body. O&M: Plant Operation and Maintenance.

Some in-plant training, either tutoring or ‘shadowing’, is highly rec­ommended, in order to become familiar with the allocation of systems and main equipment, the functioning of the operation departments and the internal norms and procedures. This experience can be gained in reference plants that the vendor has previously built or, if appropriate, in other plants belonging to the owner/operating organization.

3. Task assignment within the project and professional development. As soon as the training is finished the professionals and technicians will be assigned to a specific task within the project. The project manager should perform technical competency-based assessments, leadership development, and succession planning for future high-responsibility assignments.

According to the IAEA (2008a), the influencing factors that can reduce

the human resource requirements are as follows.

• Those NPP operating organizations considering adding new nuclear units have to assess the extent to which the current workforce can be effectively utilized for the commissioning and operation of the additional units and in this way provide an opportunity to evaluate the possibility of sharing common services for the whole fleet (e. g. the Quality Assurance department or even Maintenance). It is possible to achieve as much as a 30% reduction in manpower requirements for the next reactor when maintaining an efficient organizational structure.

• Where an owner/operator owns or operates units at more than one location, a different organizational structure may be used to improve efficiency. Many functions can be centralized in the parent organization. It is common to find fleet nuclear companies that have an average of 20% fewer personnel due to the economies of scale.

• Some new advanced reactors have a more simplified design and fewer systems and components, therefore the staffing reductions for a passive light water reactor plant compared to a current nuclear plant could be about 40%.

• Finally, another factor that can affect the number of resources needed is the possibility of contracting specialized services externally. Although operating organizations tend to conduct maintenance activities them­selves, rather than contracting with a vendor, there are some exceptions for outage-related work, where most operating organizations continue to rely on external support, particularly for specialized maintenance and inspections of major equipment. Engineering and technical support are other services susceptible to be contracted out. In those cases the licensee retains the primary responsibility for the safety of such operations.

152 Infrastructure and methodologies for justification of NPPs