So how should industry rise to this challenge: evolution or revolution? Evolution will drive existing processes harder. Revolutionary change will introduce new techniques. New techniques often imply greater risk. A way through this could be to look at techniques that have been validated in other industrial sectors. The small reactor as a volume product is a revolutionary step for the nuclear sector. There is the opportunity to pick up and emulate the lean manufacturing techniques that have driven efficiency in other manufacturing sectors. The rigor and discipline that accompany lean manufacture will cascade down into sub-tier vendors. The key challenge to the success of the revolution is the culture of the supply base. Can existing supplier bases change their organisational structures and cultures to deliver nuclear components in this manner or will the demand be satisfied by new incumbents who already have the appropriate operating culture? Having acknowledged the organisational cultural change that is required, this chapter will focus on the revolutionary challenge from an engineering perspective.

The two halves of this revolutionary challenge will be explored independently, technologies and techniques around component fabrication, and then a platform for integrating these in a production environment.

12.2 Options for manufacturing

Manufacturing processes are characterised and applied depending on the volume of product they are delivering. Each manufacturing process aims to maximise efficiencies, and minimise production costs. With high volume manufacture the assembly line has been established as offering the best solution. Popular examples can be found in automotive applications. A lot of the early production line thinking emerged in this industrial sector, and is credited to Henry Ford and the application of the production line methodology for the Ford Model T. The production line demands a pace, repeating the same sequence of activities at the same location on each manufactured unit. The small reactor has opportunities for factory build, with vessels and components that are physically smaller than conventional nuclear plant. Standardisation of design similarly aligns with the capabilities of a production line approach — ‘Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black’ (Ford and Crowther, 1922). Equally the repetition of sequenced activities fits with the assurance that nuclear manufacturing requires.

However, the potential application of the conventional production line approach is compromised for the small reactor for two fundamental reasons. The first is volume and profile of sales and the ramp-up of those sales over time. The second is level of activity required to assemble each unit factored against the volume of units flowing down the production line.