Once progress has been made on the ageing assessments, it is important to implement the disposition of recommendations into plant programmes. Effective plant practices in monitoring, surveillance, maintenance, and operations are the primary means of managing ageing. From general experience with HWR PLiM programmes, it can usually be expected that the ageing assessment programme will lead to modifications and enhancements, but not necessarily replacements, of the pre-existing plant ageing programmes. However, a successful PLiM programme is measured by the plant performance indicators. This requires a structured and managed approach to the implementation process. The overall objective is to optimize plant programmes for ageing management, both for the remaining design life period and for the plant long term operation.

First, the recommendations for changes to current plant programmes that result from the ageing assessments are systematically dispositioned. Following this, PLiM implementation strategy may be developed on Table 4. In this step, plant staff considers the implementation options (implementation procedures, cost-benefit analysis, schedule & outage plans, affected departments, task responsibilities, work priority, etc). PLiM changes are then input to outage and operational planning process.