News

The 2019 Utilities Service Alliance (USA) Excellence Plan has as two of its Focus Area Initiatives the revision of the Mid-Cycle and Nuclear Safety Assessment processes. The expected action requires that improvements to the processes be identified and implemented in 2019. Also included in the Focus Area is the development of a DevonWay software tool to automate scheduling and tracking personnel to participate on the assessments, an effort currently performed manually. The program will integrate the major activities (e.g., INPO/WANO assessments, scheduled plant outages) at the stations as part of the consideration of assignment. As always, fair and equitable assignment of the responsibilities will continue to be assured.

For the Mid-Cycle Assessments, which continue to be performed in conjunction with the STARS Alliance, USA is working to transition the USA process to a Performance-Based Process. Over the last few years, USA has been working in that direction by reducing the staffing of the teams. Assessors are no longer assigned in the Emergency Preparedness, Fire Protection, Projects and Performance Improvement Functional Areas unless requested by the assessed station. Up until 2015, we typically sent 13 people out on each assessment. We now send anywhere from nine to 13. The Mid-Cycle Process revision will further drive towards a Performance-based assessment methodology.

The Nuclear Safety Culture Assessment Process is also being revised to institutionalize recent changes designed to reduce the burden of the assessments on the stations. Examples include the elimination of Sunday evening Training sessions for team members and reducing assessment periods to four days from the current standard five days.
If anyone has any suggestions to further improve these processes, please send them to Tim Donovan.