Guidelines for Implementation of an Advanced Outage Control Center to Improve Outage Coordination, Problem Resolution, and Outage Risk Management

Abstract

This research effort is a part of the Light-Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, which is a research and development (R&D) program sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE) and performed in close collaboration with industry R&D programs that provide the technical foundations for licensing and managing the long-term, safe, and economical operation of current nuclear power plants. The LWRS program serves to help the U.S. nuclear industry adopt new technologies and engineering solutions that facilitate the continued safe operation of the plants and extension of the current operating licenses. Managing NPP outages is a complex and difficult task due to the large number of maintenance and repair activities that are accomplished in a short period of time. During an outage, the outage control center (OCC) is the temporary command center for outage managers and provides several critical functions for the successful execution of the outage schedule. Essentially, the OCC functions to facilitate information inflow, assist outage management in processing information, and to facilitate the dissemination of information to stakeholders. Currently, outage management activities primarily rely on telephone communication, face to face reports of status, and periodic briefings in the OCC. It is a difficult task to maintain current the information relatedmore » to outage progress and discovered conditions. Several advanced communication and collaboration technologies have shown promise for facilitating the information flow into, across, and out of the OCC. The use of these technologies will allow information to be shared electronically, providing greater amounts of real-time information to the decision makers and allowing OCC coordinators to meet with supporting staff remotely. Passively monitoring status electronically through advances in the areas of mobile worker technologies, computer-based procedures, and automated work packages will reduce the current reliance on manually reporting progress. The use of these technologies will also improve the knowledge capture and management capabilities of the organization. The purpose of this research is to improve management of NPP outages through the development of an advanced outage control center (AOCC) that is specifically designed to maximize the usefulness of communication and collaboration technologies for outage coordination and problem resolution activities. This technical report for industry implementation outlines methods and considerations for the establishment of an AOCC. This report provides a process for implementation of a change management plan, evaluation of current outage processes, the selection of technology, and guidance for the implementation of the selected technology. Methods are presented for both adoption of technologies within an existing OCC and for a complete OCC replacement, including human factors considerations for OCC design and setup.« less