The effect of communication quality on team performance in digital main control room operations

Abstract

A team of operators is required for nuclear power plant operation, and communication between the operators is an important aspect of the team's ability to successfully carry out tasks. It has been difficult to evaluate the quality of this communication though, and as the relationship between communication quality and team performance has yet to be clarified, it has not been applied to most human reliability analysis (HRA) methodologies. This study investigates the relationship between the quality of communication and team performance using data from a full-scope training simulator of a digital main control room (MCR). Two important characteristics of communication were considered to determine quality: each operator's ability to self-confirm the status of a given task in a digital MCR, and the type of communication, as divided into 1-way, 2-way, and 3-way between operators. To measure team performance, the concept of an unsafe act was employed, which is defined as a human error that has the potential to negatively affect plant safety. Analysis results showed that the communication quality and team performance were related to each other. With this more clearly defined relationship, the results of this study can be applied to related performance shaping factors to improve HRA.