Title: When in the life cycle of a Nuclear Power Plant does Nuclear Safety Culture become important? Nuclear Safety Culture……. What is it? An unnecessary expense in the early stages of Nuclear Construction Projects?

Biography:

Phillip Harris trained in the UK as a Draughtsman, worked in Germany as a welding inspector and joined the UK nuclear industry in 1978. He worked as a Mechanical and Operational Engineer on Magnox and Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor plants. In 2000 he joined the training team at Hinkley Point B where Human Performance and Nuclear Safety Culture became his passion. He believes that the principles of Human and Organizational Performance (often referred to as HOP) form the foundation for a strong Nuclear Safety Culture. More recently he has been working with the Hinkley Point C Supply Chain and as Senior Nuclear Safety Culture Specialist at Barakah Nuclear Power Plants here in the UAE.

 

 

Abstract

What is required to create a strong Nuclear Safety Culture? Surely it’s not too difficult! If you train people to do their job and your leadership re-enforce your messages strongly enough, what can go wrong? We may need to implement an observation process to ensure that they always demonstrate the right behaviors. Wrong! Trying to fix the workers will not create a strong Nuclear Safety Culture.

Whether you are the Joint Venture partners or a Tier 3 Supplier in the Nuclear Supply Chain your people are not a part of the problem, they are the solution to creating a strong Nuclear Safety Culture by;

• Recognizing that as humans we make mistakes.
• Management allowing your people to work in an environment where it is accepted as necessary for them to challenge and question to identify your system and Organizational weaknesses[i] to enable resilience to be created within your organization.

The IAEA, WANO and INPO all advocate the need for a Nuclear Safety Culture to be nurtured within all the projects individual contributors. They need to understand that Nuclear is different, it is special, and the required standards are higher. Maintaining ‘Defense in Depth’ is essential when dealing with complex technologies[ii].

Yes, it is often seen as an unnecessary expense but failure to create a strong Nuclear Safety Culture is often costlier as defense in depth is not maintained.