Nuclear knowledge management
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Contents
Definition
Nuclear knowledge management is an integrated systematic approach to help the organizations to enhance safety and achieve objectives. This accomplished by managing their knowledge assets through embedding knowledge processes into management systems.
Nuclear knowledge management is Template:Nuclear knowledge management 4 Source: Process oriented knowledge management for nuclear organizations
Summary
One paragraph summary which summarises the main ideas of the article.
Description
Nuclear knowledge management is an integrated, systematic approach applied to all stages of the nuclear knowledge cycle. It impacts on human resources, information and communication technology, process and document management systems. Thus, corporate and national strategies relating to radioactive waste management can be significantly influenced by our ability to manage knowledge both now and in the future. Nuclear knowledge management is not just useful — it is essential. Further discussion of the need for nuclear knowledge management can be found in related IAEA publications (for example Ref. [8]).
Source: Knowledge management for radioactive waste management organisations
Description
KM performance model
Description
Requirement 12: Management of knowledge important to safety
The Licensee shall ensure adequate knowledge and information exists within the organization to properly understand and maintain the integrity of the design bases and the safety of operational and maintenance processes that rely on it. (An adequate scope and depth of technical expertise and experience must be available, facility design basis documentation and records must be correct, and work processes and procedures must embed appropriate consideration of design basis safety to ensure the integrity of safety functions, defence-in-depth and the safe operating envelope can be maintained.)
- Senior Management shall ensure that within the management systems adequate knowledge management processes exist to:
- Systematically identify knowledge and information that is essential for safety or that will enhance safety, including the managerial knowledge needed for adequate and effective decision processes;
- Proactively manage and prevent loss of useful knowledge and gaps in essential knowledge that may lead to errors or incorrect decision making and result in failures or events that impact safety ; (It is important to ensure essential knowledge is not lost, particularly that tacit knowledge and experience from senior or expert staff is transferred to successors, and that knowledge transfer processes and mechanisms are adequately formalized and supported, and that open and effective knowledge-sharing is fostered, and recognized.)
- Establish, mobilize and maintain sufficient knowledge and competency to properly interpret and apply the design bases in the context of the safe operation and maintenance of systems ; ( This is necessary to ensure safety objectives can be achieved for all systems, structures or components important to safety, or which under failure conditions may threaten the safe operating envelope. This also applies to the testing and modification of these systems.)
- Ensure all design bases documentation and information needed to establish the state of the facility are complete and correct and are appropriately available to those who need it, when needed, to ensure safety (This is necessary to ensure that it adequately reflects design changes, lessons learned from operating experience or changing conditions (e.g. ageing or wear-out) in the plant. It is also important to ensure that procedures exist to enable sufficient and accurate capture of technical data, that information and records are effectively captured, stored, and managed so that they are searchable and retrievable and can be made available to those who need it when needed.);
- Ensure the knowledge embedded in the organization’s processes, procedures, manuals, or other information that is related to safe operation and maintenance is kept consistent with the design basis and adequately reflects design changes, lessons learned from operating experience or changing conditions (It is necessary to ensure knowledge which may be contained in information such as training material that is derived or interpreted from design basis information (such as operating limits and conditions, safety-related design parameters, safety requirements, or fundamental design rationale or assumptions related to systems, structures or components important to safety) is regularly validated over the lifecycle. For example, lessons learned from root-cause analysis of operating incidents or events may create the need for design basis changes, or for corrections in the design basis documentation, or for changes in derived information (e.g. an operating procedure), or all three);
- Ensure that when knowledge related to the safe operation of the plant resides outside of the organization, measures are taken to ensure knowledge loss risks are identified and managed such that sufficient knowledge and competency is maintained and that adequate knowledge transfer and validation occurs ; (This can be particularly important during new build projects to ensure knowledge is captured during licensing, construction, and commissioning and that it is complete and can be maintained. Similarly it can be important if reliance for knowledge is on an outside services or design organization, for example for outage maintenance work, design changes, safety analysis or refurbishment) and
- Ensure that the organizational knowledge and competency requirements are periodically assessed to consider changes due to life-cycle issues, changes in external factors or regulatory requirements, etc. and that they are adequately addressed . (This can be particularly important to accommodate refurbishment projects for life-extension, decommissioning, site expansion with construction of new units etc)
- Senior Management shall establish clear policy and expectations for the organization regarding the importance of, and shared responsibility for, effective knowledge management and learning processes . ( It is important to safety to integrate and embed knowledge management thinking and culture into the organization. Management leadership is needed to achieve this at that all levels so that: decisions are risk-informed; knowledge is utilized effectively; known problems and mistakes are not repeated; best practices are shared; operational experience is captured; and lessons learned are incorporated)
Source: DRAFT GENERAL SAFETY REQUIREMENTS, GSR Part 2, DS456
Description
Knowledge management and knowledge transfer for LTO
Expectations
In the plant knowledge should be managed as a resource. This should be applied to LTO as well.
A knowledge management (KM) plan and processes should be in place to support the LTO activities.
KM needs to be a part of the long term strategy of the operating organisation. Especially when considering LTO of NPP’s, the plant should include knowledge-loss risk management in its KM practices.
The plant should ensure that all relevant design, modification and maintenance data is documented and accessible for the LTO.
The plant should have systematic approaches for receiving and evaluating research findings and knowledge from the LTO related processes from other power plants.
The plant should identify the organization’s knowledge needs (i.e. internal and external knowledge sources, utilization of knowledge, knowledge sharing, and preservation of organisational knowledge and capture of tacit knowledge).
The plant should ensure that there is a clear ownership of KM processes and issues.
Management should demonstrate its commitment to KM policy.
Management should communicate the KM policy and processes and involve individuals in implementation and improvement of the KM processes.
Examples of documents to be available for review:
- KM policy and strategy;
- Descriptions of KM process, procedures, guidelines and flowcharts;
- Description of the process for collecting and distributing operational experience;
- Documents related to knowledge-loss risk assessment;
- Report on PSR assessment on use of experience from other plants and research findings (if exists);
- Work processes, methodologies and procedures for life extension decision;
- Descriptions of IT and IS processes;
- Description of the process for managing records, reports and date related to maintenance, surveillance and inspections.
Evaluation
The peer review will focus on LTO aspects of the following:
- Check that an appropriate KM policy exists;
- Check that the KM principles and practices are embedded in the integrated management system;
- Verify that KM is a part of the operating organisation’s long term strategy;
- Check that there is a clear ownership of KM processes and issues;
- Confirm that KM principles and practices are embedded in the organisation;
- Verify that the plant has embedded KM principles and practices in its process for collecting and using operating experience feedback;
- Verify that the plant has implemented adequate processes for learning from the LTO experiences of other plants;
- Confirm that the plant has a process for knowledge-loss risk assessment and mitigation for suppliers, TSOs and outside service providers;
- Confirm that the plant has established adequate processes for transferring knowledge, information and data to/from the vendor, critical equipment/component suppliers, outsourced services and TSOs;
- Confirm that the IT/IS processes support managing information and records and their availability;
- Confirm that the plant retains records of traceability, rationale and assumptions of why and how operational, maintenance and design changes (corporate memory) have been made.
Source: Draft SALTO Peer Review Guidelines
References
[1]
