Promoting Operational Readiness Through Procedures in Nuclear Domain

Operating procedures provide a description of the actions that are needed to operate a particular system in a safe and efficient manner. We developed an analysis framework for the identification of resilience skills that enable intelligent use of procedures. An analysis of critical functions and their interaction was carried out by using the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM; [4]). The basic idea behind the FRAM is to develop questions that are discussed with those who will use the procedure in their work. According to our results, the FRAM methodology was successfully applied to the analysis of the selected proceduralized activity. It was found that one fruitful approach is to first create an overview FRAM model describing the main activities of the task from the perspective of the nuclear process, and after that, create a more detailed description, looking at the task from the control room operators’ perspective. Some potential variability of the functions was identified – mainly related to the communication and collaboration between operators and between operators and personnel in the field. Implications of our results to procedure design and operator training will be discussed.