Safety implications of cultural and cognitive issues in nuclear power plant operation

Abstract

This research project was designed to investigate cultural and cognitive issues related to the work of nuclear power plant operators during their time on the job in the control room and during simulator training (emergency situations), in order to show how these issues impact on plant safety. The modeling of the operators work deals with the use of operational procedures, the constant changes in the focus of attention and the dynamics of the conflicting activities. The paper focuses on the relationships between the courses of action of the different operators and the constraints imposed by their working environment. It shows that the safety implications of the control room operators' cognitive and cultural issues go far beyond the formal organizational constructs usually implied. Our findings indicate that the competence required for the operators are concerned with developing the possibility of constructing situation awareness, managing conflicts, gaps and time problems created by ongoing task procedures, and dealing with distractions, developing skills for collaborative work. r

Resilience Engineering: An Integrative Review of Fundamental Concepts and Directions for Future Research in Safety Management

“…Carvalho, et al [94] Investigated the ability of nuclear power plant operators to deal with procedures, rules and norms amidst organisational constraints in order to understand whether i) following procedures always constituted best practice, ii) violations of NPP procedures improved safety, and iii) skills operators needed to optimize performance.…”

Hand-off Education and Evaluation: Piloting the Observed Simulated Hand-off Experience (OSHE)

“…The residents' feedback was facilitated using the Hand-off CEX (see Appendix 2). Drawing upon the investigators' preliminary work done in this area and relevant strategies utilized in other industries 24,25 , we developed a tool to evaluate hand-offs in the clinical setting. This instrument is based upon a previously validated, widely used, real-time educational evaluation tool, the Mini-CEX 20 .…”

Job requirements for control room jobs in nuclear power plants

“…They are responsible for control room operation and safety and have the authority to decide to switch off the plant. Shift supervisors also serve as the main communication channel from the control room to the other parts of the plant, and even outside the plant (Carvalho et al, 2006). Finally, safety engineers are not in the control room the whole time, but stand in during emergency alerts to support the shift supervisor.…”

“…However, prior to the accident at Three Mile Island, human factors had received little attention in nuclear safety research. Following the Three Mile Island accident, all nuclear accidents were reviewed, and it was found that human error contributes to nuclear accidents (Carvalho et al, 2006). According to Carvalho et al (2006), as a result of this finding, human error and human behavior have come to be treated with the same attention as technical (hardware) systems.…”

“…Following the Three Mile Island accident, all nuclear accidents were reviewed, and it was found that human error contributes to nuclear accidents (Carvalho et al, 2006). According to Carvalho et al (2006), as a result of this finding, human error and human behavior have come to be treated with the same attention as technical (hardware) systems. Thus, it has now been acknowledged that human error constitutes an important factor in the malfunctioning of complex technical systems such as nuclear power plants and in accidents associated with their operation, meaning that human error is a significant contributor to plant risk.…”