Engineering alliance, Engineering the Future (EtF), is today inviting comment from the supply chain and related industries on a series of best practice guides for nuclear new build.
The three guides - Nuclear Lessons Learned Guidance on Best Practice: High Integrity Welding / Concrete / Nuclear Safety Culture - follow on from the alliance’s initial report last year, which identified five common lessons from past and current projects to be applied to the current and future UK new build programme to help ensure timely and efficient delivery.
Building on the general lessons found in Nuclear Lessons Learned (November 2010), the new guides focus on more specific areas of nuclear construction to further aid the industry in successfully delivering a fleet of new nuclear power stations. They were announced by Keith Waller, Department of Energy and Climate Change representative and member of the ETF working group, at the Nuclear Institute (NI) / Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) conference Nuclear New Build 2011 today.
Spokesperson for the alliance, Nuclear Lessons Learned steering group chairman John Earp said: “The UK market is typified by long supply chains and a high degree of sub-contracting, so creating an awareness and understanding of the unique nature of nuclear construction is crucial to minimising project risks. We hope these guides will ultimately help generate behaviours within the UK industry and supply chains that are conducive to successful project delivery.”
The guides have been drawn up by working groups led by appropriate engineering institutions -including the Royal Academy of Engineering, Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Institution of Structural Engineers, Nuclear Institute, TWI, Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) - and consisting of members from Government, regulators, utilities, the supply chain and industry bodies.
Earp added: “A best practice guide should not be prescriptive; it should be intuitive and be drawn from the breadth of experience that already exists. For this reason we want to open these initial documents up to widespread comment from across the industry, ensuring we come to a broad consensus that will best serve us in helping the industry progress the UK new build programme.”
Several recommendations have been found for each report – these are listed in the notes. The full reports are available on request or downloadable here www.ice.org.uk/nuclearbestpracticeguides .
Industry stakeholders are invited to provide feedback and comment on the guides ahead of their finalisation in Autumn 2011. Deadline for comment is 2nd September 2011. Please email policy@ice.org.uk
Media contact
Emily Beadon, ICE Media Relations Manager, t: 020 7665 2261, e: emily.beadon@ice.org.uk
More information
Best practice guide recommendations
Nuclear Safety Culture
1. Projects to have single leadership charter
2. Leadership charter at “programme” level
3. Role profiles for supervisors, competency assessed
4. Register of competent supervisors
5. Systematic approach to training for safety roles<
6. Industry wide framework for industrial safety
7. Formal systems for design change and associated records
8. System for learning at company and project level
High Integrity Welding
1. Equivalence documents to be produced to establish quality requirements throughout the supply chain,
2. Create a tiered quality management approach
3. Create a database to demonstrate areas of welding skill shortages to enable better planning for training programmes.
4. Early contraction by vendors throughout the supply chain to ensure return on skills and technology investment.
5. Nuclear Industry should present recommendations to government to provide greater funding for the creation of welding apprenticeship.
6. Welding should be reinstated on to the Immigration National Occupational Shortage List by the Migration Advisory Committee.
7. Government to work with industry in creating more suitable apprenticeships and training courses.
8. A single integrated skills framework should be created for core engineering and construction work in the nuclear field.
9. The creation of a knowledge and experience sharing forum for welding professionals in high precision sectors such as nuclear, oil and gas.
10. Industry coordination on the development and use of new technologies
Concrete Quality
1. Need for pre-placement quality assurance
2. Licensee oversight – Integrated design and construction programmes
3. Early contractor engagement
4. Integrated design and construction programmes
5. Need for understanding across the team
6. Designers need practical experience
7. Importance of Technician role
8. Authorised concrete mixes only
9. Integrated and visible quality assurance process
10. Feedback processes should be put in place across all developers
11. Mechanisms to be in place for knowledge transfer over plant lifetime
The Nuclear Lessons Learned report was commissioned by the Institution of Civil Engineers, on behalf of Engineering the Future (EtF), which includes a range of engineering bodies such as ICE, RAEng, the IET and the Nuclear Institute. It was supported by the Office for Nuclear Development, and was prepared by the Department of Engineering at Lancaster University.
The five lessons identified in the Nuclear Lessons Learnt report were:
- Follow-on replica stations are cheaper than first-of-a-kind
- Designs should be mature and licensing issues resolved prior to construction
- A highly qualified design and planning team is essential
- Sub contractors used must be experienced or taught nuclear-specific construction skills
- Early and effective engagement with communities is crucial
www.ice.org.uk/nuclearlessons
Engineering the Future (EtF) is a broad alliance of the engineering institutions and bodies which represent the UK’s 450,000 professional engineers. We provide independent expert advice and promote understanding of the contribution that engineering makes to the economy, society and to the development and delivery of national policy. The leadership of Engineering the Future is drawn from the following institutions: The Engineering Council; EngineeringUK; The Institution of Chemical Engineers; The Institution of Civil Engineers; The Institution of Engineering and Technology; Institution of Structural Engineers,The Institution of Mechanical Engineers; The Institute of Physics; The Royal Academy of Engineering.
Media contacts
Notes to editors