Over 100 nuclear professionals exchanged information and experience on how top performers in the industry drive and sustain high operational safety performance. The discussion took place during an IAEA hosted webinar Talks on Operational Safety in May 2020.
The webinar provided a platform to share insights of senior executives from top performing nuclear power plants globally; it provided a channel for benchmarking operational excellence and also enabled the participants to discuss ways to further improve safety at facilities.
“Operational safety is continuously improving due to collective commitment to applying IAEA safety standards, reflecting the highest level of safety based on the current state of practice, and sharing universal values such as leadership and safety culture,” said Greg Rzentkowski, Director of IAEA Nuclear Installation Safety Division. “Recognizing that operating culture may differ globally, we proactively reach out to relevant stakeholders to support their efforts in improving organizational competencies and capabilities and thereby operational safety.”
Dan Bigu, Site Vice President of the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant in Romania, shared his insights on his company’s journey to improve and sustain high operational safety performance. These included: set a vision to be amongst the top in ensuring safety, establish high expectations and communicate to all employees how the vision of excellence is to be reached and critically monitoring plant performance with established processes, establish a long-term plan for improvement and adopt a management model that is closely adhered to.
“The Cernavoda plant has been an active participant and strong supporter of industry activities, such as the IAEA, World Association of Nuclear Operators, and the Institute of Nuclear Power Operation’s peer reviews, seminars and workshops,” said Bigu, adding that “we have sent more than 100 experts to participate in peer review missions. The advantage in our industry is that every plant is willing to share, and we are learning and constantly benchmarking with others.”
He highlighted that these opportunities as well as lessons learned from best practices, strengthens the determination of the nuclear industry to continuously improve its performance. “When a performance indicator in our plant reflects a green status (which means very good) for more than 100 days, then our aim is to analyse and try to raise the bar higher to maintain the improvement momentum,” Bigu added.
The recording of the webinar and the meeting material can be found here.
The next upcoming Safety Talk will be on Operational Safety featuring leaders from other nuclear power plants.
To join future Talks on Operational Safety, send an email request to SafetyTalks@iaea.org.
