- Our Programme
- Operating Reactors Support
- Expanding Nuclear Power
Plant Life Management (PLiM)
for Safe Long Term Operation (LTO)
Development of Technical Guidelines
Configuration Management for Design basis Reconstitution, Maintenance and Operation using Information Technology
Configuration management (CM) is the process of identifying and documenting the characteristics of a facility´s structures, systems and components of a facility, and of ensuring that changes to these characteristics are properly developed, assessed, approved, issued, implemented, verified, recorded and incorporated into the facility documentation.
The need for a CM system is a result of the long term operation of any nuclear power plant. The main challenges are caused particularly by ageing plant technology, plant modifications, the application of new safety and operational requirements, and in general by human factors arising from migration of plant personnel and possible human failures. The IAEA Incident Reporting System (IRS) shows that on average 25% of recorded events could be caused by configuration errors or deficiencies.
CM processes correctly applied ensure that the construction, operation, maintenance and testing of a physical facility are in accordance with design requirements as expressed in the design documentation. An important objective of a configuration management program is to ensure that accurate information consistent with the physical and operational characteristics of the power plant is available in a timely manner for making safe, knowledgeable, and cost effective decisions with confidence.
Configuration Management (CM) is mainly played by plant engineering support. This CM discipline highlights a third important area, besides operation and maintenance, in the management of NPP. It combine three types of information: physical plant/equipment, documentation and records, and safety and design requirements and try to "fill the existing gaps among these three information silos" - maintain information/data integrity throughout its creation, transfer, use, storage, retrieval, and reuse. However, once it comes to application, management support is extremely essential to its success as many others usually are. It is recommended that many NPPs in the developing countries address CM issues more proactively and the Agency continue to support such a technology transfer.
This document will describe the requirements and best practices about computer-based system for CM (information, process solution and implementation) in NPP. State-of-the-art information will include Asset Management principles, software architecture and planning, Data acquisition, collection and preparation, Integration with document managers, digital document repositories, CAD/CAE functions, legacy databases, programmes. The document will be published in 2009.
References:
- Configuration Management in Nuclear Power Plants, IAEA-TECDOC-1335, IAEA, Vienna (2003)