Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2014 NuclearPlantJournal.com
47
Carlos Williams
Carlos Williams has worked at Palo
Verde Nuclear Generating Station for
more than 28 years.
He has held staff
positions in various
groups including
Nuclear Production,
Human Resources
and Quality
Assurance. In these
positions he has
learned a great deal
about nuclear power
plant operations and
outage management.
Since 2002 he has
been an IT Client
Manager in the Palo
Verde Information
Technology group as
well as serving as Outage IT manager
for numerous refueling outages. In
this role, he works with the Palo Verde
organization to provide technology
solutions for the business needs.
Carlos has been collaborating with
Idaho National Laboratory and other
industry groups to provide sustainable
information technology improvements
for Palo Verde and the nuclear industry.
issue had been experienced at South
Texas Project. The time from issue
identification to repair at South Texas
Project was approximately 72 days.
Use of operating experience, vendor
support, and technology improvements,
including OneNote, allowed Palo Verde
Nuclear Generating Station to complete
similar repairs in approximately 32 days.
Several Palo Verde Nuclear Generating
Station managers involved in resolution
of the BMI issue said that the improved
collaboration tools helped them achieve
success in issue resolution. Some of
the specific benefits cited by using
the network-based collaboration tools
included the following:
Information Management
Enhanced organization and collection
of
information
by
including
predefined tabs in the new IRT
template.
Improved storage and retrieval of
information related to an issue by
using standardized file structure.
Improvedknowledgemanagement by
using a new search feature, combined
with organized information, allowing
complex searches across issues.
Collaboration
Enhanced sharing of information
by using large touch screens during
team meetings.
Enhanced organization and collection
of information by using the new
template during the meetings.
Improved collaboration because the
standard issues package is available
and updatable from any machine on
the network, allowing collaborators
to add content and update status
remotely.
Improved and seamless transition
of transferring an issue to another
responsible
organization
for
implementation.
Superior
remote
real-time
collaboration due to the use of
WebEx and video cameras. This
option was used on a limited basis
due to the close proximity of the IRT
team room to the OCC.
Enhanced Status Updates
Enhanced briefing capability. The
IRT leader can display the entire
standard issues package in the OCC
and use it for briefing the Shift
Outage Director.
Enhanced status
updates.
The
Shift
Outage
Director started
reviewing the
standard issues
package from
the OCC be-
tween updates,
improving his
understanding
of the status
and reduced his
need to call the
IRT for updates.
Enhanced access
to information.
The standard is-
sues package can
be brought up on any network com-
puter, allowing subject matter experts
and managers the opportunity to view,
from their office, all the collected in-
formation and contribute content.
Implementation of a new technology
may fail due to a lack of training, poor se-
lection of tools, or a perceived increased
workload by staff. Additionally, too many
changes at once can have a compounding
effect during implementation. For these
reasons, the technology application (i.e.,
collaboration and communication tools)
was initially limited to the IRT process.
The reactions of the staff using the new
tools were documented. In general, the
feedback from the IRT staff was positive.
The following additional observations
were generated from Palo Verde Nuclear
Generating Station staff’s use of the new
collaboration tools:
Use of the standard issues package
simplified shift turnover.
The technology enhanced the ability
to quickly review information in one
location and allow others to quickly
understand complex issues.
After his first exposure to the
new collaboration tools, the Work
Management Director said he wanted
touch panels installed prior to the
next refueling outage, replacing all
the dry erase boards used for status
tracking in the OCC.
The Nuclear Engineering Director
indicated that he was going to start
using the collaboration tool for his
weekly update meetings.
After a brief introduction to the
collaboration tool, the Maintenance
OCC team converted their logs to
OneNote and started using it to
collaborate with the individual shops.
The Maintenance group was not part
of the initial technology deployment,
but adopted the tools on their own to
help save time and printing costs.
In summary, the initial study of
AOCC technology at the Palo Verde
(Continued on page 64)
Updated Unit 2 Outage Control
Center Video Wall.
