Nuclear Plant Journal, March-April 2015 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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There are many potential costs
associated with an underperforming
PPC. Following are the ones that were
most frequently mentioned during our
research:
• Significantly increased surveillance
requirements by craft labor
• Incomplete or ineffective trending of
plant equipment
• Increased radiation dosage and
exposure of surveillance staff
• Significantly increased control room
staffing
• Increased supply chain labor to find
and obtain obsolete parts
• Inventory tax, retention, and
management costs
• Increased on-call staff to fix emergent
issues during off-hours
• Confidence-driven nuisance calls for
suspected problems
• Performance
insurance
losses
(inadequate supporting data)
• Perception of system “currency” by
the Nuclear Safety Review Board
(NSRB), NRC and INPO and
resulting oversight
• More frequent inspections, minor
findings, and root cause analysis
activities
While by definition an imprecise
and unquantified statement, it should
be anticipated that any data processing
system installed today will have
maximum service life (run to effective/
economic failure) of nine to twelve years.
The I/O components of the system should
have an eighteen to twenty one year life
expectancy.
Refresh Strategy
The Refresh strategy combines
timely hardware updates with software
that is specifically designed to be portable
fromplatform to platformas the computer,
network, I/O and software industry
evolve through many different products.
When specific Refresh design measures
are adopted to extend the life cycle of
the installation, the Plant Application
Software service life can be extended
essentially
into
decommissioning.
Application Software management with
regard to operating system evolution and
regulatory changes are the primary keys
to success.
Refresh is specifically structured
to avoid component obsolescence
and facilitate replacement of devices
or software that might over time, or
suddenly, become an issue in the PPC
configuration. It accomplishes this
goal by modularizing the design and
standardizing the interconnections and
communication among the devices
to enable “modification friendly”
replacement of the offending components
or software. It also enables parallel
testing and validation of any change
prior to introducing it into the operating
environment.
The Refresh strategy is enabled
through the use of a software platform
that resides between the operating system
and nuclear applications. This platform
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Exhibit 2 describes the number of recorded PPC issues per year for two PPCs
modernized in 1993. Issues increase rapidly after 10 years in service.
