eWP
Application
By Lee Rogers, Electric Power Research
Institute.
Lee Rogers
Lee Rogers is a Senior Project Manager
in the Nuclear Plant Technology area
at the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI). He leads research projects
focused on nuclear
plant work planning,
work planner training,
maintenance engineer
fundamentals
training, foreign
materials exclusion,
maintenance program
assessments, power
uprates, plant startup
testing, preventative
maintenance
development and
equipment reliability.
Rogers has 34 years of experience in
commercial nuclear power. Before
joining EPRI in 2005, he worked at
Progress Energy’s Brunswick nuclear
plant (a boiling water reactor) and at
Florida Power and Light’s St. Lucie
nuclear plant (a pressurized water
reactor) for a combined 28 years.
Rogers received a bachelor’s degree in
nuclear engineering from the University
of Florida and a master’s in business
administration from Florida Institute
of Technology. He has published more
than 25 EPRI Technical Reports and has
performed consulting and training in
nine countries outside the US.
An interview by Newal Agnihotri,
Editor of Nuclear Plant Journal at
the American Nuclear Society Utility
Working Conference in Hollywood,
Florida on August 11, 2013.
1.
How does the eWP enable operation,
maintenance, and outage management,
planning and scheduling?
There is a lot to be gained in the area
of planning and scheduling through the
use of eWPs. Paper-based work packages
require workers and supervisors to log
into the work management system or
scheduling system and manually update
task status as the task progresses. This
distracts workers and supervisor from the
task itself. Tasks performed on an eWP can
be linked to a plant’s existing planning and
scheduling software so task status is more
up-to–date and accurate and durations
can be collected for future duration and
man-loading estimates. eWP-automated
schedule updating also
relieves workers and
supervisors of one
more manual data entry
administrative task.
2.
Is the Elec-
tronic Work Package
(eWP) applicable to
outage
management
challenges?
Absolutely. There
are thousands of criti-
cal path and near criti-
cal path activities in the
typical outage. Just managing some of
the key elements for successful outage
implementation such as communication,
task status, schedule compliance, delay
notifications, and outage lessons learned
can be greatly enhanced with eWPs. Ad-
ditionally, nuclear work processes are
very complex and include numerous pro-
grammatic checks and balances. Another
one of the major benefits eWPs are ex-
pected to bring to both outages and online
activities is to significantly streamline
the implementation of these checks and
balances, which will allow workers and
supervisors to concentrate on proper task
performance, thereby increasing produc-
tivity (wrench time) and work quality.
3.
Does the eWP allow conversion of
vendor instruction manuals?
Yes. Most nuclear plants, however,
were constructed long before the advent
of electronic document management
systems and consequently some plant’s
vendor technical manuals are only in hard
copy. Some plants have already taken
the initiative to scan vendor technical
manuals into their records management
systems, which will allow access to them
as an electronic document.
4.
Does the eWP allow conversion of
maintenance procedures, plant operating
procedures, and other documents
required for operating and maintaining
the nuclear power plants?
Yes, this is a major area where eWPs
can be used to improve productivity and
quality. Any existing plant electronic
record would be accessible to the eWP.
Existing, inexpensive and readily
available electronic document software
already provides the option for an
individual to use their current documents
in the electronic format in lieu of a paper
format.
Something worth mentioning is that
eWPs enable what we are calling “smart”
procedures and also data-rich procedures.
Just a few examples of where critical
procedures could be identified and
modified to smart or data-rich procedures
include:
•
Human performance attributes.
For example, data entry outside
an expected or acceptable range
would be automatically highlighted
or require some additional action
(notify supervisor or control room)
prior to allowing the performer to
proceed.
•
As-found preventive maintenance
data could be electronically sent
to system or component engineers
or automatically entered into a
data analysis program designed to
trend equipment performance and
detect degraded equipment before
equipment failure.
•
Workers could access component or
task specific videos either at a pre-
job brief or while performing a task
in the field that explains in detail
how and why a particular step in the
procedure is to be performed.
5.
Does the eWP permit wireless
networking?
Yes, although eWP solutions must
include the ability for workers to use the
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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, September-October 2013
