Back2Basics
Behaviors
By Eric Olson, Entergy Nuclear.
Eric Olson
Eric Olson is site vice president at
Entergy’s River Bend Station in St.
Francisville, La. He came to River Bend
in April 2007 as the general manager
of plant operations and later took the
position of vice president. Olson has 33
years of experience in nuclear power.
He served in the
Nuclear Navy and
became an instructor
at the Nuclear Navy
Prototype in Idaho
Falls, Id. He served
on board the USS
William H. Bates
(SSN 680), a fast
attack submarine.
Olson worked at the
San Onofre Nuclear
Generating and
Palo Verde Nuclear
Generating Station,
and with Boston
Edison Company at the Pilgrim Nuclear
Power Station. Olson is a graduate of
the Wentworth Institute of Technology.
He holds a bachelor of science in
Mechanical Engineering Technology.
He was also a Nuclear Regulatory
Commission-licensed senior reactor
operator and graduate of the Institute
of Nuclear Power Operations’ Senior
Nuclear Plant Management Course.
Organizational risk, or any risk,
can be represented by a Greek equation:
E(µ
ΙΡ
,
χ
) =
ΣχεχΡ
(X)µ(X). Problem is,
that’s a little hard for practical application.
In English, this translates to: Expected
Value = (odds of gain) x (value of gain).
Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert
introduced me to this equation when I
watched his presentation, “WhyWe Make
Bad Decisions.” Gilbert said that Daniel
Bernoulli, a Greek mathematician who
formulated the equation in 1738, gave
the world a gift by providing a method to
evaluate how to do the right thing at all
possible times. While watching Gilbert’s
presentation, I realized that we had been
effectively using Bernoulli’s process at
Entergy Nuclear’s River Bend Station
since August 2012. There, we used the
equation to transform
a struggling 600-plus
employee station into
a winning culture in a
short period of time.
The River Bend equa-
tion looks only slight-
ly different than the
translated Bernoulli
equation.
At River Bend Sta-
tion, our own version of
the equation translated
to Risk = Consequence
x Probability – Mitigat-
ing Actions.
The credit for our successes goes
to the 630 nuclear professionals who
come to work every day striving to reach
new levels of excellence. They are hard-
working individuals who understand
that our job is to safely and securely
produce power for customers. Our job
is to help make the lives of those in our
community better. Bernoulli’s equation
helped convert River Bend Station from
a reactive workforce to a team that
is constantly and proactively looking
for new and creative solutions to our
challenges and opportunities.
Bernoulli’s equation also helped us
differentiate required work from work
that could be given a lower priority,
which in turn mitigated unanticipated
issues. This allowed our team members
to have a significantly improved work/
life balance. But, most importantly, it
allowed our organization to align around
a fundamental approach so that we
could come together as a team to do the
right work at the right time to prevent
unanticipated issues.
In recent years, River Bend Station
had experienced inconsistent performance
that did not meet expectations. We needed
a game-changer.
The plant’s leadership team initially
conducted a common cause evaluation
for critical component issues over a two-
year period. The analysis revealed that the
River Bend Station organization did not
exhibit an aligned, operationally focused,
risk-based culture. We did not execute
well, and our leaders were not intrusive in
their organizations and in understanding
the actual standards that existed, rather
than the ones they expected to exist.
The plant did have a good integrated
risk process that was working to protect
the plant from active work. Our issue
was around the work we were not doing
which we termed ‘passive’ risk. Passive
risk is found in the plant’s backlogs:
unmitigated single point vulnerabilities;
first time high critical preventive
maintenance; deferred, late or deep-
in-grace preventive maintenance; and
extent of condition actions buried in the
corrective actions backlog. The majority
of our equipment reliability issues were
found in these backlogs.
Using the risk equation, the plant’s
leadership ranked backlogs by highest
risk and applied the appropriatemitigation
actions, such as appropriate preventive
maintenance activities, to prevent failures
before they occurred.
We needed strong communication
tools to align the organization. Also, we
needed team building initiatives to break
River Bend Station employees
celebrate Earth Day.
52
NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, September-October 2014
Entergy’s River Bend Employees Credited
