fleet focus - progress made on our journey to excellence
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Fleet Focus-Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence.pdfTRANSCRIPT
Introduction Overall Performance Improvements Our Focus Talent Management and Alignment Training Equipment Reliability Work Management and Outage Execution Governance and Oversight Moving Forward Station Highlights
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Inside Back Cover
Table of Contents
A year ago, we talked about essential attributes that winning teams have in common – aligning to a vision, instilling a shared philosophy of excellence, and demonstrating both a high degree of accountability and a true sense of urgency. Since then, we have been building a winning team and implementing a plan to transform how we do business. This is to make sure that we improve and sustain high performance while striving to achieve the next level. We have made good progress, progress that is helping TVA achieve its vision to be one of the nation’s leading providers of low-cost and cleaner energy by 2020. Our progress is the result of your achievements in improving how we operate and maintain our plants. This past year, over 200 employees across our fleet were recognized for making our workplace better, improving our efficiency, and making a difference.
There are those of you who step in to solve emergent issues, and those who demonstrate high standards, professionalism, and a passion to prepare for and complete quality work each day. Many of you are members of high impact teams and/or involved in peer team initiatives to identify how we can close our gaps and implement the initiatives necessary to achieve the results we need.
Employees at Sequoyah Appreciated
Browns Ferry Recognition Event
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence
-Preston Swafford, Chief Nuclear Officer
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 2
Without you, we would have only buildings of concrete, steel, and cables – no fleet. You are essential to ensuring that we function as one team and move forward on our quest for excellence. Your contributions are needed and valued in our work to help TVA achieve its vision of leading our nation toward a cleaner energy future.
It is important that we recognize our successes, how we achieved them, and how we can build on them. This will allow us to continue making progress and help our company be the nation’s leader in increased nuclear production.
Watts Bar Employees Honored
Corporate Recognition Event
Overall Performance Improvements
Safety Safety is transitioning from a priority to a core value for our fleet. The results of better recognizing and addressing hazards in our work environments and intervening when individuals are demonstrating at-risk behaviors are helping our fleet stay safer. This is evident by a declining recordable incident rate of about 50 percent from 2008. One notable accomplish-ment in this area is at Watts Bar, where TVA employees, as of September 30, 2010, had worked more than 415 days – that’s over 2.1 million work hours – without a recordable injury.
Nuclear Power Group Incident Rates
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 3
Overall Performance Improvements (continued) INPO Index At the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) Indicator Index of our fleet’s overall performance in safety and reliability was at 86.8 – a 4.8 percent improvement from FY 2009. While we still are below bottom quartile, our business plans contain specific initiatives to raise our performance to top quartile. Generation and Reliability As our operating performance improved, fleet generation increased approximately 0.55 percent from FY 2009, less than we planned. Contributing to strong reliability were continuous runs (as of September 30, 2010) of
564 days by Browns Ferry Unit 1 and 509 days by Sequoyah Unit 1. The 564-day run by Browns Ferry Unit 1 is a record for the unit and an achieve-ment that began seven years ago with one of the most extensive recovery efforts undertaken in the industry at an operating plant. While these runs are significant, more important is that they were achieved by making the right decisions, doing the right work in a high-quality manner, and working as one team.
One contributing factor to generation being lower than planned was thermal derates at Browns Ferry. During the planning cycle, we included 545,000 megawatt-hours (mWh) of lost generation from thermal derates for the three Browns Ferry units because of expected drought conditions for the summer months. Due to even warmer than expected river temperatures, actual thermal derates were over 1.6 million MWh. The Nuclear Power Group (NPG) has a project underway to reduce the probability for thermal derates in the future. The project includes construction of a new tower and upgrades to four of the existing towers to lower thermal output to the river and to provide upgraded, high-voltage power to support the additional loads and cooling tower transformer redundancy.
INPO Index
Equivalent Availability Factor
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 4
Overall Performance Improvements (continued) Outage Execution Another significant accomplishment for the fleet this past fiscal year was the completion of three refuelings within the durations committed to in our business plans. Since 2008, we have reduced the number of days per refueling outage from 46 to 33 days, with top-quartile performance in the industry at 27 days. A number of initiatives are underway to help us continue to perform safer outages with quality completion of all work on schedule and within budget.
Refueling Outage Performance
Outage Management - As a fleet, this is our opportunity to excel. Outages are where we have the greatest opportunity to demonstrate excellence in all aspects of safety, work productivity, and cost control. By adhering strongly to our fundamentals and core values, we act as one team and one fleet when planning and executing outages.
NPG Outage Management Fundamentals
⇒ Prepare for Outage Success
⇒ Develop and Maintain Effective Outage Plans
⇒ Demonstrate Intolerance for Unexpected Equipment Failure During Outages
⇒ Promote Flawless Outage Execution
⇒ Engage as a Team
⇒ Demonstrate Process Rigor and Coordination
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 5
Our Focus Part of our success was due to focusing on several key initiatives, taking specific actions, and ensuring that we achieved the right results to move the fleet forward at a pace meeting or exceeding industry expectations. We aligned our efforts in FY 2010 around five focus areas:
Talent Management and Alignment
Training Equipment Reliability
Work Management and Outage Execution Governance and Oversight
In each of these areas, progress is evident.
Talent Management and Alignment
Day-to-day progress can be hard to see, but if you review the collective progress of our focus on talent management and alignment, the results are clear.
Building Our Team We are hiring internal candidates for 81 percent of our supervising management opportunities, achieving the goal we set when we established our initial fleet focus areas in 2009. The nuclear fleet has taken a lead role in the company’s push for ownership and accountability through a renewed focus on developing internal talent. Since beginning that initiative, we have met quarterly without fail – that’s six times as of the end of September 2010 – to obtain input on our succession plan. Succession planning identifies where individuals can provide additional contributions to NPG and other organizations across TVA. One tool we use is the 9-box process, which considers both an employee’s performance and potential for advancement. From February to December 2009, when we began aligning our team, we hired internally for only 58 percent of promotional opportunities. Between January and August 2010, we increased internal selections of supervising managers by 23 percent, bringing us over our 80 percent goal. We will continue to fill about 20 percent of our open positions with external talent to avoid becoming too insular – that’s a good business practice.
January 2010 - August 2010
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 6
Talent Management and Alignment (continued) In analyzing our progress, the numbers show that about 35 percent – or slightly more than one-third – of NPG employees have been with TVA more than 10 years. Over one-fourth – about 26 percent – of the supervisory positions filled in the past 18 months were by individuals with more than 10 years at TVA, with about 44 percent filled by those who have been with TVA for less than two years. The 44 percent is not surprising based on initiatives undertaken the past two years to improve operations, such as bringing nuclear security functions in-house. We also continued to build depth in our organization during the year through several initiatives, such as senior reactor operator certifications, on-loan assignments to INPO, and rotations of individuals to new positions and locations. Aligning Our Team This past year, we successfully implemented the Chief Nuclear Officer (CNO) Strategy. The strategy, which identified short-term actions, aligned the leadership team, strengthened governance and oversight, and established a sense of urgency for sustainable improvement. The strategy allowed us to quickly address fleet issues with fleet-wide solutions and to achieve specific performance improvements within a year. A key initiative in the CNO Strategy was the realignment of functions across the fleet to improve performance and operations and better leverage resources. With a solid foundation established, we rolled out the Nuclear Operating Model (NOM), which now serves as our playbook for defining operating and organizational philosophies, performance standards, and ownership of business operations. The NOM integrates excellence into all aspects of operations – safety, people, production, and costs. We identified 29 performance metrics that are our basis for defining fleet excellence and for measuring our progress.
NPG Functional Alignment
Establishes clear lines of responsibility and accountability
Reduces fragmentation within corporate and site groups
Standardizes how the sites are structured,
recognizing some differences are necessary to support three-unit operations at Browns Ferry
Establishes an effective corporate governance
and oversight role
Provides individuals with opportunities to further develop their skills and talent
Manages attrition
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 7
In developing the targets for each metric, we used a process that incorporated BHAGs – Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals. The BHAGs will push us to think outside of our comfort zone and challenge our team to achieve our milestones.
Using our metrics, we took business planning to the next level, developing five-year, gap-based plans. The NPG business plans define gaps by comparing current performance to levels the fleet seeks to achieve by 2015 and provide detailed initiatives to address those gaps. The business plans specifically identify the means to secure resources to make necessary improvements.
OSHA Recordable Injury Rate
Collective Radiation Exposure
Total Industrial Safety Accident Rate
Human Performance
Employee Engagement
Succession Planning/ Talent Management
INPO Index
Net Generation
Schedule Adherence
Schedule Stability
High Critical Component Failure
Degraded/
Non-Conforming Conditions
Safety System Performance
Operating Period Force Loss Rate
Reactivity Management
Index
Unit Capability Factor
Unplanned SCRAMS
Total Non-fuel O&M and Capital Spending
Non-Fuel O&M Costs
(mills/kWh)
Capital Expenses
O&M Expenses
Fuel Costs (mills/kWh)
Fuel Reliability Defects
Net Capacity Factor
Chemistry Effectiveness Indicator
Elective Maintenance
Backlog
Reportable Environmental Events
Total Refueling Outage Days
Total Production Cost (Capital, O&M, Fuel)
Metrics for Excellence
Talent Management and Alignment (continued)
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 8
Talent Management and Alignment (continued) To further strengthen alignment across our fleet, we will continue to keep you informed about our performance and where we stand within our industry. The information will come from a variety of sources, such as our Nuclear Fleet Focus Book, Fundamentals, CNO roundtables, quarterly business plan reviews, and first-line supervisor and above meetings.
Our Fleet Fundamentals
Fleet Focus Book
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 9
Training To help TVA achieve its new vision for leading the nation in clean energy and increasing nuclear production, our fleet must have a highly-skilled workforce ready to support additional units. Therefore, this past year, we focused significant attention on increasing, as well as improving training, in
order to provide the right training to the right people at the right time. We utilized the Systematic Approach to Training (SAT) for line and training personnel and took actions to make sure that our training decisions were student centered and SAT based. Procedures and Materials Upgraded Our efforts paid off with the implementation of new, industry-standard training procedures in May 2010. In accordance with the new processes, Chemistry Training and Maintenance Supervisor Training are in the final stages of implementing new training program descriptions. We also took actions to ensure that the line owned training content and the Training organization owned the process, resulting in our training materials modeling line standards for the conduct of work activities. Initial License Training The Initial Licensing Training (ILT) Program and the exam process, which we continue to closely monitor, were elevated to industry standards. By increasing academic rigor and better preparing license candidates for their Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) examinations, the fleet success rate of initial license candidates is expected to improve from an average of 54 percent in 2009 to greater than 85 percent in the 2011 to 2012 timeframe.
The chart shows performance prior to enhancements being made to the ILT Program and expected results from classes which will receive partial and full benefit of the changes.
In the summer of 2010, there were approximately
330 candidates in our initial
training pipeline.
Initial License Training Performance
Members of the Watts Bar Initial License Training Class 10-08
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 10
Training (continued) Specialty Skill Training The fundamental skill examinations developed for our Maintenance Training Programs are now being used by Curriculum Review Committees to increase the level and depth of specialty skills of craft workers. Specifically, we have begun to develop a shop organization for implementing the Specialty Crew qualifications and revising the Level 4 training program to implement specialty skill training. This provides advanced training for specialized equipment, systems, and components, which will enable craft workers to serve as subject matter experts to better support equipment reliability initiatives. This will lead to a reduction in our reliance on contractors and vendors. Key Training Initiatives Fundamental assessments were conducted across the Nuclear Engineering organization during the year. These assessments were used to identify training initiatives to help Nuclear Engineering carry out its mission to prevent unanticipated equipment failures; to maintain design control, configuration management, and other technical programs; and to ensure we meet top industry standards for equipment reliability and unit production costs. Technical human performance training for Nuclear Engineering employees was implemented to improve our ability to prevent and detect errors during technical, knowledge-based work.
Through a partnership with Chattanooga State, 14 students received Applied Science degrees in the area of Radiation Protection Technology. Many of these students had the opportunity to develop their skills while working at our sites during outages. Members of this class who maintained an 80 percent average in their core classes were the first in the nation to receive Nuclear Uniform Curriculum Program certificates, indicating they have completed a program that meets nuclear industry accreditation.
In a revised portion of New Employee Experience, new employees are provided essential information about the fleet and how it operates. The nuclear power portion of the orientation to TVA includes specific training on the NOM, the NPG Business Plan, a Safety Conscious Work Environment, and Maximo. These are fundamental to building initial alignment of how we will achieve our mission and carry out our business. Other initiatives include enhancing plant access, radiation worker, fitness for duty, and respirator training materials and having employees complete initial and requalification training through the NANTeL system.
Chattanooga State Graduates
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 11
Training (continued) The Executive Training Council (ETC) and Central Joint Training Committee (CJTC) were revitalized through higher levels of participation and engagement. The ETC is an executive committee, which provides management oversight, direction, and accountability for implementation and maintenance of all accredited training programs. The CJTC provides oversight of the Joint Training Plan. The governance and over-sight provided by these groups ensures the fleet effectively and consistently implements the SAT process to drive performance, reviews quantitative pre-measures to evaluate performance, and executes training that will improve performance. Monitoring Our Progress To monitor the effectiveness of the training initiatives, we established performance indicators for the fleet that align with industry standards. These indicators provide an in-depth look at performance in key areas of training so that prompt corrective actions can be taken if performance begins to decline in particular areas. Centralizing InProcessing and Training
On September 15, 2010, the new NPG In-Processing and Training Center opened, and did so with the designation of being TVA’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Building. Depending on employment needs, approximately 2,000 to 5,000 workers will process through the facility each year. Centralizing the orientation and training functions will further sharpen our focus on employee training and improve the consistency and efficiency in training of personnel. Approximate savings of $1 million per nuclear unit outage are expected from the in-processing improvements. The In-Processing and Training Center is located in the Jackson County Industrial Park in Scottsboro, Alabama. Location was a key factor in NPG’s decision to locate in the industrial park. The park is mid-way between the fleet’s three nuclear plants and corporate offices. The building on the property also was an important factor, allowing TVA to save time and money by modifying a facility rather than building a new one.
The LEED designation of the In-Processing and Training Center was earned through the incorpo-ration of high levels of insulation, energy efficient lighting and controls, and an efficient water source heat pump HVAC system. As part of the LEED sustainable site qualifications, the center uses water efficient landscaping and plumbing, as well as, renewable power through Green Power Switch.
Fleet Training Indicators
Training Program Health Report Summary
ILT/Exam Milestones
Throughput (Senior Reactor Operator/Reactor Operator)
Qualification Events
Training Schedule Adherence
Qualification Index
Training Attendance
Management Observations of Training
Training Staffing
Training Effectiveness Measures
Systematic Approach to Performance Matrix Quality
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 12
Equipment Reliability
One of the most significant challenges our fleet has faced is equipment reliability. We are meeting the challenge with a rigorous and comprehensive Equipment Reliability Program that we based on industry-best practices.
We are seeing measurable results, such as fewer reliability clock resets, longer periods of time between resets, and improved equipment reliability indexes. For example, as of September 30, 2010, Browns Ferry Unit 1 had operated over 392 days without an equipment reliability clock reset and had been on-line for 564 continuous days. Sequoyah Unit 1 achieved a record run of more than 509 continuous days. The improvements are moving us closer to our goal for highly reliable equipment in support of our core value of safety. The Equipment Reliability Program integrates and coordinates a broad range of equipment reliability activities. It allows us to evaluate important station equipment; to develop and implement long-term equipment health plans; to monitor equipment condition and performance; and to continually make adjustments to preventive maintenance (PM) tasks and frequencies based on equipment operating experience.
Equipment Reliability Index
Equipment Reliability Clock Resets
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 13
Equipment Reliability (continued)
Material Condition Improvements A crucial component of the program is the Material Condition Improvement Plan, which is part of a Plant System Vulnerability Review to identify conditions that have the potential to cause operational issues. Using the review over the past year, we identified improvements for six systems at Sequoyah and Watts Bar. Twenty initial systems at Browns Ferry have been evaluated.
Fewer Critical Component Failures Another benefit we have recognized through a stronger focus on equipment reliability is a reduction of high critical component failures at all three sites. A key factor to this success has been the reclassification of components to ensure that we perform the right maintenance on the right components at the right time. This has had the most significant impact at Browns Ferry which is leading the fleet in implementing the new equipment reliability standards. Improving Risk Evaluations To better maintain the nuclear safety margin, we began preparing to implement a more robust probabilistic on-line risk assessment tool – Equipment Out of Service (EOOS). This will provide quicker, more comprehensive evaluations of risk profiles for changing plant configurations due to maintenance activities and/or equipment failures. Browns Ferry and Watts Bar began using EOOS on a trial-use basis in September and implementation at Sequoyah is planned for July 2011.
Key Material Condition Improvements
Browns Ferry ⇒ Replaced the normal level control valves for moisture separators ⇒ Modified main steam isolation valve actuators to use hydraulic fluid ⇒ Included in business planning initiatives the replacement of obsolete
controls for the high-pressure coolant injection and reactor core isolation cooling systems
Sequoyah ⇒ Installing digital feedwater controls on Unit 1 ⇒ Modified the rod control power supply to be lightning hardened ⇒ Upgrading the Sequoyah switchyard to eliminate vulnerability for a
dual-unit trip
Watts Bar ⇒ Refurbishing the essential raw cooing water pump shafts ⇒ Installing a new spare common service station transformer to eliminate the need to share with Sequoyah ⇒ Upgrading the chillers for the main control room and shutdown
board room
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 14
Equipment Reliability (continued)
Fire Protection Another significant effort made this year in the area of equipment reliability was to respond to violations identified in the NRC’s 2009 Triennial Fire Protection Inspection at Browns Ferry. Part of this effort involved establishment of a team this past summer to focus on the necessary work to improve the material condition of fire protection equipment, upgrade fire protection procedures, and improve compliance with federal regulations. Sharing Information We improved the sharing of internal operating experience and lessons learned from equipment reliability challenges through
fleet-wide equipment reliability forums established by Nuclear Engineering. These forums bring together departments and levels within NPG to make sure that all ideas and inputs are collected and discussed so that we can drive improvements across the fleet. The forums also provide the fleet with an opportunity to present best practices that meet
or exceed industry excellence standards, such as the Long-Term Major Maintenance Program initiative at Watts Bar. During the summer, a two-day NPG Equipment Reliability Workshop was held in Chattanooga to further build on the initial success of the equipment reliability forums. The
purpose of the workshop was to bring the site and corporate equipment reliability teams together so they could build a common language and vision of equipment reliability excellence. The participants included representatives from Chemistry, Nuclear Engineering, Operations, Maintenance, Work Control, and Supply Chain. The teams reviewed the elements of the equipment reliability matrix to identify our weakest and strongest attributes, develop top focus areas, and assign actions and owners.
Welder Randall Owens makes a repair on a
6-inch fire protection pipe at Browns Ferry.
Two equipment reliability forums have been held to date.
The Equipment Reliability Workshop brought together
site and corporate personnel.
Steve Farlett works on potential corrective actions as part of an
activity at the Equipment Reliability Workshop.
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 15
Work Management and Outage Execution To help us better plan and work as a team, we participated in a company-wide initiative last year focused on maintenance, work management, and outage execution improvements.
Work Management Working with DeWolff, Boberg and Associates, we concentrated on business processes and communications across working groups because those are the areas that tend to break down first. From this initiative and other efforts, we began seeing results - improved leadership and oversight behaviors; stronger schedule adherence and stability; reduced maintenance backlogs; and better execution of our PM Program. The strongest results were seen at Browns Ferry and Watts Bar. We are beginning to see improvements at Sequoyah which just finished implementing changes from the initiative. A weekly review by Work Control at Browns Ferry and a concerted effort by the station’s Fix-It-Now Team has produced a significant reduction in corrective maintenance backlogs since April 2010.
Ownership, oversight, and accountability, along with process changes have improved schedule stability at Browns Ferry by about 20 percent since February 2010.
At Watts Bar, daily schedule accountability meetings are driving the understanding of issues associated with completing scheduled work. Lessons learned are being incorporated into future work week schedules.
Watts Bar Schedule Adherence
Browns Ferry Schedule Stability
Browns Ferry Corrective Maintenance Backlogs
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 16
Work Management and Outage Execution (continued) Process improvements, such as monitoring the daily influx of elective maintenance work orders and scheduling a consistent number of work orders above the average number, is generating a constant decline in backlogs at Watts Bar. Using the 13th week as a non-train and non-division work week focused on elective maintenance backlogs also have played a key role in the reductions. PM items in grace at Watts Bar have been reduced. This has been accomplished through stronger schedule adherence, moving the ordering of long-lead material items to a year in advance, identifying changes in the frequency of performing PM activities, and using the Ready-Ready Process to ensure work is done as scheduled. Outage Execution The key changes that improved outage execution last year were:
⇒ Establishing bodacious - bold and remarkable - outage goals to challenge ourselves and our vendors.
⇒ Using our High Impact Teams to understand why we have certain gaps with critical path activities and then aggressively accomplishing actions to close the gaps.
⇒ Implementing the Ready-Ready Process to help make sure work orders were ready and staged for use.
⇒ Scripting the first 96 hours to validate and potentially improve durations of evolutions.
⇒ Charging the Outage Control Center with a leadership role to drive the schedule and respond to emerging issues while looking ahead to ensure that we are prepared to address hard spots and coordination issues.
Watts Bar Elective Maintenance Backlogs
Watts Bar PMs Scheduled Greater than 50 Percent of Grace
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 17
Outage Execution (continued) ⇒ Transforming corporate support from a reference source to one that
identifies outage performance gaps and supports the stations in closing those gaps, as well as addressing significant issues that arise during an outage and monitoring performance on a daily basis using key indicators and resource allocation curves.
⇒ Establishing alliances with companies that perform critical outage work and working with them to review common execution opportunities and long-term improvement initiatives.
Governance and Oversight
During the past year, the Governance and Oversight model that we developed has transformed corporate from a reference source to a leadership role. Corporate now ensures that programs and standards are in place to drive high performance, closely tracks and trends
performance, and provides support necessary to address significant site-specific issues. By implementing more effective governance and intrusive oversight, the corporate organization is helping the stations achieve and sustain better performance.
Our Alliance Partners
AREVA/DZ, LLC - Refuel Floor
GE - Turbine, Browns Ferry Siemens - Turbine, Sequoyah and Watts Bar
Day & Zimmerman - Maintenance and Modifications
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 18
Governance and Oversight (continued)
Value of Quality Assurance Essential to the transformation was a steady improvement in the role of Quality Assurance (QA) to be intrusive and to provide analytic oversight. Throughout the year, the line has demonstrated more support of QA and demonstrated marked improvement in following up on key issues identified by QA. Several key projects within the QA organization were completed, resulting in improved assessment and audit templates and increased guidance in evaluating performance attributes. These improvements in the structure and process of evaluation and development of issues were noted by the World Association of Nuclear Operators, INPO, and in the Nuclear Industry Evaluation Process Review. Corporate Functional Area Managers Another contribution to improving fleet performance was full implementation of the Corporate Functional Area Manager (CFAM) group. Our fleet now has corporate managers for each major plant functional area - Operations, Maintenance, Radiation Protection, Chemistry, and Work Control. These managers are augmented with selected Support Functional Area Managers. The CFAMs have been working with peer teams to develop focused initiatives for performance opportunities and to adopt industry-best practices for use by the fleet. For example, the Maintenance Peer Team, as part of efforts to reduce equipment reliability issues following maintenance activities, is implementing
more precise tensioning and torquing requirements. Another CFAM/peer team initiative was the development of a standard work order content and structure format, resulting in the utilization of the same model work order package across our fleet. To measure the success of key initiatives, the CFAMs, working with peer teams, developed and implemented departmental performance indicators for each station. The indicators show where a department stands with respect to the fleet. They are also used to develop overall site effectiveness evaluations.
Julian Wright performs a Task Performance Evaluation on the new torquing procedure.
Fleet Standard Work Order
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 19
Governance and Oversight (continued)
Strategic Council This past summer, we formed the Strategic Council to ensure alignment and provide overall direction, guidance, and support to NPG’s peer teams. The primary responsibilities of the Strategic Council are to review and challenge peer team initiatives, targets, and metrics; specific fleet performance or emergent challenges; and high-level fleet initiatives. The reviews make sure fleet activities support NPG’s overall mission, move the fleet toward sustained excellence, and help TVA achieve its vision. The focus of the council includes:
⇒ Alignment on high-priority improvement initiatives ⇒ Executive leadership assistance in resolving issues, removing barriers, and changing major programs/processes relating to high-priority improvement initiatives ⇒ High-priority projects that will result in measurable improvements in human or equipment performance
⇒ High-priority projects that will achieve targeted staffing goals and actual savings ⇒ Schedule performance of implementing high- priority projects ⇒ Performance indicators ⇒ Future improvement and/or cost-saving initiatives and projects
Strategic Council Membership
TVA Chief Nuclear Officer
Vice President, Nuclear Operations Support
(Chair)
Vice President, Nuclear Business Operations
(Alternate Chair)
Senior Vice President, Nuclear Operations
Vice President, Nuclear Engineering
Vice President, Nuclear Oversight
Vice President, Nuclear Licensing
Site Vice Presidents
General Manager,
Corporate Functional Area Management
The Strategic Council has reviewed and provided input and support on peer team initiatives designed to:
Develop and implement fleet procedures for critical component identification and system vulnerabilities
Increase ownership of probabilistic risk assessment and risk analysis
Focus on execution and accountability for on-line work management
Establish fail-safe methods to ensure surveillance requirements are met
Improve maintenance specialty skills
Implement a fleet standard for tension and torquing
Capitalize on the use of the Power Service Shop
Move the units to industry top-quartile performance for collective radiation exposure
Further minimize dose rates during outages
Improve emergency preparedness training and drill and exercise performance
Improve leadership and accountability for reactivity management
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 20
Governance and Oversight (continued)
Support for the Stations During the year, corporate assumed responsibility for several projects to help our on-site teams focus on safe, reliable operations. Corporate Nuclear Engineering continued to process a large workload tied to our recent commitment to adopt the National Fire Protection Association 805 Standard at Browns Ferry. Corporate took the lead in assembling a team to focus on material, procedural, and regulatory improvements in the Browns Ferry fire protection program as the station prepared for an inspection conducted in October 2010. At Sequoyah, the fleet took on upgrading the switchyard and provided valuable assistance with the planning and preparations for the Unit 1 refueling outage this fall. Corporate support included helping the station finalize the outage scope, loading the schedule, coordinating resources, and prioritizing pre-outage work. The Nuclear Generation Development & Construction (NGDC) organization is managing several projects that could potentially distract us from our core business and performance improvement initiatives. Currently, NGDC is overseeing technical and regulatory work for the extended power uprate project at Browns Ferry, license renewals for Sequoyah and Watts Bar, re-racking the spent fuel storage at Watts Bar, construction of Watts Bar Unit 2, and the Sequoyah Unit 2 steam generator replacement project. Moving large projects under NGDC has provided the nuclear fleet with strong project oversight, extensive experience with similar projects, and project management expertise.
Key Nuclear Licensing Improvements
There is now a corporate licensing manager for each of the operating plants who serves as the main point of contact with the NRC and is responsible for communications with NRC headquarters. This division of responsibility allows the site licensing managers to focus on the NRC resident inspectors and other NRC inspectors and inspection team members who visit the plant. Nuclear Licensing has added the new position of Manager, Regulatory Programs, to represent the NPG at industry meetings and to be the central point of contact with industry groups. The responsibility for being the single point of contact with INPO now resides with the Nuclear Licensing organization, and the role of the INPO Administrative Point of contact is being expanded. To provide additional insight on our performance, several new outside members of the Nuclear Safety Review Board (NSRB) have taken their place, beginning the periodic rotation of outside NSRB members.
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 21
Moving Forward
The results achieved this past year constitute steady progress for our fleet. We have made many improvements in our processes, programs, operations, and facilities and in how we make decisions and conduct business on a daily basis. We earned more confidence from the public, our customers, our regulators, and the industry. While we are making progress, we have more ground to cover on our journey to excellence. Our collective work produces almost one-third of TVA’s power generation. Maintaining a high level of confidence in our nuclear fleet is crucial in helping TVA achieve its vision to be the nation’s leader in improved air quality and increased nuclear production and leading the way in the Southeast in increasing energy efficiency. This requires that we – as individuals, as a team, and as a fleet – meet high standards of excellence in all phases of operating and maintaining our facilities. Moving forward, we will continue our efforts to develop the organization and to remain aligned. We will work safe; strive to prevent, detect, and correct issues before they become events; and hold ourselves and our teammates accountable for our actions, results, and attitudes. Recognizing that the unique technology we employ requires that we meet the highest standards, we will do our core business well by focusing as one fleet on five common areas:
Corrective Action and Human Performance Training
Equipment Reliability Work Management and Outage Execution
Governance, Oversight, and Support
While we have put forth effort this past year in the corrective action and human performance areas, more focus is needed. Improvements are needed in the implementation of our Corrective Action Program (CAP), and human performance issues have challenged our fleet and resulted in fourth-quartile performance by two of our stations - Browns Ferry and Sequoyah. During the coming year, we will increase the effectiveness of specific CAP elements to make sure that our analyses are thorough and that actions to resolve issues are SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. We will implement standardized fleet human performance training to help establish the right standards and more rigorous use of human performance tools. Initial and continuing human performance training will also be integrated into existing training programs. Through our key initiatives in the Corrective Action and Human Performance focus area, we will achieve the right results in the right manner, including improving our use of CAP, preventing significant events, and eliminating repeat events.
Progress Made on Our Journey to Excellence 22
I commend each of you for the progress we made this past year. As the metrics below show, we are moving in the right direction.
I look forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead. We are a good team, and by working together, we will ensure that safety always comes first and that our initiatives are implemented correctly and with the highest level of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. By doing these things and doing them well, we will be proud of our safety, reliability, overall performance, and our contribution to TVA’s reputation in our communities and as a leader in the utility industry. Thank you for what you do each and every day. And remember, we will move forward, not by working harder, but by how well we work the right things in the right order to achieve the right results.
Preston Swafford Chief Nuclear Officer
NPG Tier One Metrics - Fiscal Year 2010
Reduced Total Industrial Safety Accident Rate to .12
Improved INPO Evaluation and Assessment
Improved INPO Performance Index to 77.9
Met net capacity factor goal on each unit
Set Unit 1 continuous run record of 564 days (as of September 30, 2010)
Closed more than 250 work orders related to material condition improvements with fire protection
Achieved Unit 3 spring refueling outage business goal
Renewed Operations Training Program accreditation
Achieved top-quartile status for emergency preparedness drill and exercise indicators
Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant
Experienced no TVA OSHA recordable injuries and maintained a zero Total Industrial Safety Accident Rate
Achieved 56 no-dose days by driving improved ALARA behaviors
Moved equipment reliability performance from bottom quartile to top quartile
Reduced elective maintenance backlogs to below internal target of 350
Formed and staffed the Unit 2 Integration Team
Developed the Unit 1 integrated schedule in support of Unit 2 startup
Commenced pre-operational system testing on Unit 2
Developed a basis for dual-unit operator licenses
Renewed Operations Training Program accreditation
Completed a successful Force-on-Force Nuclear Security Exercise
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant
Sequoyah Nuclear Plant
FY 2010 Station Highlights
Reduced Total Industrial Safety Accident Rate to .046
Improved INPO Performance Index to 94.17
Achieved Unit 1 continuous run record of 509 days (as of September 30, 2010)
Achieved continuous 100% operation during summer peak period with no adverse impact on environmental permits
Completed a successful Component Design Basis Inspection
Completed installation of digital feedwater modification, removing 30 single-point vulnerabilities
Met Unit 2 fall refueling outage duration business goal
Completed a successful Force-on-Force Nuclear Security Exercise