CRA’s Assistance to Westinghouse AP1000 Human Factors Safety Case (HFSC)

Westinghouse Electric Company (WEC) recently engaged CRA to provide the steer for developing the WEC UK HFSC submission to the UK Nuclear Directorate (ND) for the Generic Design Assessment of their AP1000 NPP design. The ‘hands on’ steering group comprised CRA SQEPs Jim Edmunds, Charles Shepherd, Colin Taylor and Jasbir Sidhu. Bill Gall of Kingsley Management was the final member of the steering group.  The role of the steering group was to ensure that the work of the technical execution team, which comprised Serco and Westinghouse team members, produced the desired results.  CRA were instrumental in setting the scene on what was required for a HFSC submission to the UK ND.  Also, CRA developed the workshops that needed to be conducted in order to elicit the HFSC from WEC.  Three intensive workshops (each lasting a week!) were conducted at the WEC offices at Cranberry Woods, Pittsburgh.  CRA facilitated in asking the “right questions” from the WEC technical experts on the AP1000 design for the UK HFSC.

CRA’s Project Manager and Human Factors Specialist, Jim Edmunds stated:

“This project represented an exciting opportunity for CRA to get involved in the detail of the AP1000 design, and illustrated the benefit of CRA’s fully integrated holistic approach to Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Human Factors Assessment.”

CRA’s Director and Workshop Facilitator, Jasbir Sidhu stated:

“Although very stressful and demanding, it was extremely rewarding to engage with WEC technical experts who were mostly ex-operators of NPPs, and were fully conversant with the AP 1000 design.”

CRA’s Chief Consultant and Safety Case Specialist, Colin Taylor stated:

"As we all know in the UK, submitting a ‘good’ safety case for assessment in the UK is not just about the depth of technical knowledge, it is also about how you share and present that knowledge on paper to defend your safety claims with appropriate and coherent safety arguments and evidence.”

CRA look forward to developing their working relationship with WEC, Serco and Kingsley Management for mutual benefit in to the future.