Overview //
The renaissance of the nuclear industry has initiated construction of more than 80 nuclear power plants globally over the next 15 years. The experience and knowledge required to meet the increased demand has identified a global need to capture knowledge. One source of critical knowledge that needs to be captured and managed is the aging workforce that holds decades of tribal knowledge and is nearing retirement. Another source of vital knowledge that needs to be captured is from construction consortiums working on current projects, where lessons learned can be leveraged to maximize efficiency, reduce costs and minimize the time required to achieve plant start up for future construction projects. The challenge for the nuclear industry is to determine how to capture and support the transfer of tribal knowledge to successors to minimize the impact on rework, increase employee efficiency and reduce cost.
In an effort to address these challenges, industry thought leaders are assembling a set of guidelines for the capture and identification of lessons learned, industry best practices, human performance, design changes, component history, training and other processes. The creation and refinement of knowledge is continuous, so the solution must be dynamic, and managed through change, while also being timely. The solution must be able to identify, manage and bridge the critical knowledge, while making it easy to find, easy to understand the context, and easy to access. And, due to its sensitivity, the information must be kept secure.
Enterprise Informatics offers a practitioners’ approach to knowledge management based on best practices which conform to emerging guidelines from the International Atomic Energy Agency and leverage the nuclear process definitions established by the Standard Nuclear Performance Model.
INPO is a registered trademark of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. References to INPO and its guidelines do not represent endorsement of Enterprise Informatics' products.
Capture, retain and share critical knowledge
Create a dynamic learning organization that will prepare your enterprise for the nuclear renaissance.
Business Values
"The ePIC Performance Monitoring functions are closely linked to Constellation’s commitment to Knowledge Transfer and Retention. Integrated with the Corrective Action Program and other business processes, KT&R addresses the risk of losing experienced individuals and identifies gaps in process and program health. With eB, information is readily accessible in a predetermined object modeling system, so personnel turnover does not affect process efficiency and safety.
- Jeffrey Germain, R.E. Ginna Nuclear Plant
Throughout the nuclear facility life cycle information is created by knowledge workers, lessons are learned and best practices are created and improved. The nuclear industry’s challenge is how to identify, organize, capture and easily provide the knowledge created in the various stages of the life cycle. The ability to identify, manage and relate knowledge from best practices, human experience, industry communities of practice, changes to plant configuration, regulations, training and lessons learned, to stages of the life cycle offers significant business value and impact on cost savings. The objective of a quality knowledge management program is to create a dynamic learning organization that will:
- Minimize the impact of worker mobility
- Maintain high levels of information integrity
- Reduce costs through availability of knowledge that enhances quality collaboration and minimizes impact on work schedules caused by rework and repeatable errors
Not having a robust program to capture past knowledge has increased the loss of nuclear knowledge base and is having a significant impact on the many new plant nuclear projects in progress today. In the United States the newest nuclear power plants started contributing to the energy grid in the mid-1980s, resulting in a significant time gap in the development of new nuclear plants. This latency in the evolution of nuclear power has affected the industry by reducing the number of nuclear university programs and discouraging new engineers from pursuing disciplines in the nuclear field. With the recent renaissance of nuclear power in the United States the demand for nuclear power professionals is in high demand, and with many seasoned professionals nearing retirement the issue of how to capture operational experience gained through experience and tribal knowledge continues to be a challenge.
Enterprise Informatics’ eB for Nuclear provides a business solution for the knowledge management problem by leveraging current business processes and bridging information assets from all nuclear information sources together, including human behavior and performance. This process has already been validated by Enterprise Informatics’ customers and was presented at the ANS conference in August 2008. New projects are now using eB for Nuclear to support their Knowledge Management needs through the creation of a ‘Book of Knowledge’ that identifies and manages knowledge that can be reused when building multiple nuclear facilities.
Some of the benefits of using eB for Knowledge Management include:
- Easy access to all relevant knowledge by knowledge worker
- Capture and identify tribal knowledge
- New workforce becomes effective faster
- Reduce rework through lessons learned
- Share information and best practices across business processes
- Visibility to knowledge between processes and Human Behavior
- Manage and bridge static knowledge through change
- Mine and evaluate the impact of human behavior on knowledge
- Leverage existing industry business processes to implement knowledge management
Next Tab: Applications
Applications
Knowledge Management requires an information management platform that identifies all enterprise information associated with business processes, and the people that impact, participate or have responsibility for these processes. The nuclear enterprise is in a state of constant change, driven by regulatory requirements, lessons learned from communities of practice, incidents and human behavior. Effective Knowledge Management requires the ability to transfer knowledge over time through the capture, analysis, auditing and management of changing information assets.
eB Nuclear Knowledge Management, based on eB Information Management, supports the identification of all the enterprise information assets, processes, persons and their interdependencies. It leverages the eB Nuclear Application Suite to fill the gaps found across the enterprise in specific areas such as the capture of tribal knowledge. eB enables the capture of this information to ensure it is available when needed and to minimize the risk of vulnerability in areas where knowledge workers will no longer be available to support the transfer of knowledge.
Applications:
- Licensing
- Design engineering
- Human performance
- Corrective action
- Cable/Raceway
- Controlled documents
- Records management
- Project document control
- Requirements management
- Training
Next Tab: Technology
Technology
Built upon an advanced Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), eB uses the latest Microsoft technologies. Developed with the same technologies as SharePoint, eB embraces Microsoft's .NET framework to form the foundation of its application server tier, web services and user interfaces. This architecture allows eB to easily be integrated to other business critical applications.
eB is compatible with Windows 7 and certified for Windows Server 2008. Enterprise Informatics is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.
The eB architecture is proven to be enterprise scalable and highly reliable, and offers the flexibility to adapt to the unique business requirements of a diverse customer base. eB is a highly effective solution for building bridges between SharePoint sites across the enterprise (eB for SharePoint) and other information repositories that are required to realize an effective EIM strategy.
eB for Enterprise is certified by the Institute of Configuration Management (ICM) as a four star Configuration Management software platform.
For more information visit the Technology page.
Next Tab: Resources
Resources
Nuclear Knowledge Management White Paper
eB for Nuclear Solution Brief
Nuclear Information Life Cycle Solution Brief
AmerenUE: Callaway Nuclear Plant Case Study
Constellation Energy: R.E. Ginna Nuclear Plant Case Study
Webinar: eB Nuclear Performance Improvement
A discussion and demonstration of eB’s Nuclear Performance Improvement Application. Download
Webinar: eB Nuclear Design Engineering
Further information is also available by following these links:
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Institute for Nuclear Power Operations (INPO)
Next Tab: Customers
Customers
Energy Customers // Nuclear Knowledge Management
eB Nuclear Knowledge Management is based on the processes to support Knowledge Retention, Knowledge Transfer and Collaboration. Enterprise Informatics customers are using eB solutions to provide these knowledge management objectives today. What is lacking is an industry guideline to support a common platform for terminology and process definition to move the understanding and best practices for this industry forward. The International Atomic Energy Industry is now working on a set of standards which Enterprise Informatics will align with when available.
Constellation Energy (Calvert Cliffs 1 & 2, Ginna, Nine Mile Point 1&2)
Uses eB to manage their complete Design Basis requirements consisting of the licensing documents and Master Equipment List (MEL).
CH2M Hill
Uses eB to manage all related skills and qualification needs for large multi-disciplinary projects.
AmerenUE (Callaway Plant)
Uses eB to manage their complete Design Basis requirements consisting of the licensing documents and Master Equipment List (MEL).
For more information about our customers and our nuclear products, visit the Download Center.
First Tab: Business Values
