Coping with Human Factors in Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

In the wide area of Operating Experience and Human Factors, the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) which is one of the fifteen bodies that make up the Paris based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has devoted growing activities in the specific field of Human Factors. The Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) which is one of the standing Committees of the NEA, through its Principal Working Group on Operating experience and Human Factors (PWG 1), has been particularly active, initiating studies and specialist meetings in the field of Human Factors. Numerous studies have been and continue to be undertaken to improve the understanding of the various aspects of human behaviour. The purpose of these studies is to enhance nuclear power plant safety through improvements both in human performance and in man-machine interface. The CSNI, consequently, created, over the past ten years, several "task-forces" which carried out ten human factor-related studies on issues such as quantifying human behaviour, incidents involving cognitive errors, the use of digital computers in control rooms, regulatory approaches to maintenance practices at nuclear power plants, management of maintenance outages and the effects of advanced systems on operators. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the OECD/NEA-sponsored activities in the area of human factors and present highlights of some of the conclusions that the NEA published.