Best Practices in Japan of Human Resource Development for NPP O&M: Roles and Lessons From Training Centers

The use of best practices and their lateral expansion as a benchmark is one of effective methods of “knowledge management (NK)”. Best practices of human resources development were collected (selected examples are listed below) from all 11 training centers annexed to the nuclear power plants in Japan and lessons were learned for possible lateral development for improving other stakeholders’ NK. Such best practices will provide productive information for designing their own human resources development strategies. Examples of collected good practices: • Exhibition of troubles and negative legacies : The actual machineries, equipment or components, explanatory documents or news articles of the past troubles experienced by themselves are effective to maintain and refresh the awareness and preparedness of trainees and other employees for recurrence prevention. The exhibitions are open to the visitors, too. • Experience-type training facilities : Off-normal conditions of components and systems are simulated for the staff practical training by the use of the facilities which provide an off-normal environment. Examples are: water hammers, abnormal vibrations and noises of rotating machineries, pump cavitations, pinholes, plumbing airs, etc. • Advanced simulators for operators training : Each electric company has its own simulators for training their own operating staff. These simulators are annexed to the nuclear power plants and used to train the operation staff by the experienced shift managers. The operation staff use the simulator for continually confirming the operation procedures and the plant behavior, etc. specific to their plants. Training for generic plant behavior and operators’ responses are mainly outsourced to the dedicated training centers run by the Owners’ Groups (BWR, PWR). • The SAT methods : The IAEA proposed SAT (Systematic Approach to Training) approach is applied to the training of the operating staff and the maintenance staff. It is structured in a flow of Job analysis ← Training program design ← Training material development ← Training ← Evaluation. • Training in real situations : An example is a trainee actually hung with a lifeline on a harness to learn a method of putting on the lifeline. On the other hand, the efficiency (availability) of the training facilities for maintenance work is very limited, because each electric company installs the training facilities individually. Experiences of ICONE-16 participants from other countries in improving the availability are of our interest.Copyright © 2008 by ASME