AIKEN, S.C. - EM and the Savannah River Site (SRS) management and operations contractor are using new engineering approaches to improve operations, increase efficiency, and make the site safer.
Over the last several years, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) leaders have challenged its engineering group to create efficiencies.
“The engineering group will always be the technical conscience of our organization," SRNS President Stuart MacVean said. “What we are doing is using that technical conscience to drive the site to improve performance, constantly looking for areas where we are being overly conservative or living to controls that aren’t improving safety. It’s really having an impact."
Some of the biggest results have come from the contractor's Nuclear and Criticality Safety Group (N&CS), which is charged with identifying and evaluating hazards that could result in radiological or chemical releases, and determining the necessary controls.
N&CS staff recently updated the safety analysis of operations in the Tritium Extraction Facility, which was facing additional costs of more than $1.6 million for designing and fabricating new furnace covers while accommodating a significant increase in tritium extraction operations.
The new analysis concluded a decades-old scenario driving the need for new furnace covers - which involved a crane failure that would damage a furnace and cause a hydrogen explosion - was not credible, avoiding the need for new furnace covers.
The engineering organization’s approach to securing a reliable supply of nuclear-grade parts and components for its facilities has also proven effective.
As the number of nuclear-qualified suppliers has dwindled, employees with nuclear construction projects and facilities in need of replacement parts have had to individually qualify many of the parts they need through a process known as commercial grade dedication.
SRNS has worked to streamline this often-lengthy qualification process through novel partnerships with key vendors like Caterpillar, which supplies replacement parts for safety-related engines at SRS. The partnership with Caterpillar, which began last year, gives SRNS access to the company’s quality program and production facilities to allow SRNS to survey and take credit for the vendor’s quality processes, which dramatically reduces the time and effort needed to qualify each part.
The partnership with Caterpillar - a first for the company and DOE - nearly eliminates the testing and inspections that SRNS previously completed for each part.
SRNS officials said they have made strides in developing the next generation of leaders and ensuring a culture of continuous improvement is maintained.
Foremost among those efforts is the SRNS Engineering Leadership Development Program (ELDP), a six-month program in which newly hired college graduates learn about the site and its missions, and experience challenging assignments. In fiscal year 2018, 75 new engineers have been hired through the program. and since the advent of the ELDP in 2012, more than 250 engineers have participated in the program, and retention continues to be above 95 percent.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
