Human Factors in the Nuclear Industry: A Systemic Approach to Safety

Human Factors in the Nuclear Industry: A Systemic Approach to Safety presents the latest research and studies of human factors in the nuclear industry. It models and highlights scientific and technological foundations before providing practical examples of applications within the nuclear facility of human performance at an individual, group, organization, and system level. Editors Dr. Teperi and Dr. Gotcheva supply concrete models, tools and techniques based on research to provide the reader with knowledge of how to facilitate and support human performance in this dynamic and fast moving safety critical field.

Models and case studies are provided to add practical benefits for the reader to apply to their own projects, including user friendly state-of-the-art equipment, fluent work processes for information flow, functional control room resource management, and scope for competence and learning in the work place. This book will benefit nuclear researchers, safety experts, human factors professionals and power plant operators, as well as those with an interest in human factors outside of the nuclear field.

Provides a comprehensive framework for human factors, considering not only the individual, but also the team, organizational and industrial levelsPresents tried and tested tools and techniques based on research from the nuclear industryIncludes models, examples and case studies of user-friendly equipment, fluent work processes and functional control room resource management

Part I: Historical accounts and current perspectives 1. Human factors in nuclear power: Reflections from 50 years in Finland 2. Applying Human Factors in nuclear industry - people as a presence of positive capacity 3. From classical Human Factors towards a system view – experiences from the Human Factors nuclear field in Sweden 4. Systems thinking applied to safety culture approach in Finland

Part II: Practices and tools to support team performance 5. Reflective simulator debriefings for resilient power plant operations 6. Human performance tools as a part of programmatic human performance improvement 7. Multitasking and interruption management in control room operator work 8. Team performance, communication and shared situational awareness - control room resource management (CCRM) in the nuclear industry

Part III: Means and methods to facilitate organizational learning 9. Learning from operational events on organisational level - findings from Finnish nuclear power industry 10. Improving organizational practices 11. Learning from emergency exercises through systematic debriefing 12. Towards learning organization – practices in nuclear power plants

Part IV: Insights and visions for inter-organizational cooperation 13. The urgent need to learn from Fukushima nuclear power accident – from reactive to proactive through a systemic approach to safety 14. An institutional perspective on systemic approach to safety in a project context 15. Assessing the goodness of the concept of institutional strength-in-depth 16. Utilizing design thinking for renewal of safety management practices in the nuclear industry