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Committed to Safety & QualityBy Mike McMahon, Day & ZimmermannPower Services.1. How does Day & Zimmermann ensureoptimal radiation protection, ensuring thesafety of its workers during its projects?Safety is first and foremost ineveryone’s mind as they accomplishvarious projects. Day & ZimmermannPower’s Safety program centers on theConstruction Industry Institute's (CII)Five Pillars Program, which is a programof values, best practices, culture, andcommitment that establishes an attainablegoal of zero injuries, based on the beliefthat all safety incidents are preventable.The five pillars are safety planning,training and orientation, fitness for dutyprograms, safety recognition, and incidentreporting and investigation directed at anuncompromising intolerance for “at-risk”behaviors.Optimal radiation protection isensured first by following and coordinatingwith the owner’s ALARA and radiationprotection programs and procedures.Prior to beginning work on a site, itis important to prepare site and projectspecific safety plans and implement doseestimate planning and prejob briefings.There should be health physics trainingand clearly established expectations forall workers, centering on fitness for dutyand the qualifications to perform thework.During work on a project, recognizedhuman performance tools such as twominutereviews (a commonly practicedintegrated safety management and humanperformance error prevention tool wherea worker or group of workers takes twominutes to stop when arriving at the jobsite where a task is be performed, to ensureconditions have not changed from the prejobbrief, hazards have been mitigated,the correct component has been identifiedand each worker fully understands theirResponses to questions by NewalAgnihotri, Editor of Nuclear PlantJournal.individual and collective responsibilities),peer checking, and mock-ups should beused. Observation programs, both directand remote, should be instituted. Trackingand monitoring of exposure is importantfor possible corrective action.2. What planning is undertaken by Day& Zimmermann before it commences itsmaintenance or refueling outage tasks?Standard practices prior to beginningwork on maintenance or refueling tasksinclude developing work plans and trainingorientations and developing safetyplans specific to the outage.In addition, we perform estimatesand develop and maintain cost controlactivities, cost tracking, and cost reporting.Scheduling and resource loading,including developing ramp up and rampdown histograms that support the workscope and budget must be completed.Finally, we perform independent outagereadiness assessments.Overall planning occurs over aneighteen month cycle and follows theT-Minus regimen beginning at T-12months. The T-12 regimen is the planningactivity used by nuclear facilities thatspecifies the scheduled and requiredactions and milestones leading up to thestart of a refueling outage at a nuclearMike McMahonMike McMahon is president, PowerServices, for Day & Zimmermann, aprovider of diversifi ed services andproducts, headquartered in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. The Power Services group,which McMahon oversees, includesall maintenance and modifi cationoperations and related specialtyservices provided through the Day &Zimmermann NPS ® and DZ Atlanticbusinesses. McMahon holds a Bachelorof Science in Civil Engineering fromDrexel University and has completedgraduate coursework at The WhartonSchool at the University of Pennsylvania.power plant. As the beginning of theoutage draws near, the efforts center onpre-outage supervisors who are ideallyassigned to the site approximately six(6) to ten (10) weeks prior to the arrivalof the larger number of project staff andcraft necessary for execution. This groupensures the work crews will have anefficient and identified path to accomplishthe various outage scopes and that thereis clear line of sight on industrial andradiological safety goals, work processefficiency, and that the necessary humanperformance tools are in place to addressthe assigned scope of work. The preoutageatmosphere established by thesesupervisors for their work crews alsodefines the questioning attitude that thecrews will embrace during the outage.The specificity and intensity of thesestandard practices increase to includeestablishing work facilities such thatthe group will have required equipment,materials, and facilities to perform theirscheduled work.There must be a full review of projectscope, starting with a review of individualwork packages for work required toensure steps support the identified task.Technical documentation providedin work packages must be reviewed forcompleteness, appropriate componentsand models.(Continued on page 28)26 www.NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, September-October 2009