Inside NIRMA Spring 2021

Issue # 10, Spring 2021 

Inside 

Leading the way in Nuclear Information and Records Management 

magazine 

Visit us at: NIRMA.org 

Celebrating 

45 

Years 

NIRMA’s 45th Anniversary Conference 

Will Be Truly Spectacular! 

Defining Microfilm “Production Scanner” 

nextScan 

Are You a Digital Leader or a Digital Laggard? 

iBridge

Contents 

Spring 2021 

4 

5 

7 

11 

From the President 

Vice President Report 

Defining Microfilm “Production Scanner” 

By Matt Anderson, Vice President of Marketing, nextScan 

Are You a Digital Leader or Digital Laggard? 

By Desh Urs, CEO and President, iBridge LLC 

13 

14 

16 

18 

Change Comes From Within 

By Bob Larrivee, Bob Larrivee Consultancy 

Chronicles of NIM: A Retrospective on Information Management in 

Nuclear Power 

By Eugene Yang, KISMET Consulting, Inc. 

Lifetime Member Profile: Meet Margie Janney, CRM/NS/FED 

From the CRM: Records Management Career — A Series of 

Song Lyrics 

By Denise L. Pickett, CRM/NS/FED, IGP 

2 Spring 2021 NIRMA.org Inside NIRMA

CONTENTS 

Spring 2021 

in every issue 

TREASURER REPORT—19 

PDBU NEWS—21 

RIMBU NEWS—22 

M&MBU NEWS—23 

NOMINATING COMMITTEE—23 

INDUSTRY NEWS—24 

Letter from the Editor 

This month, Inside NIRMA introduces a new 

feature focusing on NIRMA’s Lifetime Members 

(see Margie Janney’s profile on page 16). NIRMA’s 

Lifetime Members are the backbone of our 

organization. We hope our readers enjoy the 

valuable insight Margie provides. 

As always, we welcome your feedback and are 

always looking for good stories to share with our 

membership. Should you have feedback or 

would like to put pen to paper for an article for our 

next edition, please contact us at 

DevereauxInc@outlook.com. 

Thanks for reading. Keep in touch! 

Neal and Sandy Miller 

Editors 

Editors 

Neal and Sandra Miller 

DevereauxInc@outlook.com 

Advertising 

Neal.F.Miller@gmail.com 

NIRMA Headquarters 

Sarah Perkins 

NIRMA Administrator 

245 Sunnyridge Ave., #41 

Fairfield, CT 06824 

nirma@nirma.org 

In addition to our own articles, 

Inside NIRMA publishes guest 

articles from agencies and 

vendors. Please be advised that 

the views and opinions 

expressed in these articles are 

those of the authors and do not 

necessarily reflect the opinions 

of NIRMA or its Board of 

Directors. 

Back to Content | Inside NIRMA NIRMA.org Spring 2021 3

A MESSAGE From the 

President 

Janice Hoerber 

W 

e are off and running with 

2021! Some things remain 

the same, such as the 

uncertainty of the COVID- 

19 pandemic and its impact on our 

lives. Yet, some things are different 

in these first months. Nuclear 

power has been getting more sound 

bites in light of a once in a century 

winter storm and rolling power 

outages in Texas. There is more talk 

recently about Nuclear energy and 

resiliency in the same breath. It raises 

some optimism for the future of our 

industry to participate in an energy 

mix. 

Our focus remains on the 

economic challenges for Nuclear and 

helping our organizations to be more 

efficient especially through 

automation and use of technology. 

The NIRMA Board of Directors 

convened for the annual Winter 

Board meeting on January 30 th to 

review the Strategic Plan, the 2021 

Board Goals, and the current status 

of the organization. We are pleased 

to announce that Process Management 

was incorporated into the NIRMA 

Strategic Plan, which expands 

NIRMA into the tools, techniques, 

and strategies you need to 

improve your business agility and 

operational performance. These 

include: 

• RPA, Robotic Process 

Automation 

• AI, Artificial Intelligence 

• IG, Information Governance 

Technologies 

It's time to get 

more involved 

in NIRMA and 

to be a part of 

the future! 

This will enhance NIRMA's 

reach to potential solution 

providers/exhibitors in this space, as 

well as webinars and education to 

the membership. 

Looking back on 2020, 

NIRMA achieved some remarkable 

milestones even in the midst of a 

pandemic: 

• A vibrant NIRMA Mentoring 

Program was launched under 

the Professional Development 

Business Unit, thanks especially 

to co-Director Lou Rofrano 

(lou@amsstoreandshred.com) 

and the NIRMA volunteers who 

are making it happen. 

• A memorable Virtual NIRMA 

Conference was delivered to 88 

attendees who embraced the 

remote technology to learn, but 

also to have fun! Our vendors 

and sponsors were greatly 

appreciated and instrumental to 

its success. 

• A NIRMA Webinar series was 

piloted with rave reviews and is 

planned for a monthly basis if we 

can keep the topics and 

presenters queued up! Our 

special thanks to iBridge for 

hosting the technical platform. 

Contact the Professional 

Development Business Unit 

Director, Tammy Cutts, to offer 

a topic suggestion or to 

volunteer as a presenter. 

(tammy.cutts@pge.com). 

We now look forward in this 

45 th anniversary year of NIRMA to 

continue bringing educational value 

to our membership and to take a 

moment to celebrate our past at the 

annual NIRMA Conference in 

August. It's time to get more 

involved in NIRMA and to be a part 

of the future! 


FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT 

Bruce Walters, CRM/NS 

G 

reetings everyone. There is 

some positive energy being 

created for the 2021 Nuclear 

Information Management 

Conference (August 9-11) at the 

JW Marriott Resort and Spa in Las 

Vegas, Nevada. During the NIRMA 

Winter Board meeting on-property, 

we walked through the renovated 

Palms Tower to look at the potential 

new space for our upcoming 

conference. Plans are being made to 

welcome many of you in-person in 

August. The Board and the JW 

Marriott staff recognize that the 

elephant in the room, COVID-19, is 

still an issue, but with this year being 

our 45 th anniversary, we are working 

hard to pull it off. Nevada has strict 

COVID protocols and we are 

confident that we can still have a 

successful and safe conference 

possibly as a hybrid approach. 

The plan is that the NIRMA 

Board will make the decision later in 

March, after the board meeting. 

Hybrid means some speakers will be 

remote and some in-person. It 

means some attendees will be inperson 

and some remote. We are 

looking into offering a “Quiet 

Room” where in-person attendees 

can participate with BYOD (bring 

your own device) such as a smart 

phone, iPad, or other devices 

without being in a large gathering. 

What that will look like is still being 

discussed, but know that we are 

trying to accommodate all 

possibilities. Conference registration 

fees are planned to remain the same 

regardless if attending in-person or 

“I wasn’t sure 

what to expect 

during a 

virtual 

conference, 

but was 

pleasantly 

surprised by 

my positive 

experience.” 

NIRMA Lifetime 

Member, Frank Kocsis 

remotely. 

My fond memory from last 

August is seeing NIRMA Lifetime 

Member Frank Kocsis sitting on a 

sofa in-person at the 2020 

Conference, i-Phone in hand, ear 

buds in place, attending sessions. 

Between sessions, he was mingling 

with the few of us in the conference 

foyer. It worked for him. And here 

is how Frank experienced last year. 

“I recall the pleasant experience of 

sitting on the couch outside our 

normal meeting rooms watching and 

listening to the sessions. Even with a 

hearing loss problem, I was able to 

better hear, absorb, and jot down 

notes using my personal ear buds 

and tablet. I wasn’t sure what to 

expect during a virtual conference, 

but was pleasantly surprised by my 

positive experience. The one thing I 

did miss was the interaction with 

colleagues and friends. I look 

forward to be with them and I am 

sure this year’s Conference will be 

better than last given the positive 

feedback NIRMA received.” 

While we are working to firm up 

some thought-provoking keynote 

speakers, we are still looking to any 

of you who would be interested in 

giving a presentation. The Call for 

Papers has been published a couple 

times in our monthly emails and is 

also available on the NIRMA 

website (click here) under the 

SPEAK tab. 

My hope is to have a number of 

new speakers, new voices, new faces 

from NIRMA to give a presentation. 

A list of possible topics is included 

on the Call for Papers. Case Studies 

are my favorite types of sessions 

because they’re from the heart, reallife 

experiences that colleagues are 

sharing, even lamenting. Sharing our 

grand successes and epic failures is 

huge to our education. Learning 

how to give a presentation (for the 

novice) is a growing experience for 

that person. My first few times 

giving a presentation was anything 

but spectacular, but I had the 

courage to overcome my fears, to 

learn, to grow, and to share. I invite 

you to consider being that newbie 

Continued on page 21. 


WithPOWEROFPRODUCTION 

inYourHands. 

TransformingMicrofilm IntoSearchable 

DigitalDocumentsTakesMinutes! 

Transitionhigh-volumeanalogmicrofilm colectionstodigitalwith 

cuting-edgetechnologythatproducesthehighestqualityimagesat 

thefastestratedscanspeedsofferedintoday’smarket.nextScansets 

thebarforconversionscannersbycapturingtruenativeoptical 

resolutionwithoutsacrificingscanspeedorremovingqualitycontrol 

from yourhands. 

Digitizeinexcessofonemilionimagesper 

daywithtruePOWEROFPRODUCTION. 

Learnmoreat: 

www.nextscan.com 

+12085144000 

sales@nextscan.com

Defining Microfilm 

“Production Scanner” 

By Matt Anderson, 

Vice President of Marketing, nextScan 

L 

ately there has been a lot of 

talk about “Production” 

scanners within the microfilm 

market, but what does that actually 

mean? According to Isausa, inc. 

President Manuel Bulwa, 

“Document capture industry experts 

share a general consensus around the 

concept of “Production” level status 

as an elusive threshold that separates 

low to high volume document 

capture.” And by volume, that is 

more than how many images per 

minute, think a month. With that in 

mind, we thought we would share 

our professional opinion to help you 

pinpoint key identifiers that 

differentiate a production scanner 

from an on-demand scanner. 

Two Basic Kinds of 

Microfilm Scanners 

When you break it down, there 

are two “classes” of microfilm 

scanners: 

• Production and 

• On-Demand 

Production 

scanners are 

machines that are 

built using 

sophisticated lighting and line-scan 

sensors to convert microfilm to 

digital format permanently, in one 

scan. On-Demand scanners are the 

devices equipped with area-scan 

sensors that are employed to capture 

images from microfilm on an “as 

needed basis” - one image at a time. 

Someone would not use a 

Production scanner to scan one 

image at a time, same as someone 

would not use an On-Demand 

scanner to convert an entire roll of 

microfilm. These scanners have been 

designed for two separate and 

distinct processes. 

Production level scanners are 

designed from the ground up to 

simultaneously transport and capture 

high-resolution images on microfilm 

or microfiche. Production scanners 

are built with a highly specialized line 

scanning image sensor, top-of-theline 

lenses for greater focal depth, 

and lighting technology that enables 

high-speed digital conversion of the 

media. This allows for the film, or 

fiche, to be captured at the highest 

resolutions while traveling at 

extremely high speeds. Due to their 

reliability, and image quality, 

production scanners are always 

favored by conversion service 

bureaus, the document capture 

experts that scan all sorts of 

documents professionally. 

On-Demand, also known as 

research or walk-up microfilm 

scanners, are designed to offer a 

digital solution to replace the old and 

outdated analog microfilm readerprinters. 

The On-Demand scanners 

are most popular with patrons of 

libraries around the world, both in 

public and university settings 

because they are easy to use. The On 

-Demand scanner is limited to still 

image capture. These scanners are 

equipped with a light source and 

Complementary Metal Oxide 

Semiconductor (CMOS) image 

sensor like what you would find in a 

digital camera, limiting the user to 

capture each image on microfilm one 

at a time. 

Microfiche Scanning 

Challenges 

The flat, card-like style of 

microfiche presents its own 

Continued on next page. 


STimaging 

Continued from previous page. 

next can 

S 

the microfiche. 

confidence that 

each file was 

captured from 

assurance it is essential that the 

entire roll was captured into RAW 

data as it allows for quick and simple 

corrections to the archiving files. 

challenges when being converted to 

digital files. Rolls of microfilm sit on 

a spool which can be unrolled, 

scanned, and rewound in rather 

quick fashion. The transport 

regulates supply between intake and 

outtake spools. This job is 

performed by secure and stable 

motors that drive the spools of 

microfilm, a straight-forward 

procedure under a line scanner. 

To convert microfiche, the 

“transport” regulates the movement 

of the glass platen the fiche sits on. 

Using line scanning technology, a 

sheet of microfiche is loaded onto 

the transport. On a nextScan 

production scanner, the microfiche 

transport travels in a back-and-forth 

manner while moving up and down, 

like a typewriter. Though unlike the 

typewriter, production scanning 

technology is capable of scanning 

both forwards and backwards, 

creating more scans in less time. 

Once the capture process has 

taken place, proprietary software 

combs the data, and replicates the 

physical microfiche turning it into a 

digital ribbon. This allows the 

auditing process to occur, ensuring 

According to 

Manuel Bulwa, 

“All production level 

workflows hinge on 

automation and batch 

processing. Stop and 

go, transactional, ondemand 

processes and 

the like do not belong to 

the production realm.” 

Camera technology intended to 

capture a single image makes 

production microfiche scanning 

nearly impossible. Again, the 

microfiche must be on a transport 

and an additional step must take 

place, the fiche must come to a 

complete stop for a clear capture. 

There is no camera sensor that 

notifies the transport to stop, so the 

camera is essentially “capturing 

blind.” When this occurs, a scan may 

be split in two or missed entirely. 

These spliced and missed images 

must go through a costly rescanning 

process if they are even caught in the 

first place. If each image is not 

viewed by a person to verify the scan 

is a true conversion cannot be 

guaranteed. 

Production Scanning = 

True Conversion 

As previously stated, a 

production scanner captures all data 

on the reel of microfilm or sheet of 

microfiche, but how is the data 

captured, specifically? By using line 

scanning technology, the key 

determinant of a Production 

Scanner. The line scanning 

technology process allows for 

everything to be captured from the 

media, edge-to-edge and end-to-end, 

without a single pixel of information 

missed. Once captured, the software 

gets to work detecting edges and 

presenting an “Audit” or review of 

the captured images. A technician is 

then able to easily discern if any files 

or documents were missed, and 

instead of a rescan, simply revert that 

area to the RAW data and continue. 

To be confident of a complete 

conversion with real quality 

On-Demand microfilm 

scanners physically cannot capture 

film in the same way. The limitations 

of the CMOS image sensor force the 

scanner to move the film, stop, 

capture, and repeat. The CMOS also 

does not “know” what it is capturing 

allowing for images to be spliced if 

not directly in line with the image 

sensor. There is simply too much 

room for error when trying to 

conduct a conversion project using a 

scanner designed for On-Demand 

use. 

According to Manuel Bulwa, 

“All production level workflows 

hinge on automation and batch 

processing. Stop and go, 

transactional, on-demand processes 

and the like do not belong to the 

production realm.” 

Your Trusted Production 

Scanner 

There are fundamental and 

significant differences in a 

production scanner when compared 

to other types of microfilm scanners. 

nextScan defines a true production 

scanner as equipment designed for 

the simultaneous high-speed 

transportation and real-time capture 

of both microfilm and microfiche 

using line scanning technology, 

which provides a critical step that 

guarantees quality assurance by 

enabling users to complete an audit 

before finalizing the conversion. 

If you have questions on your 

current equipment or are looking for 

new equipment, please give us a call 

208-514-4000 or visit 

www.nextScan.com. 


NIRMA’s 45 th Anniversary Conference 

Will Be Truly Spectacular! 

The Conference will be held at the beautiful JW Marriott Las Vegas 

Resort and Spa, 221 N. Rampart Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 

The NIRMA Board is hard at work to make this conference one of our 

best ever! In addition to our tradition of engaging speakers and 

enlightening presentations, we will also be commemorating NIRMA’s 

45 th Anniversary with a Celebration Night Extravaganza including 

dinner, music, and all-around fun! In addition, there will be lots to see 

and remember in our Memorabilia Room, highlighting NIRMA’s rich 

history! 

 

 

 

Learn the latest from 

the experts in current 

trends. 

Be inspired by the 

message of industry 

leaders. 

Retool & re-energize 

your passion to make 

a difference. 

The JW Marriott Resort and Spa is a luxury getaway, 

providing spacious rooms and suites, premium amenities 

and superb customer service. Visit JW Marriott here.

Are You a Digital Leader or 

Digital Laggard? 

By Desh Urs, CEO and President, iBridge LLC 

T 

he secret to digital transformation 

success lies in developing a digital 

leader mindset. 

Companies talk a good game 

when it comes to digital 

transformation. But why do only 

some achieve success while others 

struggle? To understand how your 

business can succeed in digital 

transformation, you first need to 

understand what sets digital leaders 

and digital laggards apart. 

The way organizations approach 

digital technologies often defines 

whether they’re digital leaders or 

digital laggards. Here’s how they 

differ: 

What’s a Digital Leader? 

A digital leader actively and 

strategically embraces digital 

transformation and proactively 

introduces new systems to innovate 

its organizational structure, business 

processes, and offerings. They go 

beyond implementing new tools on 

a tactical level to using technology to 

redefine how they conduct business 

on a strategic, successful level. A 

digital leader places high values on 

communication, creativity and 

willingness to explore the ways 

emerging technology and digital 

information can be used within their 

business. 

What’s a Digital Laggard? 

A digital laggard understands the 

value of digital transformation, but 

they often approach the process 

with incremental improvements 

without an overall strategy. Despite 

some initial positive impact, this 

approach doesn’t improve their 

ability to remain competitive. 

Laggards tend to “plug gaps” but fail 

to visualize the lasting benefits of 

digital transformation and are 

destined to fall behind more agile 

competitors. 

The Differences Between 

Digital Leader and Digital 

Laggard 

There are three main areas in 

which digital leaders and digital 

laggards do things differently: 

Innovation 

Because digital leaders take a 

broader view of digital 

transformation, they see 

opportunities that laggards miss. 

Leaders see benefits that can only 

become available by the 

convergence of different 

technologies and integrating separate 

systems. Laggards simply seek to 

improve the cost-efficiency of 

current business processes, but 

leaders leverage digital 

transformation to develop ideas that 

would otherwise be impossible. 

Leaders view digital 

transformation as a way to advance 

innovative ideas that’ll help them 

adapt to threats posed by 

competitors that are pioneering new 

Continued on next page. 


Continued from previous page. 

Look for a partner that 

can help you design a 

holistic and forwardlooking 

approach to 

digital transformation 

and then seamlessly 

integrate the appropriate 

technologies to support 

implementation. 

ways of doing business. Digital 

laggards will remain stagnant with 

this process. 

Market Development 

Digital leaders understand that 

technology can change how they can 

attract and communicate with 

customers, partners, and suppliers. 

They leverage digital 

transformation to expand their reach, 

grow into new markets, and explore 

the use of new resources. This allows 

them to diversify their businesses, 

increase profits, and stay competitive 

in today’s fast-changing 

environment. 

Meanwhile, digital laggards often 

only view technology as a way they 

can reduce costs and improve 

efficiency. They overlook the 

opportunities of reaching new 

markets or resources via digital 

systems that are breaking historic 

barriers. 

Organizational Structure 

A company needs to evolve its 

organizational structure to adapt to 

market demands and the business 

environment. Digital leaders 

structure their organizations to 

embrace digital transformation so 

that their organizations can become 

more autonomous and agile. 

On the other hand, because 

digital laggards fail to accept digital 

transformation holistically, they miss 

out on the opportunities to increase 

their organization’s ability to identify, 

react and respond to internal and 

external changes. 

How to Become a 

Digital Leader 

Here are the key steps for supporting 

your organization as a digital leader: 

• Determine your goals for digital 

transformation. Seek out the 

right technology partners and 

select the right digital platforms 

that will help implement new 

processes and keep your focus. 

Look for a partner that can help 

you design a holistic and forward 

-looking approach to digital 

transformation and then 

seamlessly integrate the 

appropriate technologies to 

support implementation. 

• Understand the context in which 

the technologies are 

implemented. From marketing 

personalization to supply chain 

management, context can inform 

how technologies are applied to 

make innovation meaningful and 

how data is used to inform 

impactful decision-making 

processes. 

• Prioritization is key. Have the 

digital transformation process 

become a part of your company’s 

DNA. Engage in the frequent 

communication with 

stakeholders during your journey 

to automation – it is crucial for 

successful team building. 

• Get buy-in from all levels within 

the organization to ensure proper 

implementation and long-term 

adoption of new processes and 

technologies. Digital 

transformation is an ongoing 

effort and only as effective to the 

extent everyone in the company 

is using the new tools to change 

how they do things. 

• Keep the end goals front and 

center. What was the original 

intent to transform your 

company digitally? Work with 

digital transformation specialists, 

trusted peers and your IT 

professionals to plan take full 

advantage of today’s digital 

landscape. 

About iBridge 

NIRMA members trust iBridge to support 

every facet of the documentation journey. 

We capture legacy information from 

aperture cards, jackets, microfiche, film, 

and paper on-site, then classify, index, and 

seamlessly load the finished images into your 

document management system. 

iBridge is a Microsoft Gold Partner with 

certified experience in cloud services, 

SharePoint and O365 mobility. 


Change Comes 

From Within 

H 

ow many times have you 

heard this statement, 

“change comes from 

within”? In my life I have 

heard it from motivational speakers, 

Preachers, and lots of other folk in 

relation to personal lives. Truth is, 

this applies to businesses as well. 

Many times, throughout my 

career, I have heard people in 

various businesses say, “It is what it 

is” and I typically respond with, “but 

is it what it could be?” Change in 

your personal life is possible if you 

are willing. Change in business is 

possible if the organization is willing 

and the culture is one that accepts 

change. 

We all know that change is 

inevitable. We witness change every 

day reading articles, watching the 

news, monitoring social media, and 

even strolling through a mall. New 

features are available in the day-today 

appliances we use at home, in 

our vehicles, and in the workplace. 

But are we open to changing the 

ways we work or, are we more 

AUDIT BUSINESS 

UNITS 

inclined to stay in our comfort zones 

and do things the way they have 

been done? Case in point. We are 

willing to sign for a purchase made 

in a department store using our 

credit cards for payment, yet less 

willing to accept this same kind of 

signature as valid in our business 

lives. 

Why is it OK to use this 

technology personally, but not 

professionally? Is it because the 

stakes are higher in our professional 

lives? Or is it the level of comfort we 

get with our traditional ways of 

working? We know that if we 

accepted and incorporated 

eSignatures into our business 

processes, transactions and 

operations would be streamlined, 

more consistent, and under better 

control. Yet there is still a reluctance 

to accept and incorporate these 

technologies into our business 

operations and processes. 

In My View 

It is not the technology that is in 

question, but human reluctance to 

C 

alling all MEMBERS! Have you ever thought 

about joining a NIRMA Business Unit (BU)? We 

have three very interesting and awesome 

opportunities to join, learn and become involved. 

There is the Membership & Marketing BU, Professional 

Development BU, and Regulations and Information 

Management BU all very exciting with different agendas 

in support of NIRMA. 

By Bob Larrivee 

Bob Larrivee Consultancy 

change that 

hinders many 

projects and forward movement in a 

business’ digital transformation 

journey. Change is possible, but 

willingness to change must first 

come from within the organization. 

When the culture is open to change, 

acceptance to change comes more 

readily. It is up to you to identify 

those areas of reluctance, understand 

the underlying reasons for reluctance 

to change, and work to move the 

organization toward a state of 

acceptance. 

Bob Larrivee is a recognized expert in 

the application of advanced technologies and 

process improvement to solve business 

problems and enhance business operations. 

In his career, Bob has led many projects 

and authored hundreds of eBooks, Industry 

Reports, Blogs, Articles, and Infographics. 

In addition, he has served as host and guest 

Subject Matter Expert on a wide variety of 

webinars, Podcasts, Virtual Events, and 

lectured at in-person seminars and 

conferences around the globe. 

NIRMA would like to provide you with an 

opportunity to check them out via an invitation to sit in 

and audit any or all of the BUs to see what they are 

about. 

M&MBU Calls: 11:00 am MT, 1 st Wed. of every Month 

PDBU Calls: 

9:30 am PT, 3 rd Wed. of every Month 

RIMBU Calls: 11:00 am PT, 2 nd Wed. of every Month 

If you would like to check it out please contact Sarah 

Perkins at nirma@nirma.org and she will be able to 

provide you with the call in numbers for one or all of the 

BUs. 


A Retrospective on Information Management 

in Nuclear Power 

s I have consulted, sometimes I get frustrated about how 

A 

records management is viewed, especially electronic 

records. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve ridden the wave of 

the evolution (revolution?) of moving from paper-based 

to going completely digital regarding records. What 

concerns me is the mis-understanding of the “why’s” of electronic 

records management. Over the course of several columns, I’m 

going to address the fundamentals of electronic records, in the 

nuclear power context. 

Over the past decade or so, I have frequently 

provided a workshop at the annual NIRMA Conference 

on the fundamentals of electronic records. I did this 

primarily for the “newbies” who have been recently 

hired into a nuclear power plant – helping them 

understand the “why’s” on what they are doing. What’s 

been heartening, at times, is to see records management 

veterans also attend who have been doing “this 

electronic thing” for years; I like to think that they’re 

reminding themselves of the basics. I’ve done a lot of 

martial arts training in my life, and you can never do 

enough kicking, punching and throwing; even though 

you may have done a move a thousand times, there’s 

always a nuance you pick up that could give you that 

extra edge. 

So, let’s get started. 

By Eugene Y. Yang, 

Principal Consultant 

KISMET Consulting, Inc. 

Fundamental #1: 

What’s a record? 

The Miriam-Webster Dictionary states that a record 

is “something that recalls or relates past events, an 

official document that records the acts of a public body 

or officer, or an authentic official copy of a document 

deposited with a legally designated officer.” 

In NIRMA TG15-2011, “Management of Electronic 

Records,” the Association’s position is 

that a record is “Information regardless 

of physical form or characteristics, 

appropriate for preservation as evidence 

of the organization, functions, policies, 

decisions, procedures, operations, or 

other activities of the organization. 

Examples of where this information 

may reside are: books, papers, maps, photographs, 

machine readable electronic files, or other documentary 

materials.” 

When it comes to managing records, 

in the International Standards 

Organization (ISO) space, ISO 15489-1, 

“Records Management” states that 

“Organizations should create and maintain 

authentic, reliable and useable records, and 

protect the integrity of those records for as long 

as required.” 


The biggest issue that 

I’ve seen with 

electronic records is 

the “what do they look 

like” – not in the 

physical sense, but 

what are the 

components that make 

up an electronic 

record. 

• Authentic records are those that are what they 

purport to be. 

• Reliable records are those records “whose contents 

can be trusted as a full and accurate representation 

of transactions, activities or facts.” 

• Integrity of a record “refers to its being complete 

and unaltered.” 

• Usable records are those that can be “located, 

retrieved, presented and interpreted.” 

We now take these definitions into the electronic 

environment. Unlike physical records, digital records: 

• Cannot be read without a computer or other 

machine. 

• Require constant maintenance of hardware and 

software (requiring the IT organization to support) 

• Are easier to transport (see 16Gbyte USB flash 

drives); not necessarily a good thing if they get into 

the wrong hands 

• Can be “hacked” (stolen, altered, deleted) 

The biggest issue that I’ve seen with electronic 

records is the “what do they look like” – not in the 

physical sense, but what are the components that make 

up an electronic record. The following those 

components: 

• Content: The topics or matter treated in a written 

work (text, data, substance material or metadata) 

• Context: The parts of a discourse that surround a 

word or passage and can throw light on its meaning 

(metadata, knowledge management) 

• Structure: Form and format 

• Storage: Method of storing and retrieving 

• Security: Access control – group, individual, as 

well as file-centric security, such as content rights 

management. 

A simple example is a report. The content is the 

information (purpose, what was found, 

recommendations, etc.). The context is the title, the 

author, the department referenced. The structure is the 

applied section headings or table of content. The 

storage might include converting the “native” file 

format to another file format, such as PDF, and then 

placing it in an electronic repository for later retrieval. 

Access to the document may depend on whether the 

native file or the PDF is exposed to users, or both…or 

neither. 

The issue with data-based applications is that a 

“record” in that sense is a string of alphanumeric 

characters that require, at the database level, a “schema” 

that defines the separate fields, and at the user interface 

level, screens, lists, or reports that make the data human 

-readable. The content is the alphanumeric string, the 

schema provides the context, and the screen form/ 

report provides the form and format. When someone 

hands you a CD, DVD, or hard drive, and does not 

provide the database schema or the software that can 

read the “stuff”, you need to push back. 

In future columns, I intend to continue with 

addressing the nuclear requirements, authentication, 

sustainability, NIRMA’s efforts in this area, and more! 

Stay tuned! 

Eugene has been a member of NIRMA for over 34 years. At 

the time he joined, NIRMA had only been in existence for 11 

years. He would love to hear about stories and 

anecdotes from others, so please email him at 

eugene.yang@kismetconsulting.com. 


Lifetime Member Profile 

MEET MARGIE JANNEY, 

CRM/NS/FED 

Margie Janney, CRM/NS/ 

FED, is the Chief of the 

Digitization, Processing, and 

Records Branch in the Office of the 

Chief Information Officer (OCIO) 

at the NRC. In addition to being 

the NRC’s Agency Records 

Officer, her responsibilities include 

records and information policy and 

operations, as well as managing the 

Document Processing Center. 

Prior to her joining OCIO, 

Margie worked on the Yucca Mountain project as a contractor for 

10 years and at the NRC for 6 years. 

Margie has more than 30 years of experience in the 

information management field. She became a Certified Records 

Manager in 1995 and, in 1996, became the first Nuclear 

Information Specialist to sit for and pass the test. She became a 

Federal Records Specialist in 2018. 

Margie has been a member of NIRMA since 1992 and has 

held many leadership positions, including serving two terms on the 

Board of Directors as Treasurer. In 2015, Margie was awarded 

NIRMA’s Lifetime Membership award. 

What are the locations you have worked at 

and positions held? 

I started my first records management job in 1990, 

working for Koh Systems, whose contract was taken 

over by TRW. I was as a contractor (“Nuclear Records 

Manager”) for the Department of Energy’s Office of 

Civilian Radioactive Waste Management on the Yucca 

Mountain Project. Dan Graser was my Federal 

customer. We were working on the Licensing Support 

Network (LSN) in anticipation of the licensing of a high 

-level nuclear waste storage facility. The LSN would be 

the vehicle that all parties to the proceeding would 

submit their discovery material. 

Dan moved on to the NRC to work on the LSN 

there. A couple of years later, a bunch of us were at 

happy hour (Marty Cummings, Dan, me, and others). 

Dan told me that he needed to hire someone to write 

procedures for him; did I know of anyone? I blurted 

out, “Dan, what do you think I do?” I started working 

for Dan as a Federal Senior Records Analyst in 2000, 

writing guidance for the parties to get their electronic 

documents loaded onto a server and connected to the 

LSN that the NRC built. 

In 2006, I got a promotion into NRC’s Office of the 

Chief Information Officer, where I was the lead over 

Records & FOIA Privacy Branch. Over the 14+ years 

in OCIO, I’ve been the lead (at one point or another) of 

records policy, records operations, the Document 

Processing Center, FOIA, privacy, information 

collections, information quality, public meeting notices 

the Public Document Room, Technical Library, and the 

internal and external web sites. 

What are your Professional Affiliations? 

• Institute of Certified Records Managers (ICRM) 

• NIRMA 

• American Council for Technology-Industry 

Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) 

When did you join NIRMA? 

I joined in 1992. My first symposium (yes, the 

annual conference was originally called that ) was San 

Francisco. I have maintained my membership ever 

since, including paying for it out of my own pocket 

when I occasionally wasn’t allowed to attend the 

conference. 

What are the NIRMA Leadership positions 

you have held? 

In 1995, I was the Treasurer for that year’s annual 

symposium, held in DC. It was sponsored by TRW and 

DOE. At that time, sponsorship was a big deal, and a 


lot of money was funneled into the annual conference; 

we had a $600,000 budget (none from DOE). Shirley 

Jackson, the NRC’s Chairman was our keynote speaker. 

From 1997-1999, I was the NIRMA Treasurer. My 

biggest accomplishment was getting rid of the 

contractor that we used to put on our annual 

conferences. They wanted to be reimbursed for dry 

cleaning and meals, even though they were provided 

meals at the conference! 

How did you get started with NIRMA? 

My boss, Marty Cummings, talked highly about it, so 

I decided to attend a conference, and I was hooked. 

How did being a member of NIRMA assist 

you with your career? 

I gained confidence in myself, my abilities, and my 

career. Hans Ebner was a mentor, and when he became 

ill, he passed his seat on the NQA-1 Committee to me. 

That was a big deal! I was writing regulations for the 

industry! 

What did you find most rewarding about 

your membership? 

The friends I’ve made. (I did enjoy the technical 

aspects of the conference this past year, but I really 

missed my friends.) 

In what ways were you able to help (mentor) 

other members? 

I came up with the idea of the scavenger hunt that 

First Time Attendees used to have to fill out to win a 

prize. That was a really fun way to initiate new folks 

into the fold. 

I’d like to think that I encouraged people to get their 

CRM, NS, and FED certifications. I know I’ve helped a 

lot of people understand better how the NRC works. 

What would you tell others looking to get 

involved in a NIRMA or NIRMA leadership 

roles? 

Jump in! We can use all the help we can get. It’s an 

association built from volunteers. Getting to know 

others in the same industry is priceless, and the best way 

to do that is by volunteering. There is never going to be 

a time when you’re on your own, unless you want to be. 

Why is it important for you to stay involved? 

It is so rewarding to see younger people who were 

just like me almost 30 years ago. It’s been a great ride so 

far!!! 

Not a Member of NIRMA? 

join today! 


From the CRM 

Records Management 

Career — A Series of 

Song Lyrics 

T 

hroughout my life, I have related life’s moments to 

song lyrics more often than I care to admit. Often, 

I say it out loud and those that know me well, 

expect it, and may respond with their own dueling 

song lyric. But, for those newcomers to my world, I may 

get an eye roll or a wrinkled confused look. I will most 

likely get both responses from this readership and “it’s 

alright” (Traveling Wilburys). Bear with me as I relate 

my records and information management career to song 

lyrics. 

Phase 1 — “Mud on the Tires” 

I completed my MBA in 1995 and was searching for 

the next level in my professional life when my 

Department Manager at Savannah River Site (SRS) 

proposed a solid path to the CRM certification for those 

in the department who were qualified. The two in-house 

CRMs established study groups and the competition 

began. Despite a crazy work schedule and unexpected 

obstacles in my personal life, I remained persistent in 

studying for the exam and was very thrilled to pass Part 

6 of the exam in January 1998 to become a CRM. 

Joining the elite CRM group gave me the feeling that 

I had a “brand new Chevrolet” to try out on a dirt road. 

I had reached a new level in my career and I felt so 

professional and so ready to prove myself that I could 

“hardly wait to get a little mud on the tires”. 

I felt obligated to give back to the profession and 

immediately became a test grader for Part 6 and began 

mentoring CRM candidates. I became immersed in 

ARMA International leadership starting with my local 

ARMA Chapter serving as Chapter Treasurer, Chapter 

Newsletter Editor, and Chapter President. I became a 

regular speaker for chapters in the Mid-Atlantic Region 

and enjoyed visiting the chapters and their cities. As if 

that was not enough, I jumped into ARMA Region 

leadership roles including Region Coordinator, Region 

Treasurer, and Region Manager. This enthusiasm for the 

profession, then resulted in being elected to serve a 

By Denise L. Pickett, 

CRM/NS/FED, IGP 

three-year term on the ARMA Board of Directors. 

The CRM designation was the key to breaking into 

my next awesome role with Deloitte & Touche as 

Regional Records Manager. The role was so diverse and 

allowed me to work with and travel to so many offices 

(cities) across the firm. Without the CRM, I would have 

never been offered this role. 

You cannot be scared to “get a little mud on the 

tires” and “stake out a little piece of shore line” of your 

own in your professional career. 

Phase 2 — “Big Shot” 

A new role as Records Management and Document 

Control Manager in the Nuclear Department at Black & 

Veatch pushed me back into the nuclear industry and 

opened the door to become very active in NIRMA. I 

had attended NIRMA conferences while at SRS in the 

1990s and with company support began attending the 

annual NIRMA conferences again. During that first time 

back at a conference, I attended a study session for the 

CRM/Nuclear Specialist (CRM/NS) and immediately 

knew this was my next phase in my certification 

progression and my career. Mary Binkholder was the 

NIRMA President at that time and she said she was 

going to apply for and take the Nuclear Specialist 

examination which challenged me to do the same. 

I earned my NS designation the year after Mary 

earned hers and I felt like a “Big Shot”. I had to “prove 

it to the crowd” that I could be a part of the small group 

of active CRM/NSs. After being shocked by the low 

number of active Nuclear Specialists, I began 

challenging others to work toward this and “my friends 

were so knocked out” that two more active CRM/NS 

professionals have been added to the elite group. 

I have truly enjoyed the family feeling of NIRMA and 

being a part of the Membership & Marketing Business 

Unit and serving on the Board. The networking 

opportunities have been priceless so I invite all of you 


who are reading this to volunteer 

and/or attend future NIRMA 

conferences so you can be a “Big 

Shot” in a great industry. 

Phase 3 — “The Future’s So 

Bright” 

My next phase is a slight overlap 

with the previous one. While at Black 

& Veatch and as a result of serving 

on the ARMA International Board of 

Directors, I knew the Information 

Governance Professional (IGP) 

certification would be a feather in my 

cap and would show that “the 

future’s so bright” for the profession. 

The ARMA President challenged 

each of the board members to apply 

and take the examination since the 

board was instrumental in the 

strategic shift in mission and vison to 

the IGP. 

I was fortunate to gain more and 

more electronic and digital 

transformation experience each year 

and was anxious to prove that I was 

knowledgeable by sitting for the IGP 

examination, so attaining the IGP 

certification was very enticing. I 

passed that examination and I 

recognized that my resume was going 

to shine and that was when I knew 

that “the future’s so bright, I gotta 

wear shades”. 

Phase 4 — Imagine Dragons 

“Whatever it Takes” 

The next phase is the pinnacle; it 

is the culmination of 30 years of 

experience as an information 

management professional in the 

federal government, nuclear industry, 

and accounting which led me to the 

role as Records Management 

Program Manager for the Office of 

Legacy Management and then to my 

current role of Director of Records 

& Information Management/Public 

Information Act Officer. 

During this phase, I felt that 

“Whatever it takes…Yeah, take me 

to the top I'm ready for…Whatever 

it takes…'Cause I love the adrenaline 

in my veins”. A new certification of 

Federal Specialist was introduced and 

I knew with my 20 years of 

experience with the federal 

government that I had to do 

“whatever it takes” to add that 

certification to my resume. I passed 

and this last certification has allowed 

me to be the only CRM/NS/FED, 

IGP in the profession which is very 

cool. 

The current role of Director, 

RIM/PIAO for a county 

government hospital that has a noble 

cause of serving as a safety net 

hospital for Dallas County. In many 

aspects it is similar to working in the 

federal government with the addition 

of electronic health records. The role 

allows me to set the RIM policy for 

the hospital and serve as the 

government directed Records 

Management Officer and Public 

Information Act Officer. 

In closing, enjoy your career as a 

Records Manager (or a Document 

Control Manager or an Information 

Management Manager) and 

remember to “Celebrate….Good 

Times ….Come on”. If we cannot 

enjoy what we do and enjoy other 

colleagues in the profession, then 

why are we doing this? “Well, it's 

alright (alright), we're going to the 

end of the line” and “I’ve got the 

perfect place in mind”. I look 

forward to sharing my successes in 

the development of the hospital’s 

information governance program 

with this audience as this is my 

”sweet dream baby”. 

Song References: 

Billy Joel – Big Shot 

Brad Paisley – Mud on the Tires 

Imagine Dragons – Whatever it 

Takes 

Kool & The Gang - Celebration 

Roy Orbinson – Dream Baby 

Timbuk 3 – The Future’s so Bright 

Traveling Wilburys – End of the 

line 

NIRMA’s Financial Holdings 

As of: February 11, 2021 

Michelle Smith 

NIRMA Treasurer 

Money Market Account $ 109,810.43 

Checking Account $ 18,987.12 


Digitize Microfilm/Fiche 

Without Shipping Originals! 

Reduce costs and risks with our 

Simplified Scanning, Smart Repairs 

and Smart Remote Methodologies! 

To request a personal presentation, visit 

www.isausa.com or email sales@isausa.com

Professional Development 

Business Unit (PDBU) News 

Tammy Cutts, PDBU Director 

N 

ow is the time of year when 

the PDBU is working to get 

training opportunities set up 

for the conference, whether 

pre-conference workshops or inconference 

sessions. We’re also 

making sure the certification 

information is updated and current 

between ICRM and the NIRMA 

sites for the professional 

certifications and special 

designations. 

But that’s the humdrum routine 

work done by the PDBU. We’ve 

also got the webinars for NIRMA 

members lined up through the 

spring through our host, iBridge, 

LLC. We’ll be putting the webinars 

on hold during the summer leading 

up to the conference and then 

resuming them again in the fall. 

Please think about what topics or 

content you might have that you 

could share with the membership. 

Webinars are a great way to develop 

yourself, help the organization, earn 

credits for certification maintenance, 

and educate our members. I really 

cannot encourage 

you enough to get involved in 

presenting topics and attending the 

monthly webinars. 

If there are particular topics you 

would be interested in, please let me 

or Lou Rofrano, the PDBU codirector, 

know and we’ll see what we 

can do, either in webinars or 

workshops. You can reach us at: 

tammy.cutts@pge.com or 

lou@amsstoreandshred.com 

From the Vice-President, continued 

and share a NIRMA topic of interest 

… or a COVID-19 experience 

you’ve endured. We encourage a 

panel of members to give a joint 

presentation about recent 

experiences. Or, did you recently 

update/upgrade your software 

system and want to share the 

experience about what went right … 

or wrong? The possibilities are 

endless. 

NEW this year, the ICRM 

workshops will not be held during 

the Conference itself. The ICRM 

has decided to host a pre-conference 

VIRTUAL event to prep for the 

CRA, the NS, and the FED exams. 

Those prep classes will be fully 

remote to eliminate travel and are 

tentatively scheduled for August 2-4. 

This means you will not have to 

choose between learning how to 

become certified or attending a 

session from your peers. 

We have invited nearly two 

dozen of our exhibitor contacts 

about physically attending the 

Conference and will have an 

Exhibitor Hall just as we have had in 

past years. This year, we are inviting 

the first six exhibitors to sign up to 

give a 20-minute Spotlight session 

that all of us can attend prior to our 

Networking Reception with them at 

the end of the day. If you are an 

exhibitor and want this opportunity, 

please contact Sarah at 

nirma@nirma.org to register. 

We learned how to host a 

successful hybrid Conference last 

year (on the fly)! We are working to 

improve upon the experience and to 

offer more opportunities for our 

attendees and exhibitors in this 

special 45 th Anniversary year. I plan 

to be at the 2021 NIRMA 

Conference in-person in August and 

look forward to greeting you there. 

Register for 

the 45th 

Annual 

NIRMA 

Conference 

Today. 


News from the Records & 

Information Management 

Business Unit (RIMBU) 

RIMBU 2021 Spring Meeting 

T 

he RIMBU team is gearing up for our annual 

spring meeting on March 9th and 10th. 

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to get together 

in person this year but will host everyone 

virtually instead. The team will be continuing work on 

the Cloud computing white paper and wrapping up 

the creation of TG24, Procurement of Digitization 

Services. We’ll also be discussing needed revisions to 

our guidance documents that are up for review this 

year. There are two speakers lined up with 

presentations on PDF/A standard expansion and agile 

software management methods. As always, we’ll share 

valuable operating experience and benchmark with 

one another. 

Status of RIMBU Actions 

The following guidance documents are up for review 

and possible revision this year: 

• Technical Guide 08 - Development and 

Procurement Spec 

• Technical Guide 18 - Vendor Technical 

Information Program 

• Technical Guide 22 - Management of Electronic 

Vendor Technical Documents 

• Technical Guide 23 - Turnover of Records and 

Incremental Handover of Information for 

Technical Guide 24, Procedure 

of Digitization Services in final stages 

of development 

The team worked diligently on TG24 throughout 

the last year and the document is nearing completion. 

A review by the RIMBU membership was recently 

completed and comments will be addressed during the 

spring meeting. Once all comments are incorporated, 

the document will sent out for NIRMA membership 

review. 

By Stephanie Price, RIMBU Business Unit Director 

Position Paper 08, Electronic Signature 

Methods nearing completion 

Electronic signature methods is a topic that has 

been discussed many times over the past several years 

at the NIRMA conference, through benchmarking 

questions, and amongst the RIMBU team members. 

As COVID-19 has affected how all of us perform our 

daily work, the question of what is and is not an 

acceptable method of electronic signature has become 

a hot topic. While it is not the intention of RIMBU or 

NIRMA to endorse any one method, product, or 

software solution, it is our goal to ensure our 

membership has the information they need to make an 

informed decision on electronic signature usage within 

their organization. 

The team, led by Bill Clover (Exelon Nuclear), has 

worked to include information about current laws and 

standards, federal regulations, types of signatures, and 

best practices. The paper has been reviewed by both 

the RIMBU and greater NIRMA membership. It is 

currently under review and comment with the board 

of directors. Once approved by the board, the paper 

will be made available on the NIRMA website. 

RIMBU is excited to offer this guidance to our 

membership. 

Get involved with RIMBU 

New members are always welcome! RIMBU is a 

great opportunity to benchmark with others in the 

industry, share valuable operating experience, and 

have the opportunity to influence industry standard 

guidance in records management. If you’re interested 

in joining, please reach out to me at 

sjprice@southernco.com. 

Not receiving NIRMA Email 

communication? Click here & 

scroll to the bottom of NIRMA’s 

website to sign up to ensure 

you receive the most current 

information. 


MEMBERSHIP & MARKETING 

(M&M) Business Unit News 

Kathi Cole, CRM 

M&MBU Director 

e are less than 6 months away 

W 

from the 2021 NIRMA 

Conference, the 45 th Anniversary. 

Time to start really thinking about 

attending the conference. There are great 

ways to enjoy and participate in the 

learning and fun. 

“BRING-a-BUDDY” Campaign! 

We will again be promoting the 

“BRING-a-BUDDY” campaign in 2021. 

When you register yourself and a 

“buddy” (a new attendee) to come to the 

2021 NIRMA conference, your names will be placed in 

a special drawing. Prizes are always fun! Remember to 

register by July 1st and receive the Early Bird Discount. 

The new attendee can be anyone from your 

organization, such as IT, your boss, procedure writers, 

auditors, engineers, etc. 

Group Discount Offered 

NIRMA is offering a group discount when you 

register for the Conference early. Purchase 3 

registrations from the same company, and all 

subsequent registrations are $625. These subsequent 

employees need not be part of the Records 

Management organization. They can be 

employees from any of the organizations 

within the same company. 

Free Shirt with Early Bird 

Registration 

Also, because this year is the 45 th 

Anniversary of NIRMA, we are offering 

you a free NIRMA 45 th Anniversary shirt 

with your Early Bird registration. 

We Need You! 

Membership & Marketing Business Unit is looking 

for new members to help come up with new ideas to 

bring new members to NIRMA as well as, new ideas of 

how to share everyone’s expertise with the membership. 

M&MBU meets the first Wednesday of every month for 

one hour at 1:00 PM ET, 12:00 PM CT, 11:00 AM MT, 

and 10:00 AM PT. Please join us. We are a fun group 

to work with. 

For additional information or questions on anything 

mentioned above, please contact nirma@nirma.org. 

J 

ust a reminder that the 

election for the NIRMA 

Board of Directors will occur 

in July and we need your help 

in filling the two Board positions 

that are open for election. Please 

consider nominating yourself or 

other individuals who you 

considered qualified to fill these 

leadership positions for the 

Association. 

NOMINATIONS FOR NIRMA 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

Factors to include in your 

consideration are length of time as a 

NIRMA member, committee 

activities, leadership positions held, 

service to NIRMA, professional 

qualification, and desire and ability to 

serve on the Board. The term is 

three years. 

Please send your nominations to 

the Nominating Committee 

members: Kathi Cole at 

kjccole1@yahoo.com or Jewell 

Yturralde at 

jewell.yturralde@wipp.ws by April 

15, 2021. 

Kathi or Jewell will provide 

candidates with documents and 

guidance per AP02, Annual Election 

and Board of Directors 

Reorganization Process. 


Leaders, policy experts, 

researchers—and now the Biden 

administration—know that tackling 

climate change will require energy 

innovation. Sometimes that means 

inventing new technologies in wind, 

solar and the next generation of 

nuclear reactors, but it can also 

mean taking advanced technologies 

from other fields and applying them 

to the energy sector. 

3D-printing is one innovation that 

is beginning to revolutionize how we 

think about carbon-free energy, 

especially nuclear. 

What Is 3D-Printing? 

3D-printing, or more formally, 

additive manufacturing, takes a 

digital design and converts it into an 

actual 3D object, fashioned from 

plastic, metal or a composite. The 

technology has become more 

popular recently and moved from 

labs and issues of “Popular 

Mechanics” to inside our own 

homes. Even dentists use 3Dprinters, 

to make crowns from 

advanced materials. 

A 3D-printer is not quite a “Star 

Trek” replicator, but sometimes it 

seems close: in industrial versions of 

3D-printing, a computer powers a 

laser or electron beam welder or 

other energy device to fuse a powder 

into a precise shape, layer by layer. 

3D-printing has huge advantages. 

It allows for precisely formed parts 

that are more complex than could be 

made by casting, molding or even 

machining. A part can be 3Dprinted 

in one continuous form, 

rather than assembled from multiple 

pieces. It’s like how the advent of 

plastics decades ago allowed a single, 

complicated part to replace many 

that used to be fitted together from 

metal or wood. 

More Nuclear Plants Are 

Using 3D-Printing to Do 

Their Jobs Better 

3D-printing is coming to nuclear 

energy in a big way—both for plants 

running now and the more advanced 

reactors moving from the drawing 

boards towards deployment. 

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s 

Browns Ferry plant will load fuel 

assemblies this spring with four 3Dprinted 

parts, made of stainless steel, 

fabricated by Framatome. This 

follows on the progress made last 

spring when Westinghouse Electric 

Co. partnered with Exelon Corp.’s 

Byron plant to deploy another 3Dprinted 

device, also within the fuel 

assembly. Framatome, and many 

others in the nuclear industry, are 

already working on testing and 

qualification efforts to deploy more 

complex parts. 

“There is a tremendous 

opportunity for savings,” said John 

Strumpell, manager of U.S. fuel 

research and development at 

Framatome. These savings can make 

nuclear energy more costcompetitive, 

speeding the transition 

away from fossil fuels. 

Strumpell and others say that 

advanced reactor manufacturers are 

eyeing 3D-printing as a way to try 

out designs quickly, and then rework 

them as needed, shortening 

development time and speeding 

their deployment to help reduce 

carbon emissions. This approach 

does more than just save time, too, 

as some new metal alloys developed 

for advanced reactors are stronger if 

they are fabricated though 3Dprinting 

than if they are produced 

through conventional casting. 

In an ambitious plan to integrate 

advanced manufacturing with new 

nuclear technology, the U.S. 

Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge 

National Laboratory is planning to 

build an entire reactor core with 3Dprinting 

by 2023. 

Article reprinted with permission 

of NEI. Read full article here. 


Advanced reactors will break the 

mold of what we think nuclear 

energy can accomplish: some will 

be smaller, some will use different 

kinds of fuel and others will do 

more than just make electricity. 

This new technology may seem like 

uncharted waters, but when 

operators, technicians and other 

workers start up the first reactors 

of the new generation, they will 

bring with them years of nuclear 

experience to run machines that 

have been optimized with lessons 

from the current fleet. 

While advanced reactors are 

often portrayed as the future of 

nuclear energy, it’s our current 

plants that have paved the way for 

these exciting innovations and 

which will be workhorses for years 

to come. 

Reactor Veterans Bring 

Their Expertise to New 

Designs 

Many of the workers who will 

operate the next generation of 

reactors come from a nuclear 

background. Even though the 

design of an advanced reactor may 

be different, the experience and 

instincts these operators have 

gained from working at the current 

fleet will help new plants get off to 

a more productive start. 

“They have a questioning 

attitude; they are always exploring 

what could go wrong and always 

understanding the notion of risk 

management in nuclear operations, 

whether it’s the oldest design or 

the newest design,” said Chip 

Pardee, the president of Terrestrial 

Energy USA, who is the former 

chief operating officer at two 

nuclear utilities, Exelon Corp. and 

the Tennessee Valley Authority. 

“They have respect for the 

technology and a bias towards 

conservative decision-making.” 

Jhansi Kandasamy, vice 

president of engineering at GE 

Hitachi Nuclear Energy, agrees. 

She said that the presence of 

industry veterans will benefit the 

new models—like the 300 

megawatt boiling water reactor her 

company is developing. 

From the beginning, a new 

reactor will have “people who have 

touched it, worked on it, and 

experienced it,” she said. 

“They’re going to be able to tell 

you if something doesn’t look 

right, because they’ve lived through 

it.” 

Experience Informs New 

Reactor Design 

Advanced reactors are designed 

by engineers who are fully familiar 

with existing plants and can use 

that experience to optimize the 

new ones, like a family building a 

house and wanting the kitchen just 

so. New reactors will be simpler to 

operate because of insights gained 

from years of operations of the 

current fleet. 

NuScale Power LLC, for 

example, has a very different 

design from the current fleet: up to 

12 small reactors—instead of one 

or two large reactors—managed 

from a single digital control 

room—instead of one full of 

analog switches and dials. When 

the company designed its control 

room, it brought in industry 

veterans who had collectively 

worked at more than two dozen 

nuclear plants. 

Article reprinted with permission 

of NEI. Read full article here. 


Nuclear Must Be Part of 

Taxonomy, says Unions, HPC 

Delayed Over COVID-19 

Nuclear energy must be part of 

the European taxonomy within the 

action plan on financing sustainable 

growth, unions from Belgium, 

Bulgaria, Finland, France, Hungary 

and Romania said in a joint letter to 

the President of the European 

Commission Ursula von der Leyen. 

“Convinced that Nuclear 

Energy is essential for achieving 

Europe's climate goals, our 

organizations insist on the 

imperative to include Nuclear 

Energy in European taxonomy. 

This taxonomy should provide 

reliable information on activities 

and technologies contributing to 

sustainable goals,” the unions said 

in the letter. 

The EU taxonomy is a 

classification system to clearly 

define and establish a list of 

environmentally sustainable 

economic activities which investors 

can use when considering financing 

projects. 

“The EU taxonomy is an 

important enabler to scale up 

sustainable investment and to 

implement the European Green 

Deal,” the European Commission 

says. 

A Commission has left nuclear 

power from its recommendations 

on the taxonomy rules as it said it 

could not conclude that the 

industry’s value chain does not 

cause significant harm to other 

environmental objectives. 

Hinkley Point C start up 

delayed 6 mths due to 

Covid-19 

The startup for EDF’s Hinkley 

Point C nuclear power station, two 

EPR reactors with a combined 

capacity of 3.2 GW in construction 

in Somerset, UK, will be around six 

months later than originally planned 

and will cost an extra £500 million 

($687 million) due to COVID-19 

pandemic, the company said in a 

statement at the end of January. 

EDF, a French state-run utility, 

has come under fire for repeated 

project delays and cost over runs at 

the site, which will house Britain’s 

first EPR reactor when it begins 

operation, with its first unit 

expected to start electricity 

generation in June 2026. 

That date compares to the 

original date of end-2025 as 

announced in 2016. 

The project completion costs 

are now estimated in the range of 

£22 to £23 billion compared to 

£21.5 to £22.5 billion announced in 

EU flag outside the European 

headquarters in Brussels 

a press release September 25, 2019, 

EDF said. 

“The risk of COD (Commercial 

Operation Date) delay of Units 1 

and 2 is maintained at respectively 

15 and 9 months. The realisation of 

this risk would incur a potential 

additional cost in the order of £0.7 

bn. In this case, the IRR (internal 

rate of return) for EDF would be 

reduced by 0.3%,” EDF said. 

European Parliament 

calls for suspension of 

Belarus NPP 

A European Parliament 

committee has called for the 

suspension of operations at the 

Astravets Nuclear Power Plant in 

the Grodno Region in Belarus until 

all EU safety recommendations 

have been implemented. 

Article reprinted with permission of 

Reuters Events Nuclear. 

Read full article here. 


Register Today for the 

45th Annual NIRMA Conference 

August 9-11, 2021 

Held at the 

JW Marriott Resort & Spa 

Click here to register.

Inside NIRMA Spring 2021

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?