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Regional Basic Professional Training Course in Korea

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<strong>Regional</strong> <strong>Basic</strong> <strong>Professional</strong> <strong>Tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g</strong> <strong>Course</strong> (BPTC) on Nuclear Safety<br />

because they know what is right, not because it is required.<br />

21.4.4.3. Susta<strong>in</strong>ability<br />

Humans tend to choose the easiest way, to forget th<strong>in</strong>gs, to stop th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g, and to transfer<br />

carefully considered procedures <strong>in</strong>to automatically followed rout<strong>in</strong>es. Therefore, safety<br />

culture is an <strong>in</strong>herently decl<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g feature. If we do not cont<strong>in</strong>ually strive to enhance it, it<br />

gradually degrades. We constantly have to move forwards, even stand<strong>in</strong>g still means<br />

stepp<strong>in</strong>g backwards. The management of safety has to establish an ongo<strong>in</strong>g learn<strong>in</strong>g<br />

process as part of the safety culture; otherwise an established standard cannot be<br />

ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed.<br />

21.4.4.4. Performance <strong>in</strong>dicators<br />

Monitor<strong>in</strong>g the safety performance is a management responsibility. The use of<br />

quantitative performance <strong>in</strong>dicators has a lot of advantages (e.g. enabl<strong>in</strong>g trend<strong>in</strong>g, goal<br />

sett<strong>in</strong>g and benchmark<strong>in</strong>g with other plants), but care should be taken not to give them<br />

too high a value <strong>in</strong> order to avoid mislead<strong>in</strong>g effects. For example, if reach<strong>in</strong>g a low<br />

number of “unplanned automatic scrams” is valued very highly; pressure could rise to<br />

adjust the set po<strong>in</strong>ts for trigger<strong>in</strong>g the scram “appropriately”. Or, with regard to the<br />

“collective dose”, people could f<strong>in</strong>d themselves seduced to reduce equipment tests, or<br />

they could welcome a reason for not perform<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>spections of the workplace and work<br />

practices (this problem is <strong>in</strong>dependent of the more general dispute on the appropriateness<br />

of this <strong>in</strong>dicator due to substantial doubts regard<strong>in</strong>g the validity of the l<strong>in</strong>ear‐no‐threshold<br />

hypothesis, which is the base of the “collective dose”). As a last example, the number of<br />

“significant events” as a performance <strong>in</strong>dicator could <strong>in</strong>crease tendencies to cover up or<br />

to play down the importance of the event.<br />

Very probably, every <strong>in</strong>dicator can exert negative <strong>in</strong>fluences, if it is valued too highly. So,<br />

performance <strong>in</strong>dicators are useful and probably even necessary, but they should be used<br />

with care and the management should clearly expla<strong>in</strong> their limited importance.<br />

❙ 1088 ❙

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