Kalinin NPP: WANO’s experts highly appraised the plant’s safety culture activities

The visit goal was to produce recommendations for building up and development of safety culture commitment at the team and individual levels. The mission team included advisor of WANO MC and mission head Alexander Astapov, adviser of WANO MC Konstantin Ozerov, psychologist Yulia Babich from Rostov NPP Psycological and Physiological Laboratory, chief expert for analysis and control Emilia Doncheva from Kozloduy NPP (Bulgaria) and representatives of main departments of Kalinin NPP.

The core of the safety culture reviews is the perception of personal responsibility for respective actions by employees. During the week Kalinin NPP activities were studied in regard of three safety culture constituents, i.e. commitment to safety culture at the level of policy-making, at the managerial level, and at the level of individual. The experts observed the work process at the plant, walked down the plant’s site and premises, analyzed documents and interviewed plant managers and specialists. The experts paid special attention to how the safety culture principles were applied in operation and repairs, trials of mechanisms in the turbine and reactor departments of the plant’s phase two, inspection of work organization in the chemical shop, and whether the training was organized in the appropriate way in the training center, including training at the Kalinin-4 full-scale simulator.

“The experts had a very good impression of all reviewed safety culture areas at Kalinin NPP. The main reflection of the safety culture efficiency is the plant safety indicators. For a long time Kalinin NPP has been lacking of occupational injuries and a number of operational events due to human errors has dropped; these are a confirmation that the safety culture principles are observed. We have got the confirmation that we are on the right track here,” Sergey Longvinenko, head of department for the use of operating experience and event investigation at Kalinin NPP and technical head of the visit, said.

At the summing up meeting held on March 14 adviser of WANO MC Konstantin Ozerov noted: “The plant is in good condition. The people are of open disposition, which describes the team, relations between employees and work attitudes very positively. Based on our work the recommendations on enhancement of Kalinin plant’s safety culture activities with the account taken of the world’s best practices were formulated. I hope they will help you in your future work and will be useful in your preparations for the peer review, which will take place at Kalinin NPP this year.” On his part, Kalinin Acting Plant Manager Victor Sushko expressed his appreciation to the experts for the work done.

Following the mission findings, the WANO experts will write a mission report and hand over it to Kalinin NPP.