Organizational processes and nuclear power plant safety: research summary

Problems related to the behavior of individuals in the nuclear environment have been found to influence not only the likelihood that a nuclear power plant (NPP) will be involved in an incident, but also the ability of the organization to deal with the incident once it has begun. A program which has the objective of identifying and assessing organizational factors related to the safety of NPPs is described. A second aim of this research is to examine the relationship of organizational factors to traditional measures of plant safety. The theoretical foundation and the research methodology proposed for assessing NPP organizational factors are outlined. The quantitative and qualitative results of a pilot implementation of the authors´ assessment approach are summarized. A description of how this approach will be used in upcoming years to better understand the relationship between organizational factors and nuclear power plant safety is given.<>