Sharing Lessons Learned Between Industries in EU

Recent events in nuclear industry remind us on importance of continuous sharing of the knowledge and experience gained through evaluations of incidents and accidents. We frequently use experience from our daily life activities to improve our performance and avoid some mistakes or unwanted events. In the similar way we can use other industries experience. These experiences can be applied to improve nuclear safety. For example, Safety Culture, which has a great influence on the level of nuclear power plants safety, is similarly presented in other industries. Mechanisms which led to accidents from weak safety culture in one branch of other industry could be comparable to those in nuclear industry. Some other industries have many more cumulative years of experience than nuclear industry. Aviation and Oil industries are typical representatives. Part of their experience can be used in nuclear industry too. Number of reports from nuclear power plants showed us that not only specific equipment related causes lay behind accidents; there are also other causes and contributors which are more common for all industries. Hence lessons learned in other industry should be assessed and used in nuclear industry too. In the European Union, a regional initiative has been set up in 2008 in support of EU Member State nuclear safety authorities, but also EU technical support organizations, international organizations and the broader nuclear community, to enhance nuclear safety through improvement of the use of lessons learned from operational experience of nuclear power plants (NPPs). The initiative, called “the EU Clearinghouse on Operational Experience Feedback for NPP”, is organized as a network operated by a centralized office located at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The reduction of occurrence and significance of events in NPPs and their safe operation is its ultimate goal. Among others EU Clearinghouse provides services such as technical and scientific work to disseminate the lessons learned from past operating experience as well as background research in OEF for its members and also publishes information on recent operational experiences. In European Union there are several organisations and institutions which are involved in incidents and accidents evaluation as well as in dissemination of lessons from events. The EU Clearinghouse is evaluating how other hazardous industries are organized to capture experience related to events and to disseminate the lessons learned. It is also trying to identify and establish contacts with repositories of operating experience from other comparable industries, so the best practice and lessons learned could be applied in nuclear industry.

STRUCIC Miodrag; 

2014-07-07

Croatian Nuclear Society

JRC67882

978-953-55224-4-7,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC67882,