Practicing Nuclear Safety Management

This white paper (download at right) describes a systems approach to developing safety management training simulators for nuclear professionals. Management “flight simulators” are increasingly being used to provide realistic, low-anxiety platforms for individuals to develop and practice essential skills.  Our approach is based on our extensive experience in nuclear management consulting and in applying business simulation to nuclear plant performance and asset management.  The paper also describes a unique collaborative process to bring to bear expertise across the industry in order to optimize and validate training tools.

NuclearSafetySim

We have invested in the research and development of a prototype simulator called NuclearSafetySim.  Development was based on the iThink simulation engine and analytical relationships for key model variables.  The completed simulation is unique both in its representation of a nuclear safety management system and the framework of an interactive, training tool.  In NuclearSafetySim the actions taken by players determine most aspects of the model's response and contribute to a realistic environment of managing competing pressures to achieve results.

We developed the prototype NuclearSafetySim with the intent to revisit all of its major components block by block through the experience and feedback we receive from this website.  Having a fully fleshed out prototype simulation avoids a blank sheet of paper as a starting point, and provides the ability to look ahead to a fully composed simulation.  While system dynamics is a powerful construct, research has shown that even analytically sophisticated people have difficulty “getting” some of the basic operations and predicting behavior in rudimentary systems.  (See "Why Don't Well-Educated Adults Understand Accumulation" on the References page.)  Our strategy for handling this potential problem is to present a series of incremental sub-models on this website, building up the complete safety management model one piece at a time.  Each sub-model is accompanied by a guide to step participants through the process and our thinking about key issues.  The sub-models are “run time” versions that can be played on your desktop.

Our expectation is that visitors will read the background materials (at least the white paper), register, and begin to explore the website's resources.  Users who are new to simulation can download sub-models and their tutorials, more experienced users can access the full model, and everyone can participate in the discussion forum and access our References tab for additional materials.  Perhaps most important, all users should visit the blog regularly to follow the latest on safety management.  Based on your experiences at our site, we encourage you to post comments, questions, and/or suggestions in the forum or communicate directly with us.  We expect a robust dialogue leading to improvements in NuclearSafetySim and a shared level of understanding among contributors.

 Practicing Nuclear Safety Management

This white paper (download at right) describes a systems approach to developing safety management training simulators for nuclear professionals. Management “flight simulators” are increasingly being used to provide realistic, low-anxiety platforms for individuals to develop and practice essential skills.  Our approach is based on our extensive experience in nuclear management consulting and in applying business simulation to nuclear plant performance and asset management.  The paper also describes a unique collaborative process to bring to bear expertise across the industry in order to optimize and validate training tools.

NuclearSafetySim

We have invested in the research and development of a prototype simulator called NuclearSafetySim.  Development was based on the iThink simulation engine and analytical relationships for key model variables.  The completed simulation is unique both in its representation of a nuclear safety management system and the framework of an interactive, training tool.  In NuclearSafetySim the actions taken by players determine most aspects of the model's response and contribute to a realistic environment of managing competing pressures to achieve results.

We developed the prototype NuclearSafetySim with the intent to revisit all of its major components block by block through the experience and feedback we receive from this website.  Having a fully fleshed out prototype simulation avoids a blank sheet of paper as a starting point, and provides the ability to look ahead to a fully composed simulation.  While system dynamics is a powerful construct, research has shown that even analytically sophisticated people have difficulty “getting” some of the basic operations and predicting behavior in rudimentary systems.  (See "Why Don't Well-Educated Adults Understand Accumulation" on the References page.)  Our strategy for handling this potential problem is to present a series of incremental sub-models on this website, building up the complete safety management model one piece at a time.  Each sub-model is accompanied by a guide to step participants through the process and our thinking about key issues.  The sub-models are “run time” versions that can be played on your desktop.

Our expectation is that visitors will read the background materials (at least the white paper), register, and begin to explore the website's resources.  Users who are new to simulation can download sub-models and their tutorials, more experienced users can access the full model, and everyone can participate in the discussion forum and access our References tab for additional materials.  Perhaps most important, all users should visit the blog regularly to follow the latest on safety management.  Based on your experiences at our site, we encourage you to post comments, questions, and/or suggestions in the forum or communicate directly with us.  We expect a robust dialogue leading to improvements in NuclearSafetySim and a shared level of understanding among contributors.