ILO Qual Cards

[Creeker]

Good Morning,

I'm looking at doing some revisions to our ILO qual card, and want to get an informal benchmark on the use of OJT/TPE on other plants cards.  Our previous card did have a lot of OJT/TPE requirements.  Pump runs, slave relay testing, and many procedures... 

Now... I have some concerns with the applicability to TPE on the card at all.  I understand in the tech world, OJT/TPE actually qualify you to do a task, and the TPE is the final test before an individual is qualified and placed in Qual tool, (or whatever equivalent), and can perfrom a task on his own.  But, in the operations arena, specifically ILOs, an individual is really getting experience and exposure, but isn't qualified by the card to perform anything.  Is TPE really an effective use of time for the either the individual being qualified, or the others who spend time to qualify him? 

So, practices on OJT/TPE on the ILO card... 

Feedback greatly appreciated,

Bill

[Nuclear Renaissance]

Bill

I was in ILO training as direct SRO at a plant that had zero NLO OJT/TPE familiarity requirements, and in direct SRO training at a plant where the DSROs were required to sign off just about every task in the NLO OJT/TPE books. As I see it, the right answer is (as always) somewhere in between.

In the first example, the DSROs were used as corrective action and performance indicator staff jockeys in the time leading up to class. The onus was on us to sit in on NLO systems classes and get out and about with the building operators.  This made the learning curve so steep that the first third of every portion of ILO training was wasted just trying to build base knowledge.

In the second example, pursuit of all those TPE signatures made us an additional burden on the NLOs, stealing time from all the actual mid-qualification NLOs who could actually relieve the watch someday. We spent a lot of extra TPE time on balance-of-plant items that are low KA-value (a reflection of its prevalence on an ILO exam), so the true value per time to us in those areas was limited.

If I had my druthers, every single NLO qual book task would have been an OJT signature requirement for the DSROs, which can be obtained by watching the training of the new NLOs without being any extra burden. A select few tasks would have TPE requirements; these would be chosen based on their likelyhood (and difficulty) as ILO NRC exam field JPMs (maybe a couple dozen of these exist at my plant). A portion of these should also be observed by Ops supervision as a check to ensure DSROs understand the human performance expectations of the plant.

For the time that would otherwise be used in pursuit of the rest of the TPE signatures, I would suggest the following, ranked in order from an off-the-street DSRO to a previously-licensed DSO:

1.   NLO systems classes, specifically for the nuclear side of the plant
2.   Requal training simulator observations
3.   AOP/EOP bases required reading
4.   Tech Spec workbooks

In my situation, there were a portion of the many hundreds of TPE signatures that were obtained without the full rigor I would hope for a person actually taking that watch. That being said, it allowed time for me to build the framework of my systems, AOP and EOP notes, which in turn allowed me to get significantly more value out of those respective lectures when they came around during ILO training.

[Creeker]

We are lucky enough to have the time and assets available for our new directs to have them sit in on a site/turbine/Aux set of classes at NLO level.  These will wrap up about a week before the GFES starts, and should hopefully ease the learning curve on our directs.

We are dealing with 2 cards...  The first is a pre-license, plant familiarization card, which includes NLO UI watches, component locations, and system walkdowns.  

The second card, the actual license card, has the reactivity manipulations, the 530 hours of watch (RO/SRO) and the various OJT/TPEs.  Based upon your comments, and PMs, I wonder.... Can the OJT be self signed, and still live under INPO OJT guidelines?  I'll research that after this week, but it sounds like you guys are doing it.  The OJT/TPE process here are very high visibility.  

I completely agree with using those often seen JPMs as a guide for TPEs, but I think I might be also locked into historical TPEs driven by TNAs of old.

Thanks again for the help!

Bill

PS  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

[Nuclear Renaissance]

Bill

To clarify, my post was the qual process leading up to the start of ILO training. We OJT/TPE all tasks once the actual ILO RO/SRO qual card tasks commence. I haven't seen much flexibility here; if it's an identified task, it's in the qual card -period - which means those books usually only get bigger over time.

[Fermi2]

OJT/TPE for a Instant SRO for NLO and Most ILO Tasks is a waste of time. At Fermi, then at SQN I developed what we call Familiarization Cards which require 520 Hours on Shift prior to starting License Training. A Day and Night Shift watch on each NLO watchstation, and about 70 tasks to get OJT (NOT TPE), said task get the trainee in every level and section of each building.

I've worked REAL hard on getting our ILO Qual Cards knocked down to what is pertinent so the trainees can concentrate on what's important, learning to stand the watch.

Mike

[Creeker]

I'm beginning to think that ILO cards are like taxes... Easy to add to, almost impossible to reduce!

[Fermi2]

I've successfully reduced two!