The following is a brief list of a few of the typical initiates currently underway or recently completed through USA. This list is not intended to be exhaustive but rather to provide an overview of the types of projects and activities undertaken through USA, Inc.

New 10CFR50.59 Rule Initiative
This effort established a common process for implementing the requirements of 10CFR50.59. The team included three non-USA members as well as the USA fleet and worked directly with industry organizations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to achieve an uniform, consistent process to complete nuclear safety screenings and reviews. The team developed both procedures and training materials to be used by nuclear sites to complete the required screenings and reviews. These products were then made available to all licensees via the Nuclear Energy Institute’s web site and have subsequently been adopted by a number of additional nuclear plants. This project was awarded the Nuclear Energy Institute’s "Top Industry Practice" (TIP) award on April 11, 2001.

Air Operated Valve Program
To ensure that the many air operated valves (AOV) utilized in our industry operate as designed, are tested, and maintained appropriately, this team focused on joint procurement of test equipment and engineering services, development of consistent testing procedures and shared expertise to increase the reliability and operational characteristics of AOV’s.

Operator Performance Improvement Program
This USA developed program provides a process for reviewing a plant’s operations environment to identify strengths and weaknesses and thus facilitate improvement. This program involves the observation of key behaviors associated with top performing plants. This program has been recognized as an industry innovation. A similar program is currently being developed to review the maintenance area of each of our plants. Future applications are being considered for Radiation Worker Practices and other critical operational areas, including Plant Security.

Personnel Sharing
USA plants follow a program of sharing personnel during refueling outages and other times of needed expertise. This provides a pool of reliable, nuclear-trained plant workers to augment plant staff and reduce reliance on contractors. Sharing of personnel has included plant craft, radiation protection, warehouse, QA/QC, engineering and specific technical experts to support outages, audits, assessments and training opportunities. Several plant maintenance managers have reported productivity from shared employees as greater than 2.5 times a typical contractor replacement.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control
USA plants support QA audits by sending each other subject matter experts to support the site’s QA audit requirements. The QA Managers have also worked together to consolidate vendor audit requirements, and standardize personnel certification requirements. Quality Control technicians and engineers have been loaned between sites to increase the pool of certified inspectors and reduce system outage times.

Shared Tools and Equipment
By sharing tools, particularly during refueling outages, we can reduce the number of expensive tools that each plant must purchase to support their outages. Specialty tools and equipment is also shared to reduce capital expenditures on significant projects.

Supply Chain Management
Initiatives include looking at joint contracting for services or materials, and other opportunities to improve the supply chain process. USA negotiates and maintains several joint contracts, which leverage our joint buying power. An important initiative of this team has been the implementation of the Key Freight project, which has developed an Internet based system for reducing freight costs. Many of our members’ corporations (not just the nuclear site) utilize this contract for increased savings.

TLD Processing
Fermi 2 maintains a NIST NAVLAP certified laboratory for the processing and calibration of TLD’s and TLD reading equipment. Many of the USA members utilize this service at Fermi 2 and have eliminated the need to maintain the equipment and personnel certifications at their specific site.

Training
The USA plants have developed computer based general employee training and the associated exam banks. Participating sites have also developed a process to allow shared employees to complete the necessary basic training at their own facility prior to traveling to the site requesting their assistance. This arrangement has reduced the amount of travel time and costs with the shared personnel program. USA contracts have also been developed with contractors in areas such as Project Management, QA Auditor Training and Licensing Engineer Training that allow plants to schedule training together and share the applicable costs.

Radiation Protection Programs
The USA group is evaluating how to reduce human performance errors at their site in the area of radiation worker techniques, procedures, signage, and training. Consistent implementation of federal regulations in conjunction with reduced operating costs is an objective of this task force.

Vendor Manual Updates
USA plants have jointly contracted with a contractor to obtain and incorporate updates to their vendor manuals.