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News

On December 13th thru 15th, USA Supplier CRANE Nuclear met with the valve team leads from our member sites at CRANE Nuclear’s main office in Kennesaw, Georgia.  USA is CRANE Nuclear’s largest valve services customer by sales volume.  The USA valve leads and CRANE teams are responsible for ensuring the approximately 7,000 to 15,000 man-hours of valve work is performed safely, error-free and within a typical 15-22 day work window.  Refuel outage valve work includes check, relief, air operated, motor operated and manual valve disassembly, inspections and repair and/or diagnostic testing.

The purpose of this bi-annual meeting is to (1) review and share lessons learned from the members’ refueling outage valve services during the previous outage and (2) challenge both CRANE Nuclear and the sites on their preparedness for the upcoming season.  Additionally, the team spent time benchmarking and comparing lessons learned.  The team shares problems encountered, successful strategies, and ensures best practices are applied across the various utility member sites.  There was a significant focus on improving efficiency, continuous improvement, and the valve team’s role in promoting the principles and goals underlying the Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative.

In support of the valve team’s goal of improving performance and increasing efficiency while promoting safety and best-in-class workmanship, CRANE Nuclear held two separate Kaizen events the first week of December in Washington at Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station and in Pennsylvania at Talen’s Susquehanna nuclear plant.  One of the key objectives of Columbia’s event was to improve workflow to help eliminate any non-productive time and streamline processes.  A major focus of Susquehanna’s event was on reducing rework by developing component specific procedures and updating valve procedures through collaboration and insight utilizing the groups’ collective experience and subject-matter expertise.  These events helped both CRANE Nuclear and the USA member sites take direct action to improve areas they had identified at the specific site as offering the largest potential gains in improving performance, reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and promoting safety and quality.  At the valve meeting, the members were able to share this information, key changes and improvements made, and discuss ways to maximize the utilization and capitalization of their hard work and the resulting valuable information.

Another key benefit emerging from the meeting, was identification of the best matches for team members serving as volunteer external peers at the 2017 Spring Outage Valve Readiness Review Meetings for Fermi and Susquehanna.  Tommy Winslow (Comanche Peak) is the external peer supporting Susquehanna’s Outage Valve Readiness Review Meeting.  Bill Trappett (Columbia) is the external peer supporting Fermi’s Outage Valve Readiness Review Meeting.  Additionally, the team selected the key areas/topics for benchmarking and process comparison at the July valve challenge meeting.  This information is collected and distributed beforehand so the members can have detailed, specific discussions at the meeting.

The valve team’s next challenge meeting will be held at USA’s main office in Overland Park, Kansas on July 25-26, 2017.  Part of the agenda will include reviewing Spring 2017 outage performance and preparing for the Fall 2017 outages.  The USA/STARS Valve Team is led by Tim Scoggins and was established to promote sharing of information among those specializing in valves and nuclear valve services.  Please contact Tim Scoggins at tscoggins@usainc.org or (760) 419-5271 with questions or for additional information.