There’s a tri-fold at PSEG’s two nuclear power plants that helps explain Equipment Reliability. It’s given to new employees or visitors who — if outside the nuclear industry, for instance — may not know that term well.

On the first flap of literature it asks: “Why is Equipment Reliability important?”

Let us count the ways. Properly running equipment protects the health and safety of employees and the public; it improves quality of life for workers; it allows for better planning; and it makes nuclear power a more viable energy option.

And that’s just to name a few.

“Everything is equipment reliability,” said Harry Palas, Equipment Reliability program owner for PSEG, which operates Salem and Hope Creek, both members of the Utilities Service Alliance. “Properly running and efficient equipment makes us viable as an industry.”

Understanding the importance of Equipment Reliability (ER), USA’s Engineering Core Peer Team saw last year that, as a fleet, ER indicators at USA plants reflected poor performance compared to the industry. Poor equipment reliability was leading to poor plant performance — including scrams and below average forced loss rates.

This year, as part of its business plan focus areas, the Engineering Core Peer Team is tackling the issue. The Equipment Reliability Team, a sub-committee of the Core Peer Team, started in January looking into where the fleet could improve ER performance.

In a face-to-face meeting in Atlanta, the team conducted a bubble charting exercise — an INPO process in which they took all the events at each plant and put them into different bins. Based on that chart, they identified where they had the most gaps, and, therefore, where they needed to improve.

“That is something we’ve never done as a fleet,” Palas said.

The group identified three areas for improvement: Performance monitoring and trending; causal analysis; and quality and use of preventive maintenance feedback.

For each of those areas, the team is determining best practices used at each plant — those practices that have led to good performance in ER. Based on that, the team is writing white papers for each area “that says, ‘if you want to improve, this is what you have to go do,’” Palas said.

“We get those best practices in one document and once that document is issued, then each plant does a gap analysis,” Palas said. “Here is what good looks like, do an analysis, figure out how to bridge the gaps and now go do it.”

In June, the ER team issued its first best-practices white paper on performance monitoring. It issued its second white paper, on causal analysis, in July. Each plant has two months from the issuance of the white paper to develop a plan to bridge gaps in their programs. They will present those plans to the Engineering Core Peer Team to seek feedback.

In six to eight months from that point — once the plan is implemented — the ER team will conduct an effectiveness review to determine if the plans are working.

“We are obviously trying to close all the gaps,” Palas said.

This 2014 business plan focus area will continue into next year, with the issuance of a white paper on preventive maintenance feedback expected in April.

In the meantime, though, the USA ER group is continuing with is positive momentum. What started as an informal group in the spring of 2013, is now a group that meets three times a year, conducts monthly phone calls with a formal agenda and is taking full advantage of the USA fleet model.

Palas said the participation in the group is excellent and the group is gaining visibility and structure with the oversight of the Engineering Core Peer Team.

“It is so valuable,” Palas said. “We know each other now, we are friends, we are peers and we want to help each other.”

Like other teams, the group conducts benchmarking and participates often in information sharing.

“It is truly showcasing USA as a fleet,” he added. “Nothing is sacred, all information is shared. We trade information like we are part of the same company.”