The Utilities Services Alliance (USA) Performance Improvement Core Peer Team is taking a leading role to develop an effective, standardized approach to implement the guidance provided in INPO 14-004, Conduct of Performance Improvement.

As a coordinated effort, the team is developing a standard, simplified evaluation template that can be used at USA fleet stations. Upon completion, the template will provide an organized guide to conduct a gap analysis, share results and collect actions. The goal is to improve behaviors and practices that support excellence in problem prevention, detection and correction for operating nuclear power plants.

“The template is a tool each station will use to perform their own assessment and measure their performance against the guidance INPO provides for performance improvement,” said Kristin Zastrow, Xcel Energy’s performance assessment corporate functional area manager and the USA Performance Improvement Core Peer Team lead. “It will provide our USA plants the ability to perform a gap analysis and use these collective learnings so that we can create common corrective actions across the USA fleet.”

The main objective for the project is to create an industry best practice to achieve alignment with the guidelines set forth by INPO by the end of 2105.

“We want to take active measures to ensure we are performing in line with the document and take full advantage of the benefits it provides,” said Zastrow. “The gap analysis will evaluate if we are focusing on the most risk significant issues and correcting conditions commensurate with their safety significance, without creating additional burdens to the organizations.”

The template will be complete by the end of April and the USA plants will begin performing analysis May through July to close gaps by the end of the year.