Historically, outages at Utilities Service Alliance (USA) member Talen Energy’s Susquehanna Station have been done safely, however, they have traditionally exceeded 40 days in duration. This, in comparison to world class nuclear sites of comparable size/design whose outages have traditionally targeted 30 days.

Previous outages at Susquehanna were negatively influenced by:

• a lack of focus and visibility on scheduled activities
• ‘management by all’ versus ‘management by exception’
•  lack of process in place ensuring effective communication between Outage Control Center (OCC) and First Line Supervisors

Syntempo Software, which was introduced to Susquehanna Station by its USA peers in advance of this spring’s Unit 1 20th Refueling and Inspection Outage (U1 20RIO), encouraged Susquehanna to focus on three aspects of this year’s outage:

• Creating a culture of ownership of scheduled activities
• Improving communications related to scheduled activities
• Concise monitoring and oversight of scheduled activities

The team implemented the Syntempo project using one dedicated project manager from Talen Energy, one dedicated project manager from Pipeline (Syntempo) and one IT resource dedicated to the project with support from Outage Management.

As a result:
• The Syntempo project at Susquehanna was ‘stood-up’ in 45 days
• A project pilot was successfully  conducted one month prior to the outage during a Diesel System Outage Window (EDG SOW) focused on P6 interface and user training
• Outage roll-out: the project manager performed user training and worked closely with Outage Management team

The result of the this year’s Spring 2018 Outage at Susquehanna?
• 13 percent duration improvement (equal to 5 days) over previous outage
• Greatly improved schedule ownership and management to capture full value during outage
• Burndown curve execution monitored close to line throughout outage
• End users (lowest level) implemented schedule updates
• 50 percent reduction in OCC/Maintenance OCC meetings
• Reduced the ‘outage stress’ by allowing people to have the time and tools to analyze and think about issue versus simply reacting to time

“Syntempo made a significant difference in our ability to be strategic in the OCC,” said Shift Outage Director John Goodbred, Jr. “In the past, we were so busy seeking status updates we didn’t look far enough ahead. Syntempo enabled the leaders in the field to connect with their people, then keep the OCC updated virtually live time which put us in a better position to prioritize and prepare days ahead during the outage.”