Throughout the nuclear industry, benchmarking and sharing operating experience are used to share lessons learned and address emergent plant issues. Within the USA fleet, the Core Peer Teams (CPTs) have gone a step further by initiating jump up calls to offer real time support to their counterparts. It is through these calls that fleet members request support on a new plant challenge or the teams proactively address a significant industry issue to prevent reoccurrence across the fleet.

“The most impactful calls are the ones initiated prior to events or actions being taken,” explained John Christensen, USA Vice President of Operational Excellence. “These were then used to challenge the logic, process and decision making of the station requesting the call. The dialogue often helps confirm the plant’s decision or offers an even better solution to their plant challenge.”

In 2013, USA CPTs initiated 128 live time and jump up calls to support fellow fleet members. The most extensive use of these calls was by the Engineering CPT which initiated 41 calls followed by the Operations CPT with 22 calls.

James Thorson, manager of Performance Engineering at Fermi 2, said the plant’s engineering department is on a jump up call twice a month or so — either asking for help or lending it.

In a recent call, Fermi 2 was working on one of its four Emergency Diesel Generators when it was hot and humid. The level of moisture on the windings was high and Thorson’s group went to the USA fleet for answers on how to dry it.

“We got great advice on how to expedite the dry out of our machine,” he said, adding that because of that help, they were able to successfully complete a polarization index test on the generator.

“Jump up calls are a great thing because within the space of maybe four to 12 hours, you can get a room full of experts to help you with your problem,” Thorson said. “That is one of the benefits of a fleet: when there are problems, you can get six or seven people working on it, troubleshooting, freethinking, solving issues. You are never really alone in the USA fleet.”