Nuclear Knowledge Management

Nuclear Knowledge Management (NKM) has become an increasingly important element of the nuclear sector in recent years, resulting from a number of challenges and trends:

Countries with expanding nuclear programmes require skilled and trained human resources to design and operate future nuclear installations. Capacity building through training and education and transferring knowledge from centres of knowledge to centres of growth are key issues.
In countries with stagnating nuclear programmes, the challenge is to secure the human resources needed to sustain the safe operation of existing installations, including their decommissioning and related programmes for spent fuel and waste. Replacing retiring staff and attracting the young generation to a career in the nuclear field are key challenges.
Non-power applications of nuclear technologies require a stable or even growing base of nuclear knowledge and trained human resources, be it for cancer treatment or for food and agriculture. This need is present in all Member States using nuclear technologies, independent of the use of nuclear power.^[1]

Definition of Nuclear Knowledge Management

Currently Nuclear Knowledge Management is defined as knowledge management in nuclear domain. This is a simple definition which is also consistent with the working definition used in Knowledge Management for Nuclear Industry Operating Organizations, IAEA TECDOC Series No.1510^[2] knowledge management (KM) is defined as an integrated, systematic approach to identifying, acquiring, transforming, developing, disseminating, using, sharing, and preserving knowledge, relevant to achieving specified objectives.

Cover page of the IAEA NKM Conference proceedings

Description

Knowledge is the nuclear energy industry’s most valuable asset and resource, without which the industry cannot operate safely and economically. In addition to being essential, nuclear knowledge is also very complex, expensive to acquire and maintain, and easily lost. States, suppliers, and operating organizations that wish to obtain the benefits of peaceful applications of nuclear technology must also accept the responsibilities that go with it, and this includes a primary responsibility to ensure that the associated nuclear knowledge is sustainable and is sustained.

In organizational context nuclear knowledge management is the management of nuclear knowledge processes to achieve goals. It supports the organization's business processes, and involves applying knowledge management practices to address the characteristics and specific needs of nuclear knowledge and nuclear organizations. It can include the application of knowledge management practices at any stage of the nuclear knowledge life cycle: research and development, design and engineering, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance, refurbishment and life time extension, waste management, and decommissioning. Nuclear knowledge management issues and priorities are often unique to the particular circumstances of individual Member States and their nuclear industry organizations. Nuclear knowledge management may focus on knowledge creation, identification, sharing, transfer, protection, validation, storage, dissemination, preservation or utilization. Nuclear knowledge management practices may involve the application of any of a wide range of knowledge management practices to enhance and support traditional business functions and goals such as human resource management, training, planning, operations, maintenance, projects, innovation, performance and risk management, information management, process management, organizational learning and information technology support.

Nuclear organizations need to develop and implement a nuclear knowledge management strategy that provides a framework for establishing principles, policy, priorities and plans to apply knowledge management practices in the workplace. Clearly defined objectives will help establish the role of knowledge management in the nuclear organization.

Knowledge Management Systems support nuclear organizations to focus on strengthening and aligning the knowledge.

Implementation

Knowledge management is based on three fundamental concepts: people, processes and technology (see Figure 1).
Knowledge management focuses on people and organizational culture to stimulate and nurture the sharing and use of knowledge; on processes or methods to find, create, capture and share knowledge; and on technology to store and assimilate knowledge and to make it readily accessible in a manner which will allow people to work together even if they are not located together. People are the most important component in a KM system and the creation of new knowledge is one of its most valuable byproducts. For a KM system to function properly, the people involved must be willing to share and re-use existing knowledge and to cooperatively generate new knowledge to the advantage of the organization.

_{Figure 1: The organizational context for KM}

Due to the nature of nuclear power plant operating organizations (high hazard but low risk), a number of knowledge management activities and programmes have been in place throughout the industry to manage and control the knowledge and information related to nuclear power plant design, construction, operation and maintenance. Examples of such existing KM activities employed by NPPs (and, in most other NTFs - Nuclear Technology Facilities) include the following functions:

Plant policies and procedures;

Communication techniques;
Configuration management;
Document control;
Work control systems;
Quality assurance and quality management;
Operating experience programmes;
Corrective action systems;
Safety analysis;
Training and development;
Human resource management;
Company intranet and other web-based strategies.

The implementation of a KM system is not intended to replace any of these systems, but rather should increase the benefits to be derived from these systems in conjunction with the deployment of an integrated management system. If properly implemented, KM should not have to ‘take over’ existing NTF programmes or activities; to the contrary, KM should be a catalyst to increase the benefits to the organization of these activities. The lessons learned in the nuclear industry in the past 20 years in moving from inspecting quality through large quality assurance organizations to building quality into all facility processes have considerable relevance for KM implementation.

Motivation for nuclear knowledge management programs

Nuclear knowledge has been being developed and accumulated over literally centuries of research and application of nuclear technologies for both energy and non-energy applications. Our present generation is the owner and custodian of that body of nuclear knowledge. Most certainly, large parts of this knowledge will be used in the future – not only for the continuation of existing applications, but also for future technological innovations and for global socio-economic development. Unfortunately, the present status of the management of nuclear knowledge generally reflects an unhealthy condition. Since nuclear knowledge is unique in many ways, managing it properly requires programmes designed to achieve specific objectives. Without diligence in managing such knowledge, substantial portions of it could be lost due to personnel retirements and the likelihood that much of it could be disused or discarded as a result of either negligence or changing priorities.

Concerns about global climate change and the availability of economically exploitable fossil fuels are driving many countries to reconsider the use of nuclear energy in a significant way. If nuclear power is to become a major long-term source of energy – compatible with environmental stewardship – the international scale-up in developing new nuclear power plants could well be quite substantial. Yet, the innovations required to design, construct, operate and maintain the NPPs consistent with international needs and constraints must derive from a strong foundation of well-sustained nuclear knowledge. As a matter of fact, a successful renaissance of nuclear power will be virtually impossible without continual safety, security and innovation on a universal basis. And, to succeed in that quest will require effective KM systems that can be used to facilitate the availability and appropriate sharing of nuclear knowledge for application, research and development.

The inherently dual nature of nuclear technology necessarily places some constraints on the free sharing of nuclear knowledge. In contrast to knowledge in other scientific domains, the free sharing and uncontrolled use of nuclear knowledge are severely restricted due to concerns about nuclear security and proliferation. On the other hand, ensuring nuclear safety requires free sharing of information and experience to avoid repetition of accident precursors. The risk to nuclear safety from the loss of nuclear knowledge could be very high due to the nature and size of third party liability and the possibility of nuclear security being severely compromised. Therefore, an appropriate balance between nuclear safety and security requirements needs to be established in managing nuclear knowledge.

The application of nuclear technology to areas such as are enumerated in the first session of the article has resulted in an immense array of humanitarian benefits in many nations – sometimes resulting in positive economic impacts even larger than those derived from the generation of electricity by NPPs. Such applications tend to be less controversial than nuclear power; and, therefore, they generally enjoy a much more favorable public perception. Knowledge in these areas is broadly disseminated and – in many cases – is freely shared. Given the huge potential for a much wider global impact, it will be essential to have more effective and efficient systems of managing nuclear knowledge as the basis for refining existing applications and developing new, even more widely-used applications.

To heighten the challenges presented by the need for better KM systems, it will be as important to identify and properly treat obsolete, superseded knowledge as it will be to gather and share new knowledge. Ironically, the potential problems associated with ‘nuclear knowledge waste’ may equal or eclipse those related to ‘nuclear material waste’. Furthermore, the volume and rate of change of nuclear knowledge will be huge. Thus, of necessity, effective and efficient KM systems must be maintained current and dynamic.

IAEA Program on Nuclear Knowledge Management

The importance of nuclear knowledge management is increasingly being recognized in the industry. The IAEA has been a repository of knowledge related to peaceful applications of nuclear technology from the time the organization was established in 1957. Nuclear Knowledge Management came in the forefront in the IAEA as a formal programme to address Member States priorities in the 21st century. Several resolutions adopted at IAEA General Conference since 2002 include knowledge management topics. The IAEA Secretariat was urged to assist Member States, at their request, in fostering and preserving nuclear education and training in all areas of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes; in developing guidance on and methodologies for planning, designing and implementing nuclear knowledge management programmes; in providing Member States with reliable information resources on the peaceful use of nuclear energy; and in continuing to develop tools and methods to capture, retain, share, utilize and preserve nuclear knowledge. The IAEA has organized a number of international meetings, schools and conferences covering a wide range of topics, from general concepts that underpin nuclear knowledge management to specific methods and tools taught at training seminars for practitioners.^[3] The IAEA Nuclear Knowledge Management Programme was headed by Yanko Yanev (from 2002 to 2012) John de Grosbois (from 2012 till now)

References

↑ IAEA webpage for the Nuclear Knowledge Management Programme, http://www.iaea.org/nuclearenergy/nuclearknowledge/about-nkm.html
↑ International Atomic Energy Agency, Knowledge Management for Nuclear Industry Operating Organizations – IAEA TECDOC Series No.1510, October 2006
↑ Managing Nuclear Knowledge, A Pocket Guide, IAEA Vienna 2012

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