Outage Excellence - Shifting to a Data-Centric Approach for Outage Planning and Scope Control

Abstract

Outage management for nuclear power plants is a key factor in successful utility performance. A critical component of outage management is to minimize extensions to the planned outage. This is only achievable through extensive pre-outage planning, a rigorous scope control program, and a continuous and comprehensive review of planned work. A large problem that is faced during outage preparation is the identification of outage scope creep and its sources.

This paper outlines a data-centric approach for maintaining clear, objective, near-real time visibility on scope that is planned for the outage, and methods to identify sources of scope creep early in the planning process. The main objective of this method is to empower data-based decision-making behaviors that significantly reduce opportunities for unintended scope creep and shift the focus to reducing the risk to existing scope rather than identification of scope creep.