EDITION TRAINING MANUALS VVER-1000 REACT

The project kick-off meeting was held in Kiev on December 14, 1995. Besides GOSKOMATOM also representatives of the four involved nuclear power plants took part. The Beneficiary agreed in the project objectives and organization.

It existed already a list of wanted topics of training materials which was completed and precised in the first two months of 1996.

It was the general meaning that the already existing training material for the WER440/213-type reactor represented a valuable basis with respect to structure and content for the new material.
A subcontract was established between Siemens and T-89, the Local Subcontractor, in order to guarantee proper interfacing. Most of the work however was done not in Kiev at T-89 but in the training centres of the NPP itself by selected instructors. That had the advantage of a direct coupling to the plant material and the possibility of internal discussion and quality assurance. Important was the support of the NPP with respect to needed material and to guarantee the availability of the involved personnel.
The familiarization phase started with three weeks stay of eight instructors in Germany at the Contractor who discussed and decided an already revised list of topics. The editing tools used were Windows PC-type computers with Word (Russian) and Corel-Draw software as these computers are mostly used in all plants.

This experience also influenced the decision which type of equipment was be delivered within the next two months for the editing stations. Hence the originally foreseen Apple Macintosh was replaced by a Windows PC compatible to the already existing hard- and software in the plants. This also influences the corresponding decision in the interfacing project "National Training System". As supplier a local company was considered to be reasonable.

The objective of this project was to develop a concept how to produce written training material and enable the Ukrainian NPP-personnel to produce their own training manuals. In order to achieve this, a priority list of needed topics and its distribution to the 4 NPPs involved into training had to be established and agreed upon. The next step was to produce sample-manuals as the basis for further individual manuals. All this had to be done by taking into account the existing training manuals as basis for structure and content for the new training material.

The Terms of Reference give a more detailed insight into the objectives of this project.

The work consisted of:

• training of suitable experts during several weeks in how to develop training manuals
• development of draft and sample material
• continuous supervision of the progress by several visits in the different plants.
• The involved experts in the four plants were
• partly operational personnel (shift supervisor or deputy)
• instructors of the training points (mostly former shift personnel).

Involving experienced operational personnel and convincing them from the pedagogical structure and content of the training manuals was one of the most important prerequisites to accomplish an effective work in this field. In the course of the project the experts identified themselves more and more with the achieved results promising a continuation with further topics.

The participation of the training point management consisted in the definition of the needed topics, selection of the suitable experts, providing the necessary frame for a successful work (provision of the hardware in the first phase, free time for the development).

Their future tasks are:

• to use of this material in initial and refresher training courses
• to initiate necessary revisions
• to influence the development of further topics on this basis
• to continue the co-operation between the four plants.

The lack of such material has been realised and the support of the management was, besides the engagement of the experts, a fundamental necessity for the success.
It became evidently, that an influence on further training activities will only be achieved if:

• very soon corresponding training courses with this material take place
• the involved plants use also in the future common work and exchange experiences and materials.

The main working place during the elaboration of the training manuals were 2 involved NPPs. Disadvantage for the supervision of the progress were the travels to the different places, an advantage however was the neighbourhood to the existing plant material and the possibility for discussion with experienced specialists.

Comments

More involvement of the local subcontractor is recommended in the procurement tasks.

Further Information

The Project Final report is available at the JRC-IE archive.