The impact of INPO on plant performance and operations

Abstract

The goal of this research was to understand the effect that a voluntary regulatory body, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), has on the nuclear industry. Understanding this information exchange sector is a step towards understanding the dynamics of reform in a high risk industry. This was done through creating a model of the information flow through the industry and analyzing the results. This model shows how INPO interacts with the nuclear industry, and how they run their own organization. Once this model had been created, it was linked to an existing model of a nuclear power utility. This updated model gave a more accurate depiction of the learning effect that INPO has on the utility's performance and operations. The program used to create these computer simulation models was VENSIM, a systems dynamics utility by Ventana Systems.