The AEOD staff obtained a measure of operating nuclear plant maintenance deficiencies by reviewing operational experience-sported to the NRC from 1985 to 1988. These documents were reviewed to identify maintenance-related problems and deficiencies, the number of plants involved, the systems and components affected, and the human and organizational errors associated with maintenance. The review attempted to ascertain if there had been a discernible trend in the area of maintenance. The study also addressed estimates of the magnitude of and trends in the cost of identified maintenance deficiencies to the commercial nuclear industry.
Problems reflect deficiencies in quality control, procedures, planning, communication, and training.
AEOD reports and NRC bulletins and information notices characterize the broad scope of maintenance deficiencies and the significant NRC staff effort to alert licensees to maintenance problems. Simple counts of the documents cannot meaningfully be used to establish trends. To ascertain trends in reported maintenance deficiencies, the AEOD staff relied on data from operating reactors reported in LERs contained in the Sequence Coding and Search System. It should be noted that LERs focus on safety-related equipment and systems, and hence, trends based on LERs are primarily associated with such equipment and systems. Improving trends in the forced outage rate and equipment-forced outages and a marked improvement in the scram rate support the view that overall plant maintenance is improving.