Document: NUREG-0800
Document ID: 51b93b24-7bff-4144-949f-36812854b7aa
Document Type: srp
Title: HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING
Source: NUREG-0800
Source URL: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1612/ML16125A114.pdf
Revision Date: 2023-06
Chapter: 18
Section ID: 18.0
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CFR Title: 

Content:
nal personnel as needed over time. The focus of this Attachment is the minimum staffing level needed to address immediate and short-term actions. Scenarios that evolve slowly and within time envelopes required to bring in additional staff are easier to address from a staffing perspective. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has established minimum acceptable staffing levels in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 50.54(m). However, technological advances and changes in the conduct of operations have led to an interest in staffing levels below those specified in the regulations. To evaluate applicant requests for staffing exemptions that allow for reduced staffing levels, the NRC needs criteria by which these requests can be evaluated. 18.0-31 Revision 3 – December 2016 A top priority criterion is task performance. An acceptable minimum staffing level is one that can successfully accomplish the most demanding tasks, under conditions that reflect real-world challenges including the demands of multi-tasking. Tasks have to be performed accurately and on time, so that overall plant operational and safety goals can be achieved. Successful task performance is the main criterion for evaluating a proposed staffing level. That is, if the crew at the minimal staffing level cannot perform their tasks, the staffing level is not acceptable. However, while task performance is an important acceptance criterion, it’s not the only one. Crew task performance can be negatively impacted by many factors and some of these factors need to be considered as well. One of the factors that can negatively impact a crew’s ability to accomplish their tasks is workload. High workload can delay task completion until it is too late or cause a task to be missed altogether. Even when tasks are performed accurately and on time, high workload causes performance to be “fragile,” in that there may be little or no margin for dealing with added complications. If additional