НАУЧНО-МЕТОДИЧЕСКИЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ И НОВЫЕ ТЕХНОЛОГИИ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ Plant operating procedures to reduce human error N. Espinoza, Generation Sector at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Principal Technical Leader, MBA, North Carolina, USA In the face of a challenging economic and regulatory environment, some power generation companies have found ways to improve the safe, reliable operation of their plants without increasing cost. <...> To facilitate this kind of beneficial change, these companies are creating and implementing well-written operating procedures. <...> Fostering a culture of strong power system fundamentals, unit-specific systems knowledge and effective use of procedures has allowed many stations to improve performance in both normal and emergency situations. <...> The Electric Power Research Institute has conducted research to compile best practices on writing and using effective power plant operating procedures. <...> This research has helped identify the characteristics of effective procedures, procedure contents, and the inclusion of human performance tools to reduce human error and improve safety. <...> Effectively managing a program of procedures is essential to maintain the highest level of plant configuration and status control, minimize human performance errors, respond quickly and confidently to off-normal events, provide a consistent method of accomplishing a task and ensure that industry best practices are used. <...> In today’s power industry, operating procedures also fulfill a critical function in dealing with staff turnover, capturing the knowledge of experienced staff before they leave and passing it on to newer employees. <...> Written procedures are the best knowledge transfer tool for new hires [1]. <...> It is a whole lot more efficient and reliable to give new employees a procedure to read and discuss versus verbal instructions that will have to rely on their memory. <...> When procedures are required Not all plant activities require the detailed aspects of a procedure. <...> A prime example of the need for good procedures and their usefulness is implementing and demonstrating compliance with standards. <...> Reasons for “proceduralizing” tasks include the following: – personnel have the necessary information to enable them to do their jobs and make decisions within defined parameters; – personnel understand the limits of the task without having to use trial-and-error <...>