On August 30, 2011, Richard Barrett attended the subject training course which included 45 students from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Barrett gave a presentation on the NRC approach to evaluating management systems at US nuclear power plants. The presentation focused on the NRC’s performance-based approach to management assessment, known as the reactor oversight process (ROP). Mr. Barrett described the information which NRC gathers, the ways in which it is evaluated, the method used to make decisions and the approach to assessing management deficiencies when a performance problem is identified.
Mr. Barrett also led the students through an exercise in which they worked in teams to evaluate performance problems at a hypothetical nuclear plant. In the first use of the “tabletop” methodology by the IRDP program, participants were gradually given more and more complete information about the performance problem and then were challenged to evaluate its significance and make decisions regarding the correct NRC response. Students participated enthusiastically in the exercise and arrived at many insightful conclusions and comments.