IAEA SG’s Equipment Reliability: A New Approach

The Department of Safeguards within the IAEA utilizes a large and highly diversified inventory of equipment to safeguard nuclear material. The cost of development, evaluation, procurement, installation, maintenance, inventory support, training and documentation associated with the implementation of safeguards equipment has proven to be an ever-increasing financial and human resource burden and a substantial part of the departmental budget. Therefore, improving equipment reliability, always a goal of the IAEA equipment management program, has now been included as one of the major tasks of the Safeguards Department’s long-term objectives, in the area of optimization of human and financial resources. The Division of Technical Support (SGTS), which is responsible for the equipment management program, has recently implemented a number of actions to insure the high reliability of safeguards equipment. Those actions include: · A new divisional organization reflecting a structure that matches the equipment life cycle and the needs of equipment users; · The implementation of a formal Project Management System to provide prioritization, cost/benefit analysis, control and monitoring of all major equipment development and evaluation tasks; · The introduction of a new position in the Director’s Office, responsible for the Quality Assurance of equipment development and evaluation tasks; · The preparation of a set of procedures designed to ensure the suitability, usability and reliability of safeguards equipment. New approaches have also been defined for all phases of the equipment management program, from the requirement definition phase through the design, testing, installation and maintenance. Unattended systems require special attention and design considerations in order to be reliable and cost effective in providing credible, independent data while operating in relatively hostile environments. The paper will describe this new approach and, focusing on unattended systems, will discuss the actions undertaken to improve equipment reliability. Finally, the paper will provide data demonstrating the overall improvement in the reliability of the Agency’s unattended systems.