Year
2016
Abstract
Until recently, security design for systems and personnel at nuclear stations has been based heavily on regulation and the judgement of both operators and regulators. The adequacy of the security design is often evaluated by a series of exercises run by various entities. Up until now there has not been a quantitative method to assist in the design of the system or to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing system against changing threat capabilities, threat climate, regulations, or cost. The nuclear industry has for many years, used quantitative metrics to evaluate the safety of our plants and facilities. The use of quantitative tools such as modeling and simulation to assist in design, monitoring, or operation of the nuclear security force is a recent development. These tools have been used for some time by the Department of Energy and other entities in the United States for highly secured facilities and have been modified for use in the commercial nuclear industry in the past few years. The tools provide a platform that can yield tremendously valuable insight into the security of a facility, but must be coupled with procedures, methods, and agreed-upon values to be measured, in order to yield quantifiable results that can be used within the industry. This paper will discuss the capabilities of commercially available tools that are currently in use in our practice with the nuclear industry. Additionally, it will outline procedures that have been successfully employed, metrics that are in use, key performance indicators, critical data elements, path-finding approach, and provide a framework for determining margin and sensitivity of the analysis. These types of quantitative results can be, and have been, used to optimize utilization of the existing security force as well as assessing reductions in staff, post(s), or equipment for more cost- effective security operations.