Savannah River Site Contractor Resumes Full Operations Following Pause

AIKEN, S.C. – Savannah River Site management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) has resumed full operations following an operational pause in September 2015, incorporating improvements and lessons learned across all projects and facilities. The HB Line facility emerged from a period of improvements called Deliberate Operations in April, the last of the SRNS operations to resume full operations. 

   The operational changes, additional training, and procedure improvements that were identified during the pause are now fully in place, collectively known as Enhanced Operations. 

   “Enhanced Operations will be our ‘new normal’,” SRNS President and CEO Carol Johnson said. “We will never return to operating as we were before the pause. We will do better.”

   SRNS opted to take a company-wide operational pause in September of last year, following the discovery of a non-compliance with a procedure during movement of special nuclear material in HB Line. 

   “Although the event was self-reported immediately and there were no injuries and no damage to equipment, all non-essential work was suspended,” SRNS Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Dave Eyler said. “We believed we were beginning to see an operational shift away from the way we expect our employees to work, so we’re very serious in ensuring we addressed those behaviors immediately.” 

   Once SRNS management believed personnel behavior and expectations were satisfactory, departments were allowed to exit the pause and enter Deliberate Operations. Deliberate Operations was a timeframe where processes being conducted required specific, intentional, and well-thought-out actions. Each department was responsible for identifying corrective actions, validating procedure steps and participating in regular small group meetings to help management reinforce expectations. All departments had moved into Deliberate Operations by Nov. 23, 2015.

   During Deliberate Operations, SRNS management also created a Sustainment Plan, which highlights ways to ensure expectations and performance stay aligned. This includes increasing staff in some areas and a required monthly half-day pause in each department to address concerns and reinforce positive behaviors.

   “In Enhanced Operations, SRNS will implement the corrective actions we identified during Deliberate Operations and in the Sustainment Plan to ensure strict adherence to our conduct of operations,” said Eyler. “Enhanced Operations are the result of a lot of hard work, and a recommitment of our company to remain vigilant in our duties to the Department of Energy and the country.”

   Johnson said SRNS is a learning organization that is continuously seeking ways to improve, and this examination has allowed SRNS to refocus its operations in a number of important ways, including revising meeting schedules to allow for more management time in the field and hiring more personnel to focus on training. SRNS employees also changed how they adapt, monitor and implement operating procedures and increased mentoring for first-line supervisors. SRNS also worked with DOE to make sure those lessons learned are available to similar projects across the country and anyone else who is interested.

   Johnson emphasized that the pause not only provided an opportunity to improve operations across the site, but also to demonstrate to the workforce that DOE and its contractors are willing to “walk the walk” when it comes to safety. 

   “We believe that instituting the operational pause was the right thing to do, and that it will make us a stronger operation going forward,” she said.