Accountancy & Tracking
Background
A large part of our work involves the handling, usage and storage of many different types of radioactive and nuclear material. While some items are physically small, they can be potentially harmful – so the way in which we account for materials is crucial.
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Maintenance of accurate records is a key part of operating licences to meet UK and international health and safety regulations, including EU Euratom treaties which require monthly reports on stocks of nuclear material.
Previously, the way we tracked nuclear materials varied from site to site – we used ANUMAP at Harwell and Winfrith, SMART at Windscale and CNMAS at Dounreay. As each system required individual specialist care and maintenance, we had to dedicate substantial resources to their support. In addition to these three main systems, we used a myriad of local systems for radioactive materials management – these varied from recording information in logbooks to using ACCESS™ databases and EXCEL™ spreadsheets.
To improve efficiency, we decided to develop a single system that could be used across all sites and maintained through just one support team, and with a clear upgrade path.
The solution
Over a four-year period, we developed ATOM (Accountancy and Tracking of Material). This is a comprehensive track and trace application – designed for the processing, movement and reporting of nuclear and radioactive materials throughout the many operations on sites.
ATOM covers all radioactive materials as well as associated equipment and hardware. The system logs each item and stores detailed information about the individual components of nuclear material – as well as quantities and whereabouts. It records physical and chemical forms, irradiation states, ownership and liabilities management information.
The system is designed so that we always retain an item’s full history,even when it decays into other isotopes, and we can make retrospective inventory enquiries at any given time or place in its history, since the deployment of ATOM. It has been designed to be flexible enough to accommodate any future regulatory changes or changes in business activity.
ATOM can be easily accessed from any desktop and incorporates a range of security features, including designated employee access rights to locations and items, to ensure that sensitive data can only be accessed by authorised personnel. It has been used at all UKAEA licenced sites, by both UKAEA and tenant companies, for over five years and manages information relating to tens of thousands of radioactive items – 10,000 at Harwell, 15,000 at Dounreay and 8,000 each at Winfrith and Windscale. All these items are recorded and any changes are reported on a monthly basis.
ATOM has received system integrity and accuracy approval from national and international regulators, and meets UK and EU material management regulations. Compliance with the revised Euratom reporting requirements will be mandatory from October 2008 onwards, but ATOM is expected to achieve this by October 2007 –12 months ahead of the deadline.
The benefits
ATOM is unique in being a purpose built system designed specifically for nuclear material accountancy, able to deal with the complexity and breadth of plant operations and regulatory accounting requirements. It has brought a number of benefits, the most significant being improved efficiency. As a result of using a single system rather than several, we have made operational efficiency savings of 40% and require just one support team. Staff have quick and easy access to a complete and detailed history of all materials from a single secure system.
As we are monitoring waste disposal and storage, we are now able to cost projects more accurately, while simultaneously ensuring compliance with all existing and planned UK and European regulations.
