Operating Procedures quick assessment

For those facilities that already have operating procedures, it is useful to carry out a quick assessment to determine the present status of the procedures and to provide guidance as to what needs to be done. Some quick assessment questions are provided in Table 6.2. The answers to the questions can help an organization determine how good its procedures are, and which areas need the most work. The questions in Table 6.2 are not an audit protocol—they simply provide guidance as to the current state of the procedures. There is no pass or fail associated with these questions. 

This is a process used to check how effective your safe operating procedures are and if there is a need to make changes to control the hazards of the job. Before the start of any task or operation, the designated competent or company authorized person should evaluate the task or operation to identify potential hazards and to determine the necessary controls. This assessment should focus on actual worksite conditions or procedures, which differ from, were not anticipated, or were not related to other hazard analyses. In addition, the competent person shall ensure that each employee involved in the task or operation is aware of the hazards related to the task or operation and of the measures or procedures to use for protection. Note that the job safety assessment is not intended to be a formal, documented analysis, but instead is more of a quick check of actual site conditions and a review of planned procedures and precautions. 

In the past, laboratories have justified the initial investment in dedicated automation on the basis of the large number of identical, repetitive operations carried out. Fixed or dedicated automation is utihzed for large quantities of standard procedures, such as those found in manufacturing environments or in clinical laboratories. Fixed automation follows a predetermined sequence of steps to perform a defined procedure although efficient, it can only perform one repetitive procedure. Robotics, however, can provide flexible automation to meet the changing needs typical of quality control and research laboratories. Flexible automation is programmed by individual users to perform multiple procedures, and can be quickly reprogrammed to accommodate new or revised procedures. In these situations, a careful assessment of the software overhead must be made before a decision to purchase is made. 

The acceptance criterion for the resolution of GSI 122.2 is that there shall be instrumentation and displays of sufficient quality, range, and reliability to enable the plant operators to recognize quickly a Loss-of-All-Feedwater event and to assess when to initiate mitigating measures such as feed-and-bleed. In addition, emergency procedures guidelines should be provided to aid the operators in diagnosing the event in order to accomplish a safe plant shutdown. 

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