RB Safety were commissioned to assist a major Nuclear New Build (NNB) programme to establish an agreed set of aims and objectives for the nuclear island design review from which a major set of milestones would be achieved. A Project Execution Plan (PEP) could then be written and briefed to the staff that would be leading the areas under review. This process had to build upon previous experience and ensure that a meaningful review could be conducted of a design in the preliminary development phase for the UK-specific Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). Extensive work was undertaken to establish the scope of review, and subsequently the allocation of Systems, Structures and Components as well as buildings and facilities to sub-reviews. These sub-reviews would ultimately build up the understanding of the design for a final overall review by Horizon and its partners. The Design Review 2 PEP was produced by RB Safety and achieved agreement from a wide-range of stakeholders within Horizon and its partners by acknowledging and managing the input from the designers (Hitachi, Bechtel and JGC), the interface (Menter Newydd) and the informed customer (Horizon) across a range of disciplines and objectives. The PEP formed the blueprint for the design reviews in terms of content and conduct and allowed reviewers a single source of overall instruction. RB Safety has established a role as a key advisor to the client and stakeholders in supporting this vital element of the Horizon programme.
As part of the project development, RB Safety developed a coherent system to manage the collation of design optimisation initiatives and ensure they underwent appropriate technical scrutiny prior to being presented to Decision Panels for further consideration. Throughout the subsequent Optimisation Design Review (ODR) we managed and coordinated the inputs from subject matter experts (SMEs) and developed a streamlined method to ensure all inputs were coherent and sufficiently detailed to best inform the multi-disciplinary, multi-national panel. Following the ODR, RB Safety were responsible for producing the summary document, which sentenced all optimisation proposals to allow work plans to be developed. This document became the authoritative reference for the optimisation process and was the basis for ONR intervention plans on design development.