ISO 23133:2021 Nuclear criticality safety — Nuclear criticality safety training for operations.
4.4 Training of operations staff
Training in nuclear criticality safety shall be provided with due consideration of the nature of the work operations staff perform and the sensitivity of that work in maintaining nuclear criticality safety.
Operations staff working according to procedures that are required to maintain nuclear criticality safety will require a greater extent of training than those staff who do not perform those duties or those who perform tasks that are intrinsically less sensitive for maintaining nuclear criticality safety.
EXAMPLE Staff in a facility handling inventories of multiple critical masses, with nuclear criticality safety based on administrative control of batch sizes, will typically require a higher level of training than a facility handling small fractions of a critical mass.
The scope and the level (depth) of training shall be formulated to enable the operations staff to operate a process with sufficient understanding of the criticality hazards associated with that process, and the importance and reasons behind the controls identified to maintain nuclear criticality safety.
Understanding the reasons behind the controls may reduce the risk of operations staff deviating from procedures and/or responding inappropriately to unexpected process conditions. Analysis of past criticality accidents and near-miss data has revealed a number of instances where inadequate understanding of the reasons behind the criticality safety controls has been a contributory factor.
4.5 Training of operations supervisors
Certain roles are particularly important in maintaining nuclear criticality safety. A supervisory role to operations staff is one such role, as are those roles responsible for making decisions which could significantly affect nuclear criticality safety (e.g. operations manager or shift team leader). These key safety roles are termed collectively in this document as operations supervisors (as defined in 3.2).
It is necessary for operations supervisors to have a more comprehensive understanding of the nuclear criticality safety issues and their significance. This could include understanding of typical or common themes that have caused criticality accidents and the need to maintain systems to monitor, maintain and improve nuclear criticality safety in a facility. The specific content of the required training is discussed in Clause.
Operations supervisor training shall be in addition to the identified training for operations staff and should be biased to the particular nuclear criticality safety issues associated with the process for which they have responsibilities.
4.6 Training of management
Management shall have an awareness of the severity of the consequences of nuclear criticality accidents and, hence, of the importance of a suitable nuclear criticality safety program.ISO 23133 pdf download.