Evaluation of Communication Characteristics of Operating Teams in NPP using SNA Technique

Abstract

Inappropriate communications within operational teams can lead to serious consequences of a system since it can cause lack of exchange of important information to perform the task to secure the safety of the system in nuclear power plants (NPPs). For that reason, we studied the communication characteristics of operating teams to provide insights to prevent inappropriate communications. However, existing studies on the communication characteristics seem to have problem since they have characterized team communications from a single perspective. According that, we have developed an evaluation method to characterize team communications using social network techniques which can evaluate them from various perspectives which are group cohesiveness, frequency of communications, degree of hierarchy, and communication contents. In addition, we suggested some kinds of specific communication characteristics of operating teams that can reduce the occurrence of inappropriate communications. Eight verbal protocol data which are audio-visual recorded under emergency training sessions by main control room (MCR) operating teams are used. As a result of the study, there was negative relationship between group cohesiveness and the ratio of inappropriate communications and there is no relationship between frequency of communications and inappropriate communications. In addition, the degree of hierarchy to electric operators and supervisory reactor operators was negatively related to the ratio of inappropriate communications. Moreover, some kinds of specific communication contents are related to the ratio of inappropriate communications. Consequently, we can evaluate communications characteristics of operating teams in NPPs and suggest specific characteristics to provide useful insights to prevent inappropriate communications.