Technician Crosstrain

["Mitchell, Michael T." <mtmitchell@tva.gov>]

At the nuclear plant where I am employed, in the past our tech workforce
was divided into 3 disciplines.  One group consisted of techs who solely
supported the field operations arena (work area surveys, RWP preps, job
coverage etc), a second area consisted of techs who solely supported the
dosimetry arena (TLD prep, issuance, read etc.) and a third group who
solely supported the instrument and respiratory protection arena
(inventory, repair, issue, source checks etc.).  As our workforce
dwindled, (under the guise of "work smarter, increase profits,
competition's coming, etc. but that's an axe to grind some other time)
the decision was made to cross-train all the remaining techs in all
disciplines.  Unfortunately, this has not worked very well at all, with
only a very few techs to-date having completed all the training, and
many have the opinion that it has resulted in a dilution of the overall
program.  That said, have any of ya'll experienced the same or similar
problem and if so how have you tackled it?  You may respond directly to
me and thanks in advance.



Mike Mitchell

=======================================================
Michael. T. Mitchell
Health Physicist

Tennessee Valley Authority
Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant
Phone: (205) 729-2401
Fax: (205) 729-3157
mailto:mtmitchell@tva.gov