RE: Question about incoming personnel

[Tony Hedges <loui19@dreamscape.com>]

At 03:42 PM 7/15/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I need some assistance in determining acceptable qualifications for incoming
>HP technicians.  Our facility currently requires all incoming new hires and
>contractors to go through the entire HP training program prior to being
>qualified regardless of past experience.  This means performing lengthy
>On-the-job training and evaluation for each instrument and job function
>performed.  Does anyone have experience applying resume experience as a
>method of bypassing the required plant training, especially for experienced
>Sr. HP techs?  

This is a lengthy response... delete if your not interested in this topic

Mike,
	Resume reviews are not the way to go.  I can write a resume that says you
walk on water and contamination won’t stick to you.  Contract RP technician
resumes are written by the company supplying techs and they try to
“squeeze” as much experience as they can into them to get the tech hired.
With the current shortages in contract techs, resumes can be very
unreliable in gauging a technicians skill and knowledge.  At Ginna station
we do not use resumes to determine skill and knowledge and we do not roll
out the in-house initial training program. Instead we use the following two
methods to reduce contractor processing time and cost:

Method 1:
	Several years ago the New York nuclear power plant RP managers got
together to develop programs and initiatives to save money.  One of the
programs developed was the Contract tech program.  The managers assembled a
team from four plants: RG&E Ginna station, Niagara Mohawk Unit 1 and 2, and
the New York Power Authority’s James A Fitzpatrick.  The team consisted of
trainers and plant personnel and was chartered with reducing costs and not
creating an empire of paper and processes.

	One of the first things the team did was to acknowledge that operating an
ion chamber at Ginna station was the same at Fitzpatrick!  The skills and
knowledge required of a Sr. RP Tech are just about the same from site to
site.  The differences come about in different equipment, documentation and
limits.  With this understanding in place the team compared training
programs and developed a core list of Contract Sr. and Jr. Technician
tasks.  For each task the team matched each utilities internal training
program documentation to the task.  A matrix developed from this comparison
showing each plants training program tie in to the core tasks.

	With the matrix in hand the team took the next step: a technician
qualified at Fitzpatrick on the core tasks using the Fitzpatrick training
program would be treated as a returnee at Ginna.  Ginna would not have to
verify or train the technician on all the Sr. Tech tasks.  The technician
would only require training on the differences between Ginna and
Fitzpatrick –  site specific training, a significant reduction in
in-processing time!

	A database was developed to track the qualifications of contractor techs
working at the four plants.  For example, during a recent outage at Ginna
several new technicians were evaluated against the core tasks and qualified
to perform work at Ginna. They were entered into the New York Contract RP
Technician database.  When Niagara Mohawk went into their outage these
technicians were able to go to the outage as returnees.  Niagara Mohawk
only had to supply them with site specific information instead of
re-evaluating them.  Prior to an outage the participating plant calls,
emails, or faxes the NY Contract RP tech database administrator a list of
technicians and a qualification list for the technicians is faxed to the
utility.  As each plant completes their outage the training records for the
contractor techs is forwarded to the database administrator for entry into
the technicians qualification record.  These records are only available to
participating utilities.

Method 2:
	As you stated in your message most facilities RP Technician initial
training programs are very detailed and lengthy.  Putting a contractor RP
technician into the program is very expensive.  At Ginna we realized that
experienced senior contract RP techs had the skills and knowledge to
perform the job.  If we have never seen the tech before and they are not in
the New York Contract  RP Technician program we evaluate the technician to
see if they have the skills their resume claims.  

	Now I said we evaluate them, we do not train them!  The technicians say
they are experienced so we set up a gauntlet of tasks to test their skills.
 This gauntlet takes approximately four hours to complete and involves a
series of stations.  At each station we have a house RP Tech or trainer who
evaluates the technician on a series of skills and knowledges.  If they are
experienced Sr. RP technicians they will pass.  We do the gauntlet in a
controlled environment. We do not assign them to a real job and try to
evaluate them there, to many variables that can go wrong.

	How many technicians have to go through the gauntlet?  Approximately 20%
an outage, the other 80% consists of returning technicians or technicians
in the New York Contract RP Technician program.

	As for regulatory concerns this method involves testing a technician on
skills – exactly what a training program would do after the training was
completed.  We take advantage of the training the technician received
working outages at other facilities. We just develop a big test that tests
a large number of skills, high level and low level skills.

	Contact me if you want more information on the New York Contract RP
Technician program or the gauntlet we run.


Tony Hedges, RRPT
RP Instructor
loui19@dreamscape.com
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html