SAFETY CULTURE - IS IT IMPORTANT?

Yes - it is important! First it was quality assurance, then total quality, and now the term is safety culture. Whatever you call it, a strong quality culture is important to your long term success in the nuclear industry. The industry originally believed their \"Quality\" efforts could be focused on establishing a \"QA Program.\" So, in 1970 the U. S. Code of Federal Regulations 10CFR50 Appendix \"B\" was issued defming the basic quality assurance (QA) requirements for the U. S. nuclear power industry. Everyone, including the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) thought this was great. Just establish a QA Program with its attendant procedures, checks and documentation to comply with this regulation and safe operations will be achieved. Not always true! Such programs often operated without the company infrastructure necessary to create and maintain an environment encouraging consistent high quality performance. What next? In the mid-1980s to early-1990s many organizations embraced the concept of a total quality environment which emphasized quality results in all activities at all times. But it wasn't an easy task. Implementation of this concept required a major cultural change in order to establish the appropriate attitudes and priorities where quality was always the first consideration. To do this, management had to recognize its essential role in creating an environment where each employee felt empowered to identify and fix quality problems. Still not there! Even with the added ingredient ofa total quality environment, there were still recurring quality problems and the nuclear industry recognized there was a need to focus further effort on achieving safe operation and a low rate ofproblem occurrence. As a result, the industry, including the NRC, placed more emphasis on the need for a strong safety culture.