Human Factors Concerns in Material Control and Accounting: implementing Self-Test

RACT NRC's proposed Self-Test procedures for implementing the MC&A reform amendments for SSNM manufacturers present a number of important \"human factors\" questions which must be resolved for successful implementation in a cost-effective manner. Based on literature from industrial psychology and organization behavior and analysis, potential problems are outlined and some alternatives for designing MC&A procedures to minimize adverse human factors impacts are discussed. The analysis combines recent developments in the literature with a model of plant operations. Self-test is an approach for monitoring manufacturers' MC&A systems that allows the organization itself to conduct periodic on-line checks of the integrity of the system, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) serving in an oversight review function. Self test is a method for allowing manufacturers of nuclear fuel to conform to NRC draft reform amendments to the federal material protection rule (10CFR70). Technical procedures for implementing self test have been described in a model developed by Battelle's Pacific Northwest Laboratory. For the analysis of human factors problems, it was assumed that the technical approach was feasible, that self test would operate as a support system to the overall organizational MC&A and production systems, and that self test can improve system safety. eyond those assumptions, it is important to maximize self test's effectiveness from a human factors perspective.