Year
1984
Abstract
Accounting for special nuclear material contained in fabricated nuclear fuel rod items has been completely automated at the Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel Division facility in Columbia, South Carolina. Experience with the automated system has shown substantial difficulty in maintaining current knowledge of the precise locations of rods pulled out of the \"normal\" processing cycle. This has been resolved by creation of two tightly controlled staging areas for handling and distribution of all \"deviant\" rods by two specially trained expediters. Thus, coupling automated data collection with centralized expert handling and distribution has created a viable system for control of large numbers of fuel rods in a major fabrication plant.