Managing resilience throughout the nuclear power plant lifecycle:The significance of pre-operational phases

The objective of this paper is to explore how cultural challenges in the pre-operational phases of a nuclear power plant project (e.g. design, construction and commissioning) create prerequisites for development of resilience in latter phases of the project. Organizational processes and practices, beliefs, assumptions and understanding about safety developed in one lifecycle phase might not be fully relevant for the next phase. The study indicates that challenges in different phases are related to the extent of tangibility of the nuclear safety concept, magnitude of technical and organizational project complexity, extent of subcontracting, organizing of the project activities, or the priority given to nuclear-specific knowledge and understanding. Resilience management approaches should take into account the different cultural features of the lifecycle phases and how they affect safety. Accordingly, the means to support resilience should be adapted according to the specific cultural challenges in each phase. The paper highlights the significance of the pre-operational phases for making informed decisions to create and manage resilience throughout the nuclear power plant lifecycle