Automation of process accountability flow diagrams at Los Alamos National Laboratory's Plutonium Facility
Many industrial processes (including reprocessing activities; nuclear fuel fabrication; and material storage, measurement and transfer) make use of process flow diagrams. These flows can be used for material accountancy and for data analysis. At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the Technical Area (TA)-55 Plutonium Facility is home to various research and development activities involving the use of special nuclear material (SNM). A facility conducting research and development (R and D) activities using SNM must satisfy material accountability guidelines. All processes involving SNM or tritium processing, at LANL, require a process accountability flow diagram (PAFD). At LANL a technique was developed to generate PAFDs that can be coupled to a relational database for use in material accountancy. These techniques could also be used for propagation of variance, measurement control, and inventory difference analysis. The PAFD is a graphical representation of the material flow during a specific process. PAFDs are currently stored as PowerPoint files. In the PowerPoint format, the data captured by the PAFD are not easily accessible. Converting the PAFDs to an accessible electronic format is desirable for several reasons. Any program will be able to access the data contained in the PAFD. For the PAFD data to be useful in applications such as an expert system for data checking, SNM accountability, inventory difference evaluation, measurement control, and other kinds of analysis, it is necessary to interface directly with the information contained within the PAFD. The PAFDs can be approved and distributed electronically, eliminating the paper copies of the PAFDs and ensuring that material handlers have the current PAFDs. Modifications to the PAFDs are often global. Storing the data in an accessible format would eliminate the need to manually update each of the PAFDs when a global change has occurred. The goal was to determine a software package that would store the PAFDs in an accessible format that could be interfaced by various programs. After evaluating several commercial relational database and graphing software packages, VISIO Enterprise was selected. LANL is in the process of completing conversion of the existing PAFDs into VISIO Enterprise. A number of the PAFDs have been converted to VISIO Enterprise, and the data from the drawings have been exported to an ACCESS database. After the conversion has taken place, the data contained in the PAFDs will be accessible for various programs. The data that was once stored in PowerPoint will now be available for tools, including expert analysis, propagation of a variance, SNM accountability, inventory difference analysis, measurement control, and other analysis tools that have yet to be identified. Converting from the PowerPoint format to a drawing stored as a relational database will improve the ability of plant personnel to interface with the PAFD.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20005740
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 81; Conference: American Nuclear Society 1999 Winter Meeting, Long Beach, CA (US), 11/14/1999--11/18/1999; Other Information: PBD: 1999; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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