Human factors in waste management - potential and reality
- Benchmarking Environmental Corp., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
There is enormous potential for human factors contributions in the realm of waste management. The reality, however, is very different from the potential. This is particularly true for low-level and low-level mixed-waste management. The hazards are less severe; therefore, health and safety requirements (including human factors) are not as rigorous as for high-level waste. High-level waste management presents its own unique challenges and opportunities. Waste management is strongly driven by regulatory compliance. When regulations are flexible and open to interpretation and the environment is driven so strongly by regulatory compliance, standard practice is to drop {open_quotes}nice to have{close_quotes} features, like a human factors program, to save money for complying with other requirements. The challenge is to convince decision makers that human factors can help make operations efficient and cost-effective, as well as improving safety and complying with regulations. A human factors program should not be viewed as competing with compliance efforts; in fact, it should complement them and provide additional cost-effective means of achieving compliance with other regulations. Achieving this synergy of human factors with ongoing waste management operations requires educating program and facility managers and other technical specialists about human factors and demonstrating its value {open_quotes}through the back door{close_quotes} on existing efforts. This paper describes ongoing projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in support of their waste management groups. It includes lessons learned from hazard and risk analyses, safety analysis reports, job and task analyses, operating procedure development, personnel qualification/certification program development, and facility- and job-specific training program and course development.
- OSTI ID:
- 436847
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9606116-; ISSN 0003-018X; TRN: 96:005275-0078
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 74; Conference: Annual meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), Reno, NV (United States), 16-20 Jun 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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