The Integrated Waste Tracking Systems (IWTS) - A Comprehensive Waste Management Tool
The US Department of Energy (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site located near Idaho Falls, ID USA, has developed a comprehensive waste management and tracking tool that integrates multiple operational activities with characterization data from waste declaration through final waste disposition. The Integrated Waste Tracking System (IWTS) provides information necessary to help facility personnel properly manage their waste and demonstrate a wide range of legal and regulatory compliance. As a client?server database system, the IWTS is a proven tracking, characterization, compliance, and reporting tool that meets the needs of both operations and management while providing a high level of flexibility. This paper describes some of the history involved with the development and current use of IWTS as a comprehensive waste management tool as well as a discussion of IWTS deployments performed by the INL for outside clients. Waste management spans a wide range of activities including: work group interactions, regulatory compliance management, reporting, procedure management, and similar activities. The IWTS documents these activities and performs tasks in a computer-automated environment. Waste characterization data, container characterization data, shipments, waste processing, disposals, reporting, and limit compliance checks are just a few of the items that IWTS documents and performs to help waste management personnel perform their jobs. Throughout most hazardous and radioactive waste generating, storage and disposal sites, waste management is performed by many different groups of people in many facilities. Several organizations administer their areas of waste management using their own procedures and documentation independent of other organizations. Files are kept, some of which are treated as quality records, others not as stringent. Quality records maintain a history of: changes performed after approval, the reason for the change(s), and a record of whom and when the changes were made. As regulations and permits change, and as the proliferation of personal computers flourish, procedures and data files begin to be stored in electronic databases. With many different organizations, contractors, and unique procedures, several dozen databases are used to track and maintain aspects of waste management. As one can see, the logistics of collecting and certifying data from all organizations to provide comprehensive information would not only take weeks to perform, but usually presents a variety of answers that require an immediate unified resolution. A lot of personnel time is spent scrubbing the data in order to determine the correct information. The issue of disparate data is a concern in itself, and is coupled with the costs associated with maintaining several separate databases. In order to gain waste management efficiencies across an entire facility or site, several waste management databases located among several organizations would need to be consolidated. The IWTS is a system to do just that, namely store and track containerized waste information for an entire site. The IWTS has proven itself at the INL since 1995 as an efficient, successful, time saving management tool to help meet the needs of both operations and management for hazardous and radiological containerized waste. Other sites have also benefited from IWTS as it has been deployed at West Valley Nuclear Services Company DOE site as well as Ontario Power Ge
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-99ID-13727
- OSTI ID:
- 911162
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-05-00564; TRN: US0704433
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International Conference On Environmental Remediation And Radioactive Waste Management (ICEM05),Glasgow, Scotland,09/04/2005,09/08/2005
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
COMPLIANCE
CONTAINERS
DOCUMENTATION
FLEXIBILITY
MANAGEMENT
PERSONAL COMPUTERS
PERSONNEL
PROLIFERATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
REGULATIONS
RESOLUTION
SCRUBBING
STORAGE
USA
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
computer
management tool
tracking system
waste management