Delays in Construction of Nuclear Power Plants

Fifteen separate interviews were conducted with 49 design and construction staff personnel representing five organizations. The results indicated that the most important items in the design-construction cycle of a nuclear power plant are overall coordination, equipment availability, design-construct lead-time, and handling of design changes. Coordination encompasses activities necessary to handle all the other high impact delay cases. Use of computerized systems facilitates storing, handling, and sorting of the data for the many different tasks of the coordinating teams. The southeastern utilities have taken major steps in development and implementation of management information systems and innovative project control systems. The Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Power Company have made impressive progress in objective identification and system implementation. Other companies have requested their design-construct contractors to develop and use computer-based systems for scheduling, procurement, and startup testing.