Staffing and Staff Qualifications - doe-std-1128-98

DOE-STD-1128-98

3.4

STAFFING AND STAFF QUALIFICATIONS

A cadre of operating and maintenance personnel that has experience in the operation of a

plutonium facility should be established during the construction of a new facility. The

remainder of the operating and maintenance staff should be hired as soon as possible and

should receive formal and informal training from the experienced personnel. This step is

extremely important to enable all personnel to grow with the facility and learn the details of

the operations. Once operations start, potential problems already should have been

identified and engineering or administrative changes should have been made to resolve

them.

Staffing in the radiological control organization requires technicians and professionals in

many support areas. A successful health physics program is highly dependent on the

availability of adequate staff support in areas such as environmental monitoring, instrument

maintenance and calibration, internal and external dosimetry, meteorology, safety analysis,

and risk management.

3.4.1

Professional Staffing and Qualifications

The senior staff of the radiological control organization should include health

physicists and other professionals with four-year degrees in science or engineering.

A continuing training program should be established for facility personnel. Pursuit

of certification by the American Board of Health Physics for senior and

professional staff members is encouraged (DOE, 1994a).

At least one professional staff member at the plutonium facility should have a

minimum of three years of health physics experience in the operation of plutonium

facilities.

3.4.2

Technician Staffing and Qualifications

Recommendations for minimum entry-level requirements for RCTs are given in the

DOE standard, Radiological Control, Ch. 1. (DOE, 2004), and DOE STD-1122-

99, Radiological Control Technician Training, Reaffirmed 2004, (DOE, 1999c).

They include a high school education or equivalency and knowledge of certain

scientific fundamentals. If a two-year degree in nuclear technology or an equivalent

discipline is locally available, completion of such a program should be encouraged.

Where possible, the Radiological Control Technicians (RCTs) and other members

of the health physics staff should have a minimum of one year's experience

working at a plutonium facility. Such experience is an important prerequisite to

allowing them to work unsupervised. Personnel hired without such experience

should work an internship of six months under the leadership of a qualified RCT or

supervisor with experience in that facility.

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