Notification of Status Changes

DOE-STD-1041-93

Personnel should be informed of all activities affecting equipment at their work station.

Support personnel and subcontractors should contact the person responsible to obtain

written or verbal authorization before commencing work, especially if the work will require

changing present work station status. To ensure that facility equipment is properly operated

at all times, guidance may be established allowing only facility-qualified personnel to

operate equipment, even during testing and maintenance evolutions.

4.1.2

Notification of Status Changes

A notification chain or network should be developed to ensure that status information is

communicated to the appropriate personnel. Policies or procedures should be established

for the timely notification of status changes. Specifics that should be addressed include who

needs to be notified, what information needs to be communicated, and the method of

communication (e.g., pagers, phone, face to face). Personnel should notify their supervisor

of all changes in work station status, especially abnormal and unexpected situations.

Supervisors should, in turn, notify the appropriate facility management.

Any person affecting the condition of a piece of equipment not under his/her responsibility

for any reason should notify the responsible person before changing the equipment's status,

and again afterwards, to inform that status has changed. This would include starting up or

shutting down equipment as well as adjusting controls. In addition, if anyone finds an

unsafe personnel, equipment, or facility condition he/she should perform all immediate

actions that they are qualified to perform (e.g., use a fire extinguisher, administer CPR,

open a breaker, shut a valve) and then immediately contact the responsible person.

4.1.3

Inspection Tours

Periodic work station inspection tours should be performed as part of an operator's shift

routine. These tours are in addition to the work station walkdowns performed as part of

the turnover process. For additional information on turnovers, refer to DOE Order

5480.19, Chapter XII, Operations Turnovers.

Inspection tours should be frequent and detailed enough to ensure that the status of

equipment and condition of the work station is known. Each facility should decide the

optimum frequency for conducting inspection tours. The frequency and detail of tours

should take into account the safety risk associated with the work station. In addition, input

should be received from facility maintenance engineers, equipment vendors, and

experienced operators when determining touring frequency.

The minimum touring frequency should be at least once per shift. However, the operations

supervisor (or cognizant manager) may designate specific areas to be inspected less

frequently because of adverse radiological or equivalent personnel safety conditions, or

more frequently if problems have been encountered in the past. In these cases, the

operations supervisor should specify an alternate inspection schedule. Facility security

concerns should not override personnel safety assessment duties.