Coordination breakdowns in nuclear power plant control rooms: cause identification and behaviour-sequence analysis.

Area of Science:

• Human Factors and Ergonomics
• Nuclear Engineering
• Organizational Psychology

Background:

• Coordination breakdowns in control rooms can compromise safety in nuclear power plants (NPPs).
• Understanding operator behavior during emergencies is crucial for improving NPP control room effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify causes of coordination breakdowns among NPP control crews.
• To analyze coordination-behavior patterns differentiating high- and low-performing teams during emergencies.

Main Methods:

• Conducted in-depth interviews with 18 control-crew operators.
• Observed 12 emergency training sessions with lag-sequential analysis.
• Evaluated coordination effectiveness using breakdown proportions and anticipation ratios.

Main Results:

• Identified 25 causes of coordination breakdown across work processes, personnel, situation, and organization.
• Higher-performing teams displayed more non-random coordination behaviors.
• Key patterns included adaptive workload management (senior operators) and proactive performance monitoring (junior operators).

Conclusions:

• Findings enhance understanding of factors influencing NPP control crew coordination effectiveness.
• Specific behavioral patterns are critical for high performance in NPP control rooms.
• Interventions targeting these patterns can improve emergency response and safety.