Working Group on Operating Experience (WGOE)

The main objective of the NEA Working Group on Operating Experience (WGOE) is to improve nuclear safety. It does this by sharing operating experience and knowledge, analysing and providing expert insights from this experience in order to reach timely conclusions on trends, lessons learnt and in the short and medium term, implement effective responses. In the longer term, the WGOE promotes proposals for the re-assessment of safety, identifies areas where additional research is needed, assesses new or revised regulatory inspection practices and shares improvements in operational management of nuclear installations.

In order to accomplish these objectives the working group will:

• Meet periodically to share incident and event information to identify trends, significant important events, responses and measures taken and the lessons learnt.
• Meet periodically to review the information from the Incident Reporting System (IRS) and other databases. Oversee the IRS in its role of collecting and disseminating operating experience. The working group will also oversee the quality of IRS reports and ensure that corrective actions are presented in such a manner that they allow others to consider whether similar measures should be implemented, thus facilitating CNRA discussions and decisions on what actions to take.
• Promote the development and sharing of improved techniques and methods for the collection, assimilation, review and analysis of incidents.
• Provide expert insight and analysis capabilities of event and inspection experience and evalute the effectiveness of the actions taken.

Related links

NEA News No. 23.1 (2005): Lessons drawn from recent NPP operating experience (pdf, 65 kb)

WGOE mandate

WGOE recent reports

Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) overview

WGOE working area (password protected)

E-mail contact: Barry Kaufer (barry.kaufer@oecd.org)
Last updated: 31 August 2007.