A good attendance of members assembled at Harwell on a lovely sunny day to enjoy a good variety of presentations and discussions on the challenge of establishing a management system as an integrated set of processes.
Richard Hibbert, the South of England representative on the NucSIG Steering Group, started the day by reminding us of the requirements in particular those that emanate from the IAEA GSR3 nuclear installation management standard which majors on the words 'integrated' and 'process'.
Formerly of Dungeness B Power Station, and leader of the CQI Integrated Management System SIG, Ian Dalling gave a presentation on Classifying Processes which started with the 'Big Bang' but raced forward to propose 12 Categories of Process which Ian claims to be universal.
Sellafield have been working hard on re-invigorating their management system whist taking advantage of the opportunity to use process thinking to do this. Howard Cooper, Sellafield Head of Quality, outlined the methods they have used, some pitfalls and recalled a mind bending experience of a round of applause from the site executive team in response to the initiative.
Bill Best, CEO of Proquis Ltd gave a presentation exploring the importance of choosing the right software for your process mapping needs by ensuring that you consider in advance your objectives. Bill proposed some fundamental objectives and highlighted the need to be able to support the identification and realization of process improvements. Bill's presentation included a demonstration of the Proquis mapping system.
'Pitfalls of process management' was the title of David Edwards of mfQ's lively presentation, during which he drew on many years helping clients from across various sectors address the process mapping challenge.
John Law, of Juno Trading Ltd, talked about his current experience installing a single integrated management system at a pump manufacturer which supplies the nuclear sector. The system uses Microsoft SharePoint and links to an existing SAP system.
Many thanks to the presenters for an interesting day of not just listening but debating the issues that came up. Particular thanks to Richard Hibbert and Sue Shaw of RSRL who organized this very successful event.