UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)

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UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)

UKAEA worked with Fujitsu to create a comprehensive track and trace application, specifically designed for the processing, movement and reporting of nuclear and radioactive materials throughout the supply chain.

Customer’s Challenge

Founded in 1954, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) pioneered the development of civil nuclear energy in the UK. Since the early 1990s, it has focused on restoring the environment of nuclear sites and leading research into nuclear power. It is now Europe’s most experienced decommissioning company and provides consultancy services to customers around the world.

A key part of the UKAEA’s work involves the handling, usage and storage of many different types of radioactive material. Some sources are physically small, but potentially very harmful, so the organisation’s materials accountancy has to reach high standards. Dik Third, Nuclear Materials Advisor, UKAEA, comments, “Given the nature of the materials, we have to keep accurate records to meet UK health and safety regulations and international obligations including the EU Euratom treaties, which require monthly reports on stocks of nuclear material.”

Previously the UKAEA tracked nuclear materials through a variety of legacy systems that varied from site to site - ANUMAP at Harwell and Winfrith, SMART at Windscale and CNMAS at Dounreay. However, the situation was not ideal as Dik Third explains, “The level of support we needed for the previous systems was high because the people involved were specialists. They knew a lot about their system but they didn’t know anything about anyone else’s. On top of the three main databases, we also had a myriad of local systems which varied from the back of an envelope to an Access database.”

As a result, UKAEA wanted to develop a single system that everyone could use covering all of its sites and that could be maintained by just one support team.

Fujitsu’s Solution

Over a four year period, UKAEA worked with Fujitsu to create a comprehensive track and trace application, specifically designed for the processing, movement and reporting of nuclear and radioactive materials throughout the supply chain. Now completed, the ATOM (Accountancy and Tracking of Material) system ensures that the UKAEA complies with all UK and European regulations on the reporting of nuclear materials, as well as improving operational efficiency.

Using web portal technology, based on industry standard software such as an Oracle database and Windows Server 2003, ATOM can be accessed from any desktop, but also incorporates a range of security features, including designated employee access rights, to ensure that sensitive data cannot be accessed by unauthorised people.

The system stores detailed information about individual items of nuclear material, providing an accurate overview of not just the quantities and whereabouts of materials held, but also a wide range of item attributes, such as physical and chemical forms, irradiation states, ownership and liabilities management information. This ‘three dimensional’ view means that operators are more efficient as projects and costs can be more accurately predicted.

“ATOM covers all of our radioactive materials, most of which are now in waste or storage facilities rather than in process or research,” says Dik Third. “Their status is slightly different but the materials still exist and have to be controlled. The whole system is based around each item of nuclear material, whether it is a tiny calibration sample or a transportation flask. We record descriptions, radiological data, physical make-up and how the material is used.

“However, one of the problems with radioactive materials is that they have properties that computer-based logistics packages don't handle. Unlike tins of beans, radioactive materials with short half-lives can transform into another isotope entirely, but with ATOM we never lose any of an item’s history. We can also do retrospective enquiries on what the inventory of any given place was at any time in its history. This is obviously important when considering decommissioning.”

ATOM has now been rolled out across all UKAEA sites and is currently managing information relating to tens of thousands of radioactive items - 10,000 at Harwell, 15,000 at Dounreay and 8,000 each at Winfrith and Windscale.

Dik Third adds, “We have thousands of items of nuclear materials that need to be recorded and tracked on a monthly basis. If we didn’t use a computerised database system then we would have a lot of people working on paper-based reports. We believe that there is no other system in the world capable of dealing with such complexity and breadth of plant operations and regulatory accounting requirements.”

Benefits to our Customer

Fujitsu’s work in developing ATOM for UKAEA has:

• Increased efficiency – this led to operational efficiencies of 40%, largely as a result of reduced effort in maintaining separate databases
• Ensured compliance – tracks and reports on all material to meet existing and planned European regulations
• Controlled costs – the disposal and storage of all material is closely monitored so projects and costs can be accurately budgeted
• Improved productivity – staff can quickly and easily access a complete history and detailed overview of all materials from one system
• Enhanced security – access to potentially sensitive information is strictly controlled
• Simplified support – system maintenance is much simpler and more cost-effective.

“ATOM not only has an extensive tracking functionality, it can record data to a very high standard of integrity, create current and historic inventories, and automatically generate reports. ATOM also allows us to comply with all regulatory requirements using just one system. If it knows something needs to be reported to the regulator ATOM will generate a report for them. It does not rely on people making that decision,” says Dik Third

Our Approach

The ATOM system has received system integrity and accuracy approval from both national and international regulators, offering those companies handling nuclear materials a failsafe compliance tool that fully satisfies UK and EU material management regulations.

“Before and during the building of ATOM we were talking to the European Commission about what was on the horizon to make sure we weren’t jumping the gun,” explains Dik Third. “Now the Euratom regulation is published we are confident we have a stable platform that will meet the EU’s requirements.”

The revised Euratom reporting requirements are now in force and compliance will be mandatory from March 2008, but it is expected that ATOM will be fully compliant with this new regime by October 2006 - 18 months ahead of the deadline. However, the ATOM system has also been designed to be adaptable, so it is also flexible enough to be extended to comply with any future changes in the regulations or handle potential changes in the scope of the UKAEA’s activities.

As a result, ATOM provides a tried and tested, low-risk and low-cost alternative for any firms handling nuclear material that need to comply with the latest regulations on tracking and reporting, but do not wish to build their own system from scratch or simply do not have enough resources to do so by March 2008. This not only includes nuclear power generating companies, but also university and company research labs, defence establishments, hospitals (radiography departments, for example) and major engineering and construction firms (who use radiography on buildings or oil rigs to assess faults).

Our Expertise

Fujitsu has over 30 years experience in providing consultancy and project services to help organisations design, deploy and manage advanced IT infrastructures and gain maximum benefit from the latest technologies.

The ATOM system was developed in close partnership with UKAEA, and the aim is for Fujitsu to take over the IT hardware and host the system, leaving the UKAEA to manage the database, access rights and report generation.