17 Nov Nucleonova presentation. “Optimization of the purchase of equipment to facilitate the acquisition of spare parts”. 2020 Virtual annual meeting. (Spanish Nuclear Society)
In the nuclear industry, as well as in other industries, it is very common the definition of technical specifications for purchase of complex equipment that are essential for the correct operation of the facility, especially when it is safety-related.
In those cases in which the equipment to supply has to undergo a Dedication Process, the technical specification is one of the input data to consider. However, it has been found that these specifications do not always define the specific requirements for the subsequent acquisition of spare parts.
This presentation shows some experiences in the supply of equipment under technical specifications in which the requirements for the acquisition of spare parts were not properly defined, and there is a lack of a Component Classification. All this leads to difficulties in obtaining the technical information on the spare parts, which complicates the Dedication Process. In addition to this, some of the strategies that have been carried out to solve this issue are shown in this presentation.
As a result of Nucleonova‘s experience in equipment procurement, and subsequently their spare parts, it can be concluded that not including the spare parts in the original technical specifications for purchase of newly acquired equipment implies a greater complexity in the Dedication Process of such spare parts and a greater use of resources, which entails cost overruns. The dedication of equipment can be performed mainly by functional tests, indirectly verifying those safety-related components, without conducting specific tests on each one of them. This fact, added to the lack of information provided by the equipment manufacturers on each of their parts, make it very difficult to procure and dedicate the spare parts necessary for the proper functioning of the equipment during its life cycle.
Nucleonova puts forward a proposal on how to optimize the procurement of this equipment, with the aim of facilitating the subsequent acquisition of spare parts.
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