The Next Generation Network (NGN) of the NEA Integration Group for the Safety Case (IGSC) will organise a webinar offering practical insights into the IGSC vision and ongoing work on requirements and configuration management.
Radioactive waste disposal programmes are developed over long timescales and evolve through successive stages of planning, site characterisation, design, construction, operation, closure, and post-closure oversight. Throughout this evolution, programmes must respond and adapt to new scientific knowledge, technological developments, operational experience, regulatory expectations, and societal considerations. Discussions within the IGSC and other groups and projects have highlighted a growing recognition that changes at different levels (e.g. regulation, repository concept, design and implementation plan) along the repository development are expected, beneficial and contribute to improve safety. The ability to manage change and improve confidence in safety is therefore fundamental to all disposal programmes, including those with deep geological or near-surface repositories. In this context, requirements and configuration management is a valuable tool that supports a structured and systematic management of change. It helps maintaining coherence of the repository concept and design, safety assessments and the safety case. At the same time, approaches to requirements and configuration management, and terminology vary across national programmes, and there is currently not yet a widely shared understanding of how requirements and configuration managementis best applied in the specific context of radioactive waste disposal.
The IGSC has formed an ad-hoc group on requirements and configuration management with the goal to develop a shared IGSC vision and highlight best practice for requirements and configuration management. Through its activities, the group aims to strengthen the international community’s shared understanding of requirements and configuration management, and how it contributes to maintaining confidence in safety along the evolution of disposal programmes. After a short overview of existing work and publications on requirements and configuration management, IGSC’s vision on requirements and configuration management will be presented. This is followed with an outlook on the ad-hoc group work and expected products and how they link to other activities at NEA. The webinar will conclude with a discussion and Q&A.
Dr Thomas Kaempfer, Professor at OST Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, brings extensive experience in safety assessments, safety case development, management of risk and uncertainty and related communication aspects. As a consultant, he supported the French, German and Swiss radioactive waste disposal programmes before leading the Safety Team at Nagra, the Swiss implementer for the geological repository, during the preparation of the general licence application. In his current role, he continues to support the Swiss disposal programme and is active in the IGSC, currently as co-chair of IGSC and co-lead of the ad-hoc group on requirements and configuration management. One of his main interests lies in the evolution of disposal programmes through transitional phases and how structures and tools like requirements and configuration management enable efficient management of change and optimisation.
soufiane.mekki@oecd-nea.org
