On November 23-25, 2021, the annual conference of the design and engineering complex of nuclear industry was held in Moscow. It was organized by Atomenergoproekt JSC (part of Engineering Division of ROSATOM), which is the largest design organization of industry. The event, held in a hybrid format, was attended by more than 2,500 people, and about 50 experts from 46 nuclear industry enterprises within 8 panel discussions presented the reports.
The first day of the conference was dedicated to the interaction of the designers. Mr. Vladimir Asmolov, Scientific Director of VVER Project Area of ROSATOM, took an active part in the discussion. The participants shared their experience in engineering, design and construction of power units with III+ generation VVER reactors, Breakthrough project facilities and power units of low power nuclear power plants.
On the second and third days, the experts touched upon design issues, and, first of all, discussed the results of the Program for the Development of Design of NPP with VVER. The discussions revolved around standardization and unification, design quality, interaction with procurement and construction, requirement management, configuration and changes, design automation, information models, development and design management.
“In two years, 27 processes and subprocesses were optimized. As a result, their labour intensity or duration decreased by an average of 55%. Accordingly, the labour efficiency of designers has increased while simultaneously reducing the cost. In 2022, it is planned to initiate work on three new areas. Firstly, it is the creation of next generation design system for use during NPP design of VVER-TOI, BN-1200 and BR-1200. The second area is the integration of design with other stages of the life cycle. The third area is the replication of best practices of the design and engineering enterprises of the industry,” Mr. Dmitry Paramonov, Director of the Program for the Development of NPP Product of ROSATOM, informed.
“One of the main tasks of our conference for me is to receive feedback from those who are directly affected by innovations and changes in the production process. Without such feedback, it is impossible to take optimal solutions and implement change management as a whole. I believe that the discussions at the conference were frank and constructive, and I would like to thank everyone for proposals on improvement of our work. All of them will be reviewed, analyzed, and I think that a significant part of them will be implemented,” Mr. Alexander Lokshin, First Deputy CEO for Nuclear Energy of ROSATOM - President of ASE JSC, summed up the results of the conference.