British Nuclear Group Ltd, Sellafield

Construction and management services, British Nuclear Group Ltd, Sellafield

Facts and figures

  • The British Nuclear Group’s activities cover specialist nuclear site management, remediation, electricity generation, reprocessing and clean up, with the intention of carrying out these tasks quickly, safely and cost-effectively
  • The Sellafield site has been pivotal to the UK nuclear industry for more than five decades through producing pioneering technologies and major developments. It is considered to represent the most challenging nuclear site management programme in the world

Continuous improvement

The B38 Construction and Management Services contract, which included mechanical and pipework installation, insulation and scaffolding at the Sellafield site, has now been successfully operated for three years.

The contract managed all work on the Infrastructure Improvement Programme in the B38 building by British Nuclear Group's nominated sub-contractors. The project was staffed by twenty-five Interserve staff and approximately ninety multi-disciplined sub-contract personnel.

The work scope required the intensive day to day programme management of all sub contract personnel. Interserve planned and progressed all activities, durations and manning levels, for individual activities that were then agreed with sub-contractors. General work management was maintained through engineers having a considerable input into the design at an early stage and advising on constructability issues. Progress would be monitored on a weekly basis with necessary action being identified and acted upon. Interserve ensured control and accountability was sustained at all times through this process to encourage a smooth working programme. Simultaneously variance trends, positive or negative, were documented and reported at the earliest opportunity to facilitate timely customer client action.

Achievements

  • Safety is of the utmost importance at site. Interserve worked closely with British Nuclear Group to monitor and improve all aspects of the safety procedure.
  • Employed shift patterns to manage the significant increase of the number of open work faces and consequently increased productivity. The constraints imposed by the building environment are such that even the simplest of tasks requires considerable planning, management and time to complete.
  • Initiated a monthly project safety forum to specifically recognise and reward the exemplary safety conduct of operatives; thus raising and improving safety awareness across all contractors.

This constant assessment of the working environment allowed our staff to continually develop and learn from their experience. This is a key attribute of Interserve’s objective of continuous improvement. Managing Director, Keith Dorling, commented: “The British Nuclear Group Limited success is testament to the unique service proposition offered by Interserve”.