Federal Power Provider Saves Time and Costs on Nuclear Site Operations and Maintenance With Dash Enterprise

Introduction

Operating within the U.S. energy sector, a federal government power provider serves a multi-state region under a unique public power model. This user story delves into their innovative use of real-time analytics for nuclear plant maintenance and mapping, offering a glimpse into their commitment to safety, efficiency, and energy resilience.

With Dash Enterprise, the power provider’s analytics group has developed two data apps designed to enhance nuclear plant operations.

Challenge

Nuclear plant management poses several challenges that the analytics group aimed to address.

First, they needed to find a way to create a comprehensive nuclear plant map and identify specific components. Traditionally, these tasks relied heavily on time-consuming, manual processes and the legacy knowledge of long-standing personnel at the plant. Additionally, extended human exposure to high-radiation areas comes with safety concerns that the group was aiming to address.

Another pervasive challenge in nuclear plant documentation was dealing with extensive condition reports. The team had to devise an efficient method for extracting vital information from these voluminous reports.

These challenges would require significant advancements in nuclear plant management, streamlining operations, facilitating efficient data aggregation, and providing valuable insights into recurring issues and equipment malfunctions. Ultimately, the solution to these challenges would significantly enhance the nuclear plant's ability to manage and maintain its critical systems.

Solution

The analytics group utilized images, with extensive labels, of high-radiation areas captured by Boston Dynamics Spot robots, allowing them to create a Dash application outlining a highly detailed map of the plant. This map marks the image capture locations and also plays a vital role in pinpointing specific components and areas within the plant, such as the precise location of unit one drains.

The images were passed to an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) utility, which automatically captured the text of those labels and associated them with the locations that Spot captured. The Dash app presented this very rich dataset overlaid with the map of the high-radiation areas to enable detailed planning of time-limited maintenance operations in these dangerous areas.

To further streamline operations, the team introduced a user-friendly searchable table that expedites the process of issue identification and resolution within the plant. This cohesive system represents a significant leap forward in integrating plant mapping, precise labeling, and analytics into the operational framework, greatly enhancing the capabilities of plant management.

Additionally, the group developed a text search Dash app that employs Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to extract key terms and analyze their prevalence within nuclear plant condition reports.

This app streamlines the search for crucial information, providing valuable insights into recurring issues and equipment malfunctions. In an environment characterized by a high volume of data, this tool proves indispensable, enabling efficient data aggregation and facilitating trend analysis.

Results

The impact of the text search app is clearly quantifiable:

• The power provider saves approximately 500 human-hours each month on manual search through tedious conditions reports
• The power provider also significantly limited human exposure to high-radiation areas, with both safety and cost benefits
• The analytics group estimates hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual savings due to the insights generated from the app
• By streamlining information retrieval from their ERP system, Maximo, the app enhances operational efficiency significantly

The power provider’s analytics group opted for Dash Enterprise over conventional Business Intelligence (BI) tools, stemming from their need for customization and flexibility.

Dash Enterprise empowers rapid development of complex functionalities, surpassing the limitations of traditional BI tools. This includes data extraction from databases, implementation of scoring systems, embedding direct links, and facilitating advanced search calculations.

While some familiarity with coding is required, Dash offers unparalleled freedom for tailored solutions, enabling outcomes previously unattainable with traditional BI tools. This strategic choice underscores their commitment to efficiency, innovation, and a cost-effective approach to addressing their unique operational requirements.