The company has sites at Sellafield in Cumbria and Capenhurst in Cheshire as well as an extensive engineering design capability based at Risley in Warrington. Now under the ownership of Nuclear Management Partners, Sellafield Ltd has the largest concentration of nuclear expertise in Europe, with over 50 years of experience.
The Sellafield site in Cumbria employs 12,500 people. The site itself is divided into 10 different divisions. Alistair Norwood is the Technical Engineering Support at the engineering department of one of the site's divisions. He gives advice regarding calibrations for the entire site and controls the site's calibration database. Alistair's division has its own calibration facility, which employs five calibration technicians. The division has 60 calibration technicians in total.
The main calibration needs at the site are related to pressure, temperature and flow measurements. The site itself has approximately 80,000 plant instruments that must be calibrated regularly. Alistair's division as such has between 20,000 and 30,000 calibration work orders on a yearly basis. Because of this, the Sellafield site has demanding calibration requirements and calibration plays a crucial role in the site maintenance.
"It's all about ensuring safe ty and taking care of the community", Alistair explains the philosophy of calibration. Calibrations are performed at the Sellafield site according to an annual maintenance plan. All calibration results are documented on calibration certificates, which are accessible for audits. The site also utilizes a maintenance management system, which keeps records of what has been calibrated, when and by whom. The actual detailed calibration certificate is stored in paper format. There are also a total of 20 people in Alistair's division whose main task is to prepare maintenance and calibration instructions and procedures.
