Nuclear Knowledge Management

The IAEA has made public an excellent reference on Nuclear Knowledge Management (NKM), in the form of the NKM Wiki

Image from wikipedia

This wiki provides definitions and commentary on Knowledge Management as it is applied within the Nuclear sector.

Nuclear KM is different from that in other industries in three ways:

• There is a much stronger emphasis on knowledge of equipment and plant, given the complexity of many nuclear
• There is a very strong emphasis on safety knowledge, and 
• There is a huge emphasis on recording knowledge so that it can be passed down many generations of workers. The life of a nuclear power plant, especially if you measure this life from construction to decommissioning, exceeds the working life any of the employees, and knowledge must be passed from one generation to another. 

Some highlights of the wiki include:

• A role description for a Nuclear CKO
• An approach to competency loss risk assessment (a component of a Knowledge Retention strategy)
• An academic paper on whether and how NKM supports performance (answer, it does - strongly)
• An article on KM implementation
• Guidelines on managing safety knowledge
• An introduction to Nuclear KM
• An example NKM policy
• Transfer of knowledge between generations