1. Origins of the AP913 process developed by INPO

1.1 Origin and background

In the early 1990s, a number of nuclear power plant operators in the USA achieved outstanding availability results thanks to their maintenance programs, despite unplanned shutdowns caused by accidental equipment failures. Each of these operators then set up interdisciplinary groups to analyze the causes of these failures. These groups found that there was no simple explanation for the problem, and that there was a need for a more global approach to solving equipment reliability issues. To help US operators solve this problem, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) published a report in 2001 entitled Reliability Process Description AP913