On April 2, the training course on maintenance and repair of the equipment used at the Industrial Complex for Solid Radioactive Waste Management (ICSRM) comes to a close. This facility is designed for acceptance, processing and/or disposal of solid radioactive waste produced during ChNPP operation and decommissioning.
The training is being provided by experts of Belgian ENGIE SOLUTIONS, and financed through the governmental fund of Belgium.
This training completes a major annual programme, which was planned to be fulfilled in 2020, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was extended for almost a year until the end of March 2021.
The cooperation programme comprised three training courses: the first one was about the hydraulic press, the second one – about pneumatic compressor, and the third one — about Wälischmiller arm.
“As for the theoretical part, the ChNPP operators already understand it, and they are really OK about this. Now we plan to do two- three- or four-week training about other subjects relevant to working with the robots. For 2021, we would like to make the training more deep”, — says Tarik Bouayad, ENGIE SOLUTIONS Product Expert (Belgium).
“The end goal of this training is that the staff must be autonomous, totally autonomous. There are two important aspects about this. The first one is knowledge and skills. During the training, I could see that the guys were happy to be getting new knowledge and skills. On the other hand, it is very good for ChNPP to have experts in maintenance constantly on site.
Another important aspect is economy. For example, let’s take Wälischmiller. If you have problems with the arm, you will have to call specific experts on maintenance [from Germany — edit.], and you can imagine how much it can cost. Now you will have your own Ukrainian experts at ChNPP site, and you can make calculations and see how much valuable it is”, — Tarik sums up.
“I would like to thank our Belgian colleagues for their quality approach to this issue. As for our side, we’ve learned a lot — about what this equipment consists of, how to deal with it, and what special tools need to be used for maintenance and repair. We have quite few pieces of such equipment at ChNPP — we have it only at ISF-2 and here at ICSRM. We really needed such kind of training to do our job”, — says Oleksandr Korenskyi, Senior Shift Foreman of the RAW Management Shop.