Using "Process-to-Part" Techniques in Large Nuclear Power Plant Component Manufacturing to Improve Supplier Competitiveness

In the nuclear industry a significant proportion of the cost of large power plant vessels can be attributed to machining operations, which is largely due to the capital expenditure required for the acquisition of machine tool capability on the scale of these components. This paper therefore presents a study considering how supplier competiveness and ultimately nuclear power economics can be improved by employing a “process-to-part” approach to vessel machining using portable machine tools to reduce machining cost. The findings of this are that these kind of tools have a proven capability in other industries and can be deployed in nuclear power plant manufacturing processes as an off-the-shelf solution offering an estimated 88% reduction of machining costs and an improvement in payback period of 74%. Over a whole power station, this could amount to a £2-3M saving, meaning that adopting this approach has significant potential for improving supplier competitiveness. However, to realise these benefits effort should be made to assess this opportunity according to facility-specific parameters, validate this with feature-specific capability testing and conduct supplementary robotic machining capability research to enhance the state of the technology.