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The Doosan Keltbray Consortium has received an award from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) for its outstanding collaborative working skills. The award for ‘Best Supply Chain Collaboration Led by a Large Company’ was made in recognition of the project to deliver the deplanting of four boiler houses at Bradwell Nuclear Power Station in Essex.

Judged by a panel of senior nuclear and engineering professionals chaired by the NDA’s head of Supply Chain Optimisation, the award recognises excellence in NDA suppliers who work collaboratively to achieve a common goal. It was awarded to representatives from the Doosan Keltbray Consortium, made up of Doosan Babcock and Keltbray, working with Deborah Services and Magnox.

By proactively learning lessons from its supply chain partners, the Doosan Keltbray Consortium made continuous improvements in its approach to deplanting. Other approaches included training, workshops and bringing in best practice from other sites and industries. This led to significant savings in time and cost as the project progressed through to the fourth boiler house, which was delivered at 10% less cost and 30% faster than the first boiler house.

As a result of the collaborative approach, the Consortium delivered the two-and-a-half year programme work a month ahead of schedule and 7 percent below target cost. On top of this, there were no lost time accidents in more than 250,000 working hours.

Commenting on the award success, Doosan Babcock’s Nuclear Service Director, Cameron Gilmour, and Keltbray’s Managing Director for Rail & Infrastructure, Phill Price, said: “Winning the award for Best Supply Chain Collaboration from the NDA is a fantastic recognition of the Doosan Keltbray Consortium’s proactive and positive approach to working with our clients and supply chain partners. Our approach is ‘success through collaboration’, and by working together we can deliver industry-leading decommissioning projects, meaning that we can significantly support stakeholders so that the UK’s fleet of older nuclear reactors can be retired safely and efficiently.”

Alan Bladon, Magnox Plant and Structures Programme Director, added: “The transformation of the reactor buildings into de-planted safe store structures is a key step on Bradwell’s journey to becoming the first UK reactor site to enter care and maintenance. The boiler house project has been a big part of that work and we are delighted to have had the Doosan Keltbray Consortium in place to deliver safe and efficient decommissioning for the site’s owner, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.”

The project was initiated by Magnox as part of its programme to achieve ‘care and maintenance’ at Bradwell by 2015, when remaining structures, including the reactor buildings, will be left in a passive state for a period of decades before the final site clearance takes place. Bradwell will be the first UK site to reach Care and Maintenance.