The Iter nuclear site, 13 non-certified welders : a potentially explosive situation?

I cheat, you cheat... The facts

Iter called on several contractors to work on the construction site of the Iter thermonuclear reactor in Cadaches, Bouches-du-Rhône. Welders were needed to carry out the work.

The construction work therefore began with welders sent by the contractor companies. Documents attesting to the qualifications of the workers were checked for conformity, and 13 cases of falsification were detected.

The evidence

The sources consulted do not specify what enabled Iter's management to detect these falsifications. We can therefore only speculate on what needs to be done to verify the conformity of qualification certificates…

The following information must be cross-referenced:

• the name appearing on each certificate must be that of the actual assigned worker,
• the training organization must exist, or at least have existed at the time of the training in question,
• the instructor must be known to the training organization and have worked for it on the dates of the training,
• the instructor must be qualified,
• the document must be signed by at least the instructor and the trainee, and even by the training organization's management,- the document must be stamped by the training organization,
• the date on which the certificate was issued must be indicated, and anyone should be able to tell when the certificate is no longer valid.
• of course, the qualification certificate must still be valid on the date of task.

If any of the above points are found to be incorrect, missing or inconsistent, we can come to the conclusion that the document presented is falsified or non-compliant.

The investigation

In this case, Iter's management carried out checks on the conformity of the qualification certificates of the workers assigned by the various contractors it used.

Robert Arnoux, Head of Communications at Iter Organization, reports that "on March 3, 2023, as part of this standard control procedure", ¹ it was discovered that the certificates of 13 welders had been falsified.

Conclusions

For everyone's safety, both for the safety of the workers themselves and for those working on site in other positions, companies undertaking work, or carrying out maintenance missions, must be vigilant and ensure that everything complies with the regulations in force, both in terms of the equipment used and the qualifications of the workers.

Any failure to do so could have serious repercussions, either during the work in question, or at a later date!

The consequences

The management of the Iter site has alerted the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN). The latter confirmed this in a letter dated May 4, published on its website, and brought to the attention of the Agence de Presse Indépendante (AFP) on Tuesday May 30, 2023. The ASN asked Iter to specify "the extent of the falsifications brought to light and their possible impact on activities involving equipment important to safety".

This incident recalls another case of falsification of qualification certificates for 3 welders at the Orano reprocessing plant in La Hague (Manche). In that case, the welders who lacked official and valid qualifications were subsequently required to update their qualifications by undergoing appropriate training.

In that case, Iter took the following measures:

• dismissed the contractor company whic had presented the 'false welders’
• lodged a complaint ²,
• disqualified the welds concerned,
• carried out an exhaustive verification of welding qualifications for the entire site.

Between the discovery of the falsified documents and the publication of the ASN press release (between March 2023 and May 2023), the ASN reassured us that it had "not been possible to identify any direct impact such as a lack of competence on the part of those involved, or a non-compliant activity". ³

One month later (early July 2023), the ASN is still investigating "whether the welders' lack of qualification had an impact on the quality of certain assemblies in the experimental nuclear fusion reactor", and the words of Mathieu Rasson, Head of the ASN's Marseille Division, also point in this direction: "We now need to know whether there are any consequences for the quality of the welds. This is currently being studied. The safety demonstration is based on these qualifications." ²

Preventing risks and litigations

Isn't prevention better than cure?

In its annual report, the ASN states that "the year 2022 was marked by a reserved result of the inspections carried out, highlighting a lack of safety culture". If this 'safety culture' is not reinforced, "populations are not safe from a nuclear incident or accident." ²

The ASN thus insists that operators be rigorous in their monitoring and technical control of the work they carry out. Recently, however, there has been a crying shortage of manpower. This tight recruitment situation is prompting operators to recruit from contractors with whom they are not accustomed to dealing ⁴.So we might well ask ourselves, even more than usual, whether the qualification of contractors should be verified upstream of a project ?

That's what our paxpar solution offers!

For a contractor company, it's a way of making sure that the people assigned to work on the worksite are up to date with their certificates.

For the ordering institution, it's a way of checking :

• that the work order corresponds fully to the specifications
• that all contractors are qualified and up to date with their certificates.

The Work Order

Paxapr offers a platform to craft Work Orders... How?

As a Supervisor, you receive a bill of specifications.

1. You place these bills of specifications on the platform.
2. You upload the files that compliles each designated contractor’s certificates (e.g. Alain, Sophie and Paul’s files).
3. The platform retrieves the useful data from the specifications.
   
4. You select which worker to assign to each vacancy as defined in the bill of specifications.
   
5. You preview your Work Order.
6. Select "check".
   
7. The platform tells you whether everything is compliant... or not!
8. If one of the control points is non-compliant, you can immediately identify the problem(s), which are indicated by a red shield.
   
   In our example, no falsified certificate, but the validity date of Sophie's "Qualified Forklift Operator" certificate will have expired before the project starts.
   As Supervisor, you can take action before the mission, either :
   • ask Sophie to renew her certificate so that her file compiling all her certificates is up to date
   • choose another worker for the job or task.
   
   Under no circumstances will you wait for your client to discover a conformity defect.
   Under no circumstances will you jeopardize the safety of your team or other people working on site.
9. The platform tells you that your Work Order is compliant? All that's left to do is sign it with your Simple Electronic Signature (SES) or Advanced Electronic Signature (AES) or Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) and send it to the client.

"Certificates' Booklet" (compilation of all your certificates)

Why do we need the file compiling all your certificates to craft the Intervention Order?

Because each booklet is the document that compiles together all the certificates that show whether a worker has the necessary, compliant and valid accreditations to carry out a given task at a given date.

Certificates

All certificates are dated and electronically signed by the instructor, the trainee and the training organization.

By attaching all certificates to the Certificates’ Booklet, the platform can check all information relating to validated skills or areas, and check the validity of the electronic signatures appended.

Safety Handbook

Administralion duly notes this "safety culture" identified by the ASN as lacking or insufficient, and is in the process of setting up a Safety Handbook. "The Safety Handbook" (« Passeport de Prévention » as it is called in France) aims at improving risk prevention in the field of occupational health and safety, by ensuring the traceability of training courses taken and facilitating their management. It is provided for in Article L. 4141-5 of the French Labour Code, since its creation by the law of August 2, 2021 to strengthen occupational health prevention." A beta version is available online ⁵.

Contact us ? Want a demo?

info@paxpar.tech

References