I am Tadakazu Tsuruta, the manager of the Operating Experience Analysys Division.

"Know thy enemy and know thyself, find naught in fear for 100 battles". This is a quote of the famous Chinese military strategist Su Tzu, explaining the importance of gathering and analyzing comprehensive information on yourself and your enemy, before planning a strategy. He also said advance analysis and assessment determines the eventual outcome of a war. As far back as 2,500 years ago, the importance of information was already expressed accurately. Even in situations not as grave as starting a war, such as maintaining and administrating an organization, utilization of information is of serious importance, as demonstrated by the rapid progress in information technology. Nuclear facilities, particularly nuclear power plants, require active use of information because of the following aspects: Firstly, in technologies like nuclear power generation, whereby an accident would have a serious social impact, it is impractical to take the approach of enhancing the quality of technology through failure. There is a tremendous importance in implementing preventive measures so as to identify minor problems and prevent them from evolving into an accident. For this reason, the effective approach is to gather information on equipment failures / problems, analyzing the cause, implementing countermeasures and preventing the development of similar events or addressing minor problems to stem the possibility of full-scale accident occurring.

Secondly, in order to maintain nuclear safety, operators must always refrain from becoming complacent with the current status, or overlooking problems as extreme cases. Businesses conducting nuclear power generation must continue efforts to implement proactive safety activities to achieve excellence in safety. To this end, they must recognize their current status without bias, and adopt the benchmarking approach, learning from other operators with better performances. This highlights the importance in gathering, analyzing and assessing information.

What I have just described reflects efforts and initiatives implemented by electric power companies. The Japan Nuclear Technology Institute has been established as the information center or the center for developing the technological foundation of the nuclear energy industry. To meet the expectations, the Information & Analysis Division will take on the above-mentioned tasks in an organized approach, disseminate useful information to frontline workers, and extend powerful support to the industry's proactive safety activities in pursuit for excellence. Your support and cooperation would be sincerely appreciated.

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