On 23, July 2003, the 51st Safety Caravan visit was held at Tomari Power Station, Hokkaido Electric Power Co., Inc., located in Furuu-gun, Hokkaido Prefecture.

Safety Presentation

About 110 persons, including the employees of the Tomari Power Station and cooperating companies, attended the Safety Presentation.

At the beginning of the Presentation, Mr. Shirai, General Manager of Tomari Power Station, gave an address and said, "A company's way of thinking and the status of its initiatives concerning ethics are essential elements for evaluating the company and crucial conditions for when customers make their selections. To overcome these hard times, to gain the trust of society, this is a good opportunity for each and every person working to consider how to work and under what philosophy."

After the address, Mr. Tanaka, General Manager of NSnet, introduced NSnet activities, and this was followed by a lecture entitled "Corporate Ethics Initiatives at Texas Instruments Japan" delivered by Mr. Ueda, Audit Services, Senior Auditor, Texas Instruments Japan Ltd (hereinafter called "TIJ").
In the lecture, he said, "To conduct business on the highest ethical standards, each and every employee must 'Know what's right' and 'Do what's right'. Guiding to the 'Do what's right' that is based on 'Knowing what's right' is a critical point for the establishment of ethics programs." He introduced specific content of TIJ's ethics booklets, websites, education and training program as means of implementing ethics program.

Safety information exchange session

(1) Introduction of Activities to Create a Safety Culture and Exchange of Opinions

The following were explained: transport cask data issues, the status of activities for preventive measures being taken by the Hokkaido Electric Power Company relating to the JCO criticality incident, and the status of horizontal progress for preventive measures concerning inspection data issues at TEPCO nuclear power plants. Details were also introduced regarding the corporate activities committee for compliance and risk management. The main information and opinions exchanged were: - Technological judgment and society's views are thought to have strayed apart, therefore, judgments must be always made with an awareness of society. - The gap between engineers' safety and the peace of mind of the residents and the government in the vicinity of nuclear power station is becoming a problem. NSnet considers its role to shrink that gap if possible.

(2) Introduction of NSnet Activities and Exchange of Opinions

NSnet explained the implementation status of the peer reviews, its thoughts on the second round of peer reviews and ethics issues of NSnet as well as the climate of safety audits and the like. An exchange of opinions and information concerning NSnet activities overall also took place. The main information and opinions exchanged were: - Peer reviews are an extremely burdensome for operators. A desire was expressed to have the shape of peer reviews in the future studied. - For the second round of peer reviews, it is hoped that fewer confirmations of documents will take place and more focus will be put on discussions at the site.