Updating the NRC's guidance for human factors engineering reviews

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reviews the human factors engineering (HFE) aspects of nuclear plants. NUREG-0800 (Standard Review Plan), Chapter 18, "Human Factors Engineering," is the principal NRC staff guidance document. Two main documents provide the review criteria to support the evaluations. The HFE Program Review Model (NUREG-0711) addresses the design process from planning to verification and validation to design implementation. The Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines (NUREG-0700) provides the guidelines for the review of the HFE aspects of human-system interface technology, such as alarms, information systems, controls, and control room design. Since these documents were published in 1994 and 1996 respectively, they have been used by NRC staff, contractors, nuclear industry organizations, as well as by numerous organizations outside the nuclear industry. Using feedback from users and NRC research conducted in recent years, both documents have been revised and updated. This was done to ensure that they remain state-of-the-art evaluation tools for changing nuclear industry issues and emerging technologies. This paper describes the methodology used to revise and update the documents and summarizes the changes made to each and their current contents.