Process Optimisation | Case Study
Ada Mode provided a prototype web application to enable plant operators to quickly and easily schedule jobs, view workforce requirements for a given plan of work, and generate plans based on target objectives and workforce constraints.
Sellafield is one of the largest industrial facilities in Europe, responsible for safely processing and storing the UK's nuclear waste inventory. Sellafield is a complex site comprising of over 500 individual facilities.
A key facility on the Sellafield site is the Box Encapsulation Plant (BEP), which will store waste from some of the highest hazard nuclear facilities in Sellafield. The Box Encapsulation Plant is a facility that will provide safe and secure storage for up to 100 years, receiving intermediate level waste in 3 metre cubed steel boxes from donor facilities on the Sellafield site.
Once operational, BEP will need to ensure constant throughput while managing complex scheduling, workforce management, maintenance and equipment requirements. Ada Mode was tasked with creating a prototype scheduling and workforce optimisation app for the BEP team to demonstrate how such technology would be able to support and optimise plant operations
Approach
As this was a short project, we adopted a rapid development approach requiring close stakeholder communication. Initial work mapped out key requirements and user journeys, as well as defining the foundations for adaptable scheduling logic which ensured planned work aligned with plant limitations.
The Ada Mode team iteratively developed several versions of a Streamlit application to provide a web application within a secure offline environment.
Outcome
A rapid prototyping approach driven by close stakeholder collaboration helped to deliver a successful outcome within the short project timeframe. The prototype application provided a range of functions for scheduling of plant operations, visualisation of work plans, automated rescheduling to avoid clashes between jobs and more. More advanced functions also support users through automated scheduling, where users provide targets for packages processed and maximum workforce limits and the application automatically generates optimised plans of work.
The prototype app clearly demonstrated the potential for bespoke scheduling tools to support plant operation and optimisation, helping to ensure throughput requirements are safely met and also supporting maintenance planning.
