A Survey on Team Errors in Digital Control Rooms of Nuclear Power Plants

To identify the shortcomings in current research on team errors and to outline future research directions aimed at enhancing safety management in the nuclear field, a review on team errors of key employees at nuclear power plants (NPPs) is compiled. The introduction of digital control systems in NPPs has fostered new human issues. To date, resources have focused on individual errors; however, the event investigations reveal that team errors significantly contribute to poor performance and accidents. The importance of team errors cannot be ignored, and incorporating team error control into safety systems is necessary for efficiently functioning NPPs. This study reviews fundamental aspects of team errors in digital control rooms of NPPs, covering three main foci: concept and classification of team errors, identification and classification of team error performance influencing factors (PIFs), and mechanisms of team errors. The main contributions of this review include the findings that (1) team interaction is not adequately captured in the definition of team errors; (2) the identification of team error patterns lacks an in-depth exploration of cognitive mechanisms, and the classification of team errors lacks uniform standards and objective methods; (3) 21 key PIFs leading to team errors have been identified, but the correlations between error patterns and PIFs have not been explored in depth; (4) lacking reliable systematic methods or models for analyzing team error mechanisms, especially in dealing with team dynamics and psychological error mechanisms. This research contributes to a more comprehensive, systematic understanding of team errors in NPPs, providing theoretical references for subsequent team error prevention and control strategy development.