Professional Loss Control has initiated efforts to update its hazard assessment software PB-FANS.  PB-FANS is an internally developed software package for organizing data and conducting Performance Based Fire Assessments for Nuclear Safety (PB-FANS). 

The earliest editions of this software consisted of a database to store details of fire hazards and nuclear safety systems in a plant.  Since its initial development changes have been made to include additional plant details, conduct additional technical assessments and to improve the reporting format to meet client needs.  Since its original development PLC has used this software in various forms for multiple clients, involving a number of sites, with varying client needs.  Use of this software has proved very successful in forming a basis for efficiently collecting and recording information for plant sites and for providing a consistent professional reporting structure for presentation of fire hazard assessment results.

One of the successes of this software tool has been its flexibility in meeting client needs.  Five years of adapting have challenged some of the initial concepts for data structure and database design.  The current version change will see improvements in structure of the data, simplifications in reporting large amounts of data, improvements/upgrades in technical evaluations performed, and structural changes to permit integration with fire PSA (probablistic safety assessment) requirements.  The development plan has been approved and the detailed work has started.  Current schedule is for program verification in late April 2007 and validation in May 2007.