Major Success in the Nuclear Industry - December 2004

Assystem has been awarded a £5m contract to supply UKAEA with a novel system for retrieval of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) from stores at the Harwell site so that the waste can be re-packaged. The contract has been awarded following Assystem' earlier success in a competitive tendering exercise to produce a conceptual design for a method to retrieve 6645 waste cans from the storage facility.

The contract, which will run through to 2007, involves the design, supply and commissioning of a 200 tonne retrieval machine that will be built and tested by Assystem prior to being installed and commissioned at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

Key to this success was the highly innovative design solution that was proposed by Assystem and the long-term benefits that this will provide UKAEA during the period of its operation up to 2015.

The project is a key part of the Harwell site restoration programme, and the Assystem solution will assist UKAEA in achieving their goal of reducing the overall cost of the clean-up programme to the UK taxpayer.