More than just a digital platform, ESPN Digital constitutes a genuine tool-based process. Launched in 2019 and due to expire at the end of 2022, this tool aims to enable all players in the nuclear industry to collaborate effectively to speed up ESPN (nuclear pressure equipment) compliance assessments.

A large-scale collaborative project, initiated by EDF

The advent of ESPN Digital, part of EDF's "SWITCH" digital transformation program, has opened up new perspectives for the industry: it's an opportunity to rethink its practices and operating methods, to rethink its overall process, to reinvent itself.

ESPN Digital is a collaborative platform for all ESPN conformity assessment stakeholders, designed to digitize and simplify regulatory certification processes. It is useful both for existing nuclear power plants and the "Grand Carénage" program, as well as for the construction of new nuclear power plants. The aim of ESPN Digital is to provide a tool for industrial regulatory control, to improve the overall performance of the ESPN compliance process, and to standardize, track, trace, streamline and optimize all exchanges between industry players.

The ESPN Digital solution:

• Based on an agile approach: the tool is improved iteratively to take account of user feedback.
• Is the result of a joint project involving all players in the industry: operators, manufacturers, authorized bodies and ASN, working together to define requirements. AFCEN and GSEN are also involved in the project.
• In fact, several successive versions of ESPN Digital have been released (from the first functional version to the current version 3.2), enabling extended enterprise working for the first time.

ESPN Digital services

ESPN Digital offers a wide range of services , including assistance with the production of emblematic deliverables such as Risk Analysis, document instruction (ADR, EPMN, instruction manuals, etc.), streamlining exchanges, and business management tools, and addresses the challenges related to conformity certification identified by the industry (very long evaluation times, knowledge capitalization, efficient collaboration, etc.).

On a day-to-day basis, ESPN Digital will give you greater control over :

• of regulations by integrating the latest regulatory developments, thus relieving drafters of the need for regulatory monitoring
• exchanges between the various players involved in conformity assessment, thanks to the creation of a convergence chamber
• schedules, thanks to the introduction of indicators for monitoring the progress of each deliverable and of instructions issued by OHs, in real time

Onet Technologies, project partner

As EDF's long-standing partner in the ESPN Digital project, Onet Technologies has set itself the following objectives:

• Bringing new ESPN business onto the platform, with the aim of using the tool to produce the Risk Analysis and the Instruction Manual
• Provide skills development and training for future Onet Technologies users
• Mobilize stakeholders and develop internal communication on the project
• Participate in building industry governance