Robotics & AI Roadmapping
Sellafield Ltd
Introduction
The decommissioning of Sellafield is a 120-year project expected to reach full site remediation by 2125. Widely recognised as the largest nuclear site in Europe, Sellafield has critical challenges to remove more and more people from harm, whilst simultaneously working to accelerate site decommissioning, with increasingly fewer resources.
The Challenge
In the backdrop of Sellafield’s decommissioning journey is the ever-advancing landscape of technology - specifically, robotics and AI (RAI). With increasing budgetary pressures and limited ability to develop and test the myriad different types of robotics, Sellafield needs to rapidly understand and prioritise which technologies will have the most value across all of the different parts of the business - and so where to invest for maximum impact.
Sellafield had captured data on the key technical challenges across the different UK Nuclear decommissioning sites, but had reached a crossroads in translating this data into a usable format that would clearly inform the RAI technologies that would have the most impact towards Sellafield and UK wide nuclear decommissioning goals.
The solution
As an innovation integrator, Ajuno acted as a pathfinder to navigate the optimal routes forward, identifying the best technologies to support Sellafield in achieving their critical goals.
We applied academic technology management frameworks in practice - rationalising, cleaning and mapping the data to achieve a point where Sellafield could effectively understand and utilise it.
Our solution applied the Microsoft Power Platform to enable a scalable solution that could be managed in-house and without additional licenses. Our dynamic roadmapping system gave Sellafield the ability to strategically prioritise investment into RAI technologies and re-visualisation based on specific conditions, such as changing budgets and goals.
The impact
This has empowered Sellafield - and the wider UK NDA estate teams - with a smarter and more effective method for identifying and evaluating new technologies, accelerating our decommissioning mission.
Sellafield has unlocked:
Enhanced decision making - empowering teams to confidently invest in technologies that will have the greatest impact towards business needs, even as all continue to evolve.
Supported business cases - providing clear and understandable evidence to support cases for investment.
Positioning for the future - enabling integrated enterprise-wide technology data, critical to the rapid advancement of GenAI to further augment teams.
Ultimately, Sellafield is now able to invest time and money on the technologies that will have the most value across the organisation, avoiding potentially £10s million on suboptimal solutions, and driving forward their long-term strategy.
