Advancing quality at AWE – through people, culture and partnerships

Through the use of nuclear science and technology, AWE supports the delivery of a credible nuclear deterrent. For nearly three-quarters of a century, AWE has played a crucial role in the UK Government’s defence strategy to keep the UK safe and secure.
With such a crucial role, it is no surprise that quality is at the heart of AWE’s operations. The organisation’s quality standards are laser-focused, with a right first-time mindset and drive for improvement. This complements AWE’s commitment to minimise the environmental footprint of its operations, striving to deliver the highest standard of environmental protection and sustainability.

These are just some of the reasons why AWE was proud to sponsor the 2024 Quality Live event as a headline partner, which provides excellent opportunities to celebrate best practice from across the quality profession, to showcase key achievements and share innovation in the drive for excellence.

People
The work AWE does is unique, as are the 7,000 people working there. Finding the right people and investing in their development helps AWE instil a commitment to quality across its workforce. This is why AWE is working in partnership with key stakeholders, like the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI), committing to the continuous development of its people.

In 2023, through Evolve – AWE’s flagship graduate programme – new graduate opportunities were created within the Environment, Safety, Health, Quality (ESHQ) team. Graduates now spend three months working across the ESHQ team, before specialising as graduate Quality Engineers, Nuclear Safety Case Assessors, or as part of the team implementing the Environmental Management system.

AWE’s environmental and sustainability credentials are synonymous with quality and are upheld through commitments to reduce the environmental impact of the business across supply chains. Opportunities to embed the principles of the circular economy, reduce resource consumption, conserve scarce and non-renewable resources and minimise waste generation are also being identified.
Gateways to careers in quality are not limited to graduates. AWE’s award-winning Skills Academy delivers an apprentice programme, which includes a Quality Inspector apprentice and, for the first time this year, has expanded to include a Quality Practitioner and a Metrology apprenticeship.

Regardless of the route, those choosing to join the Quality team are also encouraged to work towards membership of the CQI. A career as a quality professional is a career like no other. It provides an opportunity to learn in so many different ways, plus the ability to continue learning from your first day in the role, until the day you retire.

AWE is building a network of quality expertise across the organisation to foster best practice. “We’ve got more than 200 quality professionals across the business,” said Tom Gould, Head of Profession for Quality at AWE. “The Quality Community of Practice helps us share, network and learn from each other’s experiences and continually improve as a function and a business.” AWE’s quality professionals are also active members of a range of the CQI Special Interest Groups, which provide a great opportunity to share wider learning and experience.

Culture
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) suggests that a positive organisational culture allows employees to understand their organisation and feel their voice matters in driving the business towards a common purpose. AWE takes engagement seriously through an annual engagement survey, and in 2023 was named as one of the Best Big Companies to work for, through the Best Companies ranking.

When it comes to quality culture, AWE embarked on a targeted quality specific engagement survey, piloting the approach in one business unit before wider distribution across the business. The quality culture survey, which has been running for five years, went beyond the traditional themes of Total Quality Management, Quality 4.0, Requirements and Compliance and sought to gain
additional insights into Leadership, Competency, Communication, Values and Ethics.

The success of this survey is due to a range of factors, which include behavioural traits associated with a positive quality culture closely aligned with the AWE Values; leadership commitment to undertake the survey; sharing the results and taking action. Benchmarking with other partner organisations has also been key in determining where to focus improvement effort and set targets to improve baseline scores. AWE also continues to mature its approach to Learning from Experience (LfE) which offers another route for driving best practice across the workforce.

The aim is to move away from a reactive approach that only addresses issues as they arise, to a more proactive one where learning is promoted before, during and after an activity or project. To deliver this, before projects start, AWE can use Peer Assist, a knowledge-sharing session where colleagues provide insights and advice to help a team solve a particular problem and/or challenge. Once the activity has started, a Review, Learn and Improve (RLI) approach is used at regular gates throughout the duration of the project and, again, immediately after activity has finished. This analytical approach fosters a culture of continuous learning and improvement, enhancing operation quality effectiveness and readiness.

“LfE is a culture change project, in that we want it to become everybody’s responsibility,” said Julie Knight, Corporate Learning From Experience Senior Manager at AWE. “We want everyone to engage, learn and share, as we want to be a good ancestor and leave a legacy of learning for future generations.” Identifying and sharing best practice has enabled AWE to deliver improved performance and compliance, most recently with calibrated equipment. “We linked some of the calibration data sets up to create a dashboard,” said Andrew Kirk, Group Leader Quality (Operations) at AWE. “This data is shared with a core group of calibration professionals, providing a holistic view of performance across the organisation, with greater control, more realistic targets and easily identifiable best practice, which is shared to drive improvement.”

Partnerships
A commitment to shared learning and disseminating best practice is not limited to an internal audience. AWE participates in a wide range of collaboration activities within the quality profession and across the nuclear, defence, science and engineering sectors. These include the Safety Directors’ Forum Supply Chain Quality Working Group (SCQWG) – to share learning and deliver value across the nuclear enterprise.

AWE engage with Sellafield Ltd through a joint collaboration steering group. For the last three years they have met bi-monthly to share information, good practice and learning on topics – from quality arrangements and management systems to training competencies for graduates and apprentices, and quality culture. Karine Rackham, Head of Quality, Sellafield Ltd said: “Our interactions have provided opportunities to share learning and collaborate on our efforts to promote quality as a career of choice, create a strong quality culture and drive improvements.”

As an organisation committed to the advancement of the quality profession, the CQI is another critical partnership for AWE.
“We need to know the competencies and skills we have in the business,” said Tom Gould, “and the best way of baselining those is through not only other businesses passionate about quality, but also to be strongly tied to the CQI.”

By working closely with the only chartered body for quality professionals, AWE uses the CQI’s Profession Map to support the continuous professional development of its people for today, whilst helping them prepare for the future. Tom said: “Quality really is an amazing career. I have been in it over 20 years. I am still loving it and I recommend it to anybody. This is exactly what I say when I go to recruitment fairs. I am there as an AWE ambassador and an advocate for a career in quality.”

Whether you are just thinking about starting your career in quality or are an established quality professional, find the latest roles at AWE on our Careers page and take a unique next step on your quality journey.