The SEED software is installed and operated in a SEED server workstation, and the SEED server is linked into several signal acquisition and evaluation computers as clients using TCP/IP based LAN. Because a main function of the SEED is the handling of all data produced in the entire SG tube inspection process, any subprocess such as inspection planning or signal acquisition can be supported the on-line archiving and retrieval functions of data by SEED kernel. Particularly, automated tools to support tasks in inspection planning and reporting process are internally included in SEED to reduce the complexity of the entire SG tube inspection process. Therefore, the planning of a task of a SG tube inspection or the reporting for a inspection results can be simply performed using the SEED functions and the result is directly sent to signal acquisition process or report generator. Therefore, by using the SEED architecture, the process of SG tube inspection can be redesigned as a more compact process and thus, the cost of the ISI and SG maintenance can be reduced.

Additionally, the SEED has distributed data base management functions. Using the functions, a WAN based global SG inspection data management is also available. Because all SEEDs in each site including the global SEED server have the same SEED software, there is no difference of using the SEED user interface in any sites. Therefore, the global management of several plants information can be easily performed using the SEED architecture.

A prototype of the SEED architecture was implemented and has been commonly used in 4 nuclear power plants in Korea, and our effort to extent the usage of the SEED architecture is being continued.