The history and development of the health physics and as-low-as-reasonably-achievable (ALARA) program at Duke Power Company’s Oconee Nuclear Station is described as are the fundamental elements of the program and how the program works. The benefits of this health physics/ALARA program have been determined to be (a) improved quality of manpower planning and scheduling, (b) increased efficiency of shutdown activities, (c) reduced cost of shutdown, (d) immediate awareness of adverse job exposure trends, (e) better management information on exposure-related problems, (f) improved accuracy of personnel and job dose records, and (g) in general, improved outage performance and subsequent plant operation. Experience with the health physics/ALARA program is discussed in terms of (a) savings of critical path time, (b) maintaining ALARA personnel doses, and (c) record capacity factors. It is expected that detailed job planning and scheduling by the maintenance planners down to and including individual jobs and the assumption of certain radiation planning and exposure control responsibilities by first-line supervisors, rather than letting some of these aspects fall upon health physics by default, will enable all of our nuclear stations to further reduce shutdown maintenance costs and increase their capacity factors, all as a result of a determined program to maintain ALARA personnel doses.