Orphan radioactive sources inadvertently melted in steel plants are a health and economical hazard. Thus, regulation authorities impose strict control measurements to be performed at these plants. However, a recent series of incidents related to the melting of $${}^{241}\hbox {Am}$$
241
Am
sources demonstrated the inadequacy of even state of the art systems in revealing this low-energy gamma ray emitter up to activities of the order of hundreds GBq. However, $${}^{241}\hbox {Am}$$
241
Am
sources are characterized by a weak neutron emission which can be detected by proper monitor systems. This work provides a feasibility study of a shielding-independent neutron-sensitive portal monitor system to be installed in steel plants. Measurements were performed both with a certified $${}^{241}\hbox {Am}$$
241
Am
shielded source and at the weighing area of a steel plant, to assess both the detector performance and the practical feasibility of the system implementation in work-place fields. A risk evaluation analysis demonstrated that with the current control systems $${}^{241}\hbox {Am}$$
241
Am
sources up to 185 GBq could pass undetected with a potential exposure for workers equal to 1.7 mSv, consistent with recent accidents reports. The proposed technique could reveal $${}^{241}\hbox {Am}$$
241
Am
activities down to 2 GBq, decreasing the worker exposure down to 24 $$\upmu \hbox {Sv}$$
μ
Sv
, without interfering with the standard plant operations.
The new operational dosimetric quantities framework, proposed in the ICRU95 report, has stimulated the scientific community to start investigations that aim to assess its impact on radiation protection practices. As part of this effort, the present study describes an inter-comparison exercise among individual monitoring services (IMSs) on passive whole-body dosimetry. The inter-comparison is performed in terms of both the existing operational dose quantity
H
p
(
10
)
and its proposed replacement
H
p
, to allow an evaluation of the actions that may be necessary to adapt dosimetry systems to the proposed quantity. For two of the tested IMSs, simple modifications to the detector response function, or the dose calculation algorithm, were sufficient to obtain results within acceptable limits. However, these approaches are not sufficient to give a level of performance comparable to that achieved in terms of
H
p
(
10
)
. This may require a modification to dosemeter design.
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