THE RELATIONSHIP OF PROPER SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL REPORTING TO MANAGEMENT DOLLARS

First of all, I would like to place the subject of this paper \"The Relationship of Proper Special Nuclear Material Reporting to Management Dollars\" in proper perspective. It is self-evident that an organization cannot increase its profits by simply preparing correct inventory and material balance reports to the AEG or anyone else. We believe that it is equally self-evident, however, that an organization could lose profits because of inaccuracies in internal reports, to management. Reports to the AEC are, of course, expected to be based on these internal reports. Inaccurate material balance and inventory reports can lead directly to costly errors in judgment by management. In fact, no report at all would be better, in some cases, than an erroneous report - at least it would be the lesser of two evils. This paper is being presented to direct your attention to some of the pit-falls that present themselves to Nuclear Materials Management representatives in the course of preparing reports for their own management as well as to the AEC. We speak principally, in spite of the title, of physical inventories and physical transfers of special nuclear materials, and only indirectly of the dollar values associated with these quantities. Perhaps we are old fashioned, but we believe that an accurate physical inventory report provides an unequivocal base for determining one's financial responsibility for the material through the application of unit costs. It is quite possible for an organization to know the quantities of special nuclear materials on hand without being aware of their dollar value. We believe that it is impossible, however, to know the dollar value of the inventory while being blissfully unaware of the actual quantities and material types on hand (or transferred since the last inventory).