KEYS TO SUCCESS OF THE LANL TA-18 FACILITY NUCLEAR MATERIAL DE-INVENTORY PROJECT

The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) made a decision to relocate the criticality experiment capabilities residing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) TA-18 facility to Nevada necessitating the relocation of significant nuclear material. This paper presents lessons learned from the Federal Type B packaging and transportation leadership perspective for the multi-year de-inventory of the TA-18 facility. The timeline for this project was thought to be unachievable by many. This paper acquaints the reader with the facilities involved and the packaging and transportation requirements that constrained this effort and focuses on how many aspects of the project were dealt with to achieve success. Neither the TA-18 nor the receiver facility was designed to accommodate high volume material shipments necessary for success. Organizational opposition to the project within the laboratories is described as well as how it was overcome. Successful techniques for managing and integrating this multi-corporate project are described. The TA-18 project involved packaging, transportation, nuclear material storage facilities, and project management resources from DOE sites at LANL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, BWXT Y-12, Savannah River Site, Kansas City Plant, Nevada Test Site, DOE Site Offices, and key DOE Office of Defense Programs organizations. Baseline management tools were utilized to facilitate participants buy in. Much effort went into limiting the project controls function as schedulers began to overshadow the rest of the project. A guiding principle was to prevent paralysis often caused by over-planning. Another key role was to assure effective leaders and doers were assigned to the project as fast-track projects cannot tolerate ineffective personnel and be successful. Roles and responsibilities were clarified with a focus on avoiding diffusion of responsibility. Equal focus was given to the main receiver site since it was under development during this time and had many similar issues to resolve. Murphy’s Law always applies leading to unplanned shortfalls. An atmosphere must exist were these shortfalls are not covered up. Finally, managers must be aware of hidden agendas that can detract from project goals. The success of this project was no accident and was dependent on many of the leadership skills highlighted in this paper.