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Appendix F
List of Recommendations from
Decision Making in the U.S. Depa~trnent of Energy 's
Environmental Management Office of Science and
Technology
COM[MI1YEE ON PRIORITIZATION AND DECISION MAKING IN
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
RAYMOND G. WYMER, Chair, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (retired),
Tennessee
ALLEN G. CROFF, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee
MARY R. ENGLISH, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
THOMAS M. JOHNSON, LFR Levine-Fricke, Emeryville, California
DUNDAR F. KOCAOGLU, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon
MICHAEL MENKE, Value Creation Associates, Redwood City, California
GEORGE L. NEMHAUSER, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
LINDA WENNERBERG, Environmental Business Strategies, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
EDWIN L. ZEBROSKI, Elgis Consulting, Inc., Sunnyvale, California
Consultants
THOMAS A. COTTON, JK Research Associates, Inc., Arlington, Virginia
ROBERT GIORDANO, Giordano and Associates, Saratoga Springs, New York
DETLOF VON WINTERFELDT, University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, California
RECOMMENDATIONS
Importance of a Central RD&D Function
A centralized RD&D function within DOE-EM should be maintained because of
its potential advantage in coordinating potentially duplicative technology
development efforts needed at DOE-EM sites and because it is in a better
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TECHNOLOGIES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
position to address important broader issues (e.g., alternative technologies in
the baseline functional flowsheets and alternative functional flowsheets) than
more specifically directed RD&D.
Balancing Research with Development and Demonstration
The percentage of OST technologies that reach the deployment stage should not
be the sole figure of merit used in judging the OST program, although it is an
important one. A long-term view should be adopted wherein the direct use of
OST technologies or the use of derived technologies is also considered in the
evaluation of OST's portfolio of technology development projects.
Site Baseline Remediation Functional Flowsheets
The expertise of technology developers supported by OST could be of value to
the site problem owners in formulating and maintaining technically sound and
practicable cleanup functional flowsheets. Therefore, efforts should be made to
have substantial involvement of appropriate OST and OST contractor personnel
in reviews of functional flowsheets. Such participation would have the benefits
of (1) ensuring that OST technology developers fully understand the site
problem owners' technical needs and their bases and (2) increasing the sites'
confidence in OST's dedication and ability to meet their needs.
Technical Alternatives to Baseline Remediation Functional Flowsheets
The development of alternative functional flowsheets is the responsibility of
DOE-EM offices other than OST, but they should seek OST's input. It is highly
desirable that the problem-owning EM offices should seek out and acknowledge
the potential vulnerabilitie~in cost, risk, and technological failure-of the
baseline functional flowsheets and processes and, with OST's assistance,
develop alternative flowsheets as appropriate. OST should encourage this course
of action and seek to collaborate in it.
OST should attempt to provide input to alternative functional flowsheets and, in
particular, should advocate their development when the baseline functional
flowsheet involves high cost, high or poorly defined risk, and/or substantial
probability of technical failure. OST should identify specific technology
development opportunities aimed at supporting alternative functional flowsheets
and processes designed to enhance the overall probability of remediation
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APPENDIX F
67
successes and to minimize program delays. In practice, this means that OST
should be allowed to commit a portion of its resources to developing
technologies to address needs derived from such alternative functional
flowsheets, in addition to developing technologies to meet the needs derived
from the baseline flowsheets.
Independent External Reviews
Peer reviews of technology development projects should be part of OST's
decision-making process. These project peer reviews should occur as necessary
and in a way that is not an overly burdensome commitment of OST resources.
Therefore, the OST review system should be streamlined by reducing the
number and types of reviews based on an analysis of the objectives being served
by each. Reduction in the number of reviews could be accomplished in part by
combining reviews where practicable.
An independent external review should be held on the basis of, and rationale
for, decisions on funding targets within OST. One goal of this review should be
to identify the technical areas of greatest need, where improvements over
existing conventional approaches would have the greatest benefit to DOE-EM.
This review and its outcome should take into consideration such factors as
DOE-EM programmatic strategies, political pressures, stakeholder pressures,
risk to human health and the environment, safety, cost-benefit, and timing.
Such a review might be carried out by an already constituted authoritative body
such as the Environmental Management Advisory Board (EMAB) or by a group
created specifically to conduct the review.
Site remediation functional flowsheets should be subjected to independent
external review before they are adopted, and periodically during development
of the technologies that are to implement them. The EM offices developing
these flowsheets should have them peer reviewed, that is, reviewed by technical
experts who are independent of and external to the program. This expertise may
be found in academia, private industry, and national laboratories. The purpose
of such reviews is to identify possible vulnerabilities or uncertainties in the
functional flowsheet assumptions and technology selections. The committee
understands that the other EM offices already sponsor such peer reviews of
functional flowsheets for the most part, but it would recommend the practice for
all important functional flowsheets.
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TECHNOLOGIES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AL4NAGEMENT
OST should work with other DOE-EM offices to the extent possible (e.g., by
establishing a role for OST contractors) in the schedule of peer reviews of the
site baseline functional flowsheets.
OST's Institutional Environment Affects Customer Interactions, Relevance
to Site Needs, and Deployment
To the extent possible, OST should increase its efforts to identify site
technology needs on a current basis and to anticipate future needs. Regularly
scheduled meetings with site problem owners should be considered. More
discussions of technical issues and their implications for technology
development needs should be held with the working-level scientists and
engineers.
OST should ensure that the decisions underlying the technologies it develops are
well documented, traceable to customer needs, and supported by sound
technical reviews. Records should be kept of the reasoning by which the
deciding factors were evaluated, including whatever methodist were used in
their evaluation.
Although the technology development projects should be based primarily on
specific needs at the sites, some should be of an exploratory nature to meet the
need for backups and alternatives to the baseline functional flowsheets.
Top-Level Strategic Planning and Goals
OST managers, in conjunction with other top-level EM managers, should
produce strategic goals and plans that define explicitly the technical problems
the program will (and will not) address, and use these goals and plans
effectively within OST program units to assist them in making technology
development decisions.
Use of a Structured Decision-Making Process
For decisions involving the allocation of significant resources, OST should
institute a decision-making structure wherein projects and/or proposals are
evaluated against consistently defined criteria such as project cost, probability
of technical success, probability of implementation on field applications
potential cost savings, and human health risk reduction.
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APPENDIX F
Industrial RD&D Decision-Making Practices Applicable to OST
.
69
OST should adopt, where applicable and appropriate in the OST environment
and to the extent practicable, basic principles of private-sector formal decision-
making and follow-up practices. In particular, an attempt should be made to
assess the following factors and adopt them consistently where applicable across
the entire organization:
Understand, focus on, and monitor changes in customer needs and
recpiirements.
Agree on clear and measurable goals.
Use a formal (i.e., common, consistent, structured, and rational)
technology development decision-making process and apply it uniformly.
Think strategically (i.e., long-term and high impact).
Measure and evaluate to guide resource allocation.
Communicate across organizational boundaries (i.e., with technology
users).
Continually improve the research and development (R&D) management
process.
Hire the best people possible and maintain expertise.
Specific Methodologies
OST should examine the efficacy of the sets of criteria and scoring techniques
currently used by OST program units (e.g., Site Technology Coordination
Groups, Focus Areas, and Crosscutting Programs). This could be done by (1)
using one or more contractors with suitable expertise to survey alternative
decision-making analytical methods and (2) using the considered judgment of
OST management to identify those analytical methods that are well suited to
OST's various needs.
Project Selection and Evaluation Criteria
To the extent practicable, and with input from its various organizational
elements, OST headquarters should establish general selection and prioritization
criteria, and guidelines for applying these criteria, to include allowance for
instances in which exceptions to the criteria may be appropriate.
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TECHNOLOGIES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AL4NAGEMENT
Procurement of Externally Demonstrated Technologies
A better-coordinated, less duplicative, and less cumbersome system should be
established for integration of technology procurement activities. Since decisions
to develop technologies should be made only if warranted following a "make-
or-buy" review, the ability to assess available technology is crucial. These
assessments should be done through up-to-date surveys of commercially
available technologies that are coordinated across OST organizational units.
Project Monitoring
OST should use the minimum number of stages needed to track projects. This
will reduce the administrative load and will lead to better decisions by
producing better-defined decision points and clearer lines of demarcation
between them.
In selecting a new technology development project for funding, OST should
base this decision on both technical merit and quantifiable estimations of the
project's probable value to site cleanup activities. OST has developed this latter
concept as part of the criteria of the stage-and-gate system, but OST program
units do not uniformly adopt and use these criteria to guide their selection of
new projects for funding.
OST should correct the additive scoring system to account better for threshold
criteria. One way to do this would be to multiply scores in key categories rather
than add them.
Cost Estimates
OST should do "cost avoidance" (or return on investment) calculations on its
more expensive technologies in a more credible manner than was done in past
efforts and should communicate the results to potential technology users in the
most effective way possible. Initial estimates of costs and benefits should be
developed at the inception of large RD&D projects, and periodic refinements of
the estimates should be a part of the project as it progresses.
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APPENDIX F
71
Exploratory Development
Additional funding should be sought (or some existing funding redirected) for
exploratory development directed to technologies for alternative functional
flowsheets.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
alternative functional
