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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 65
66 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
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.
68 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.
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.
70 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.
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.
