Decision Making in the U.S. Department of Energy's Environmental Management Office of Science and Technology (1999) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 11-19
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From page 11... ...
Decision making in simplified situations (e.g., bounded by clearly defined goals, limited alternatives, and limited access to applicable information) may not require much formality or structure, in which case informal decisions (such as those made by an individual's subjective judgment)
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From page 12... ...
However, some managerial flexibility is warranted in fielding decisions, particularly in response to late-breaking development opportunities, since the nominal Office of Science and Technology (OST) procedures of assessing technology needs and initiating suitable development projects are managed on an annual time frame to correspond with federal budget provisions.
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From page 13... ...
In addition to the Focus Areas and Crosscutting Programs, OST inaugurated the Industry Program to enhance technology input from private industry; the University Program to establish research and development centers at a few select universities; and the TTSA International Program to involve foreign cleanup expertise, especially that of the former Soviet Union. In 1995, the EMSP was mandated by Congress to ensure that a fundamental knowledge base would be developed and maintained from which technologies could be generated to meet the longer-range DOE site cleanup problems for which there may not now be efficient, effective, economical, and/or acceptable solutions.
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From page 14... ...
Crosscutting Program Industry Programs University Programs Technology Integration Systems Application (TISAJ TISA Domestic Program TISA International Program Other OST Programs and Groups Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) Accelerated Site Technology Deployment (ASTD, formerly Technology Deployment Initiative (TDI)
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From page 15... ...
The ASTD program is an especially noteworthy result of OST's determination to have improved, innovative technologies deployed at the sites. The mission of the ASTD program is to cofund DOE-EM site proposals to use already-demonstrated technologies to expedite site cleanups, in situations where the intended deployment would achieve a significant cost savings.
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From page 16... ...
buy-in. However, OST is now acutely aware of the importance of paying close attention to customer needs and, in 1994, put into place mechanisms for unproved interactions with site personnel regarding site needs.
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From page 17... ...
Finally, the committee drew upon published literature describing the use of decision and risk analysis, probabilistic risk analysis, and cost-benefit analysis to help make similar RD&D decisions in a wide variety of settings. Chapter 4 presents a model process for technology decision making in the federal government environment, addressing important constraints such as the congressional budgeting process and the interactions among OST, other DOE-EM entities, and the contracted site operators.
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From page 18... ...
Development and Growth of Decision Disciplines The evident deficiencies in business, military strategies, government regulation, and legislation-of oversimplified approaches to complex decisions has contributed to the development of the discipline of operations research, which involves modeling the system or the situation in order to recognize a framework for decisions. As part of this development, a scientific and engineering approach to a formal, prescriptive theory of decision making has also been created.
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From page 19... ...
Both disciplines involve realistic modeling and require systematic treatment of the inherent uncertainties in the information and data available. Risk evaluations commonly are among the most heavily weighted factors in many kinds of decisions.
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