Decision Making in the U.S. Department of Energy's Environmental Management Office of Science and Technology (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-10
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From page 1... ...
The major recommendations developed by the committee conducting this study are summarized and organized below around the four decision process issues raised in the committee's statement of task (see Box ESPY. Since the committee found that OST's decision processes are inextricably linked with DOE-EM organizational structure, institutional procedures, and program management, these related program elements are also discussed in this report as necessary.
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From page 2... ...
, the parent committee of the decisionmaking panel, became inactive August 1997, after which time the Board on Radioactive Waste Management provided coordination and oversight of the study panels examining separate facets of the OST program. At that time the decision-making panel was renamed the Committee on Prioritization and Decision Making in the Department of Energy Office of Science and Technology.
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From page 3... ...
Recommendation: To aid program planning in this institutional environment, a decision methodology should be employed that is structured using quantifiable attributes wherever 2The functional flowsheet for site remediation plans is the planned sequence of process steps that comprise the waste treatment process from the initial waste configuration to the final waste end state.
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OST should institute a decision-makin~ structure wherein ~rniects and/or nrono~nl.~ ~ C7 ~ - t -- J -- ~ r -- r~ are evaluated against consistently Retuned cr~tena such as project cost, probability of technical success, probability of implementation in field applications, potential cost savings, and human health risk reduction. This structure should be applied broadly throughout the organization, with each OST program unit evaluating projects against the same criteria, which should be quantifiable where possible.
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From page 5... ...
The independent review teams, if appropriately constituted, provide this initial peer review, but not all OST program units use such review groups. Before a technology need statement is translated into a solicitation for new technology development projects, the decision process should include a "buy-versus-make" procurement decision of whether the need can be met adequately with technologies already developed and available from the private sector.
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From page 6... ...
Recommendation: The aforementioned gate review of an ongoing project that is ready to progress into a different stage of development should include not just a technical peer review, but also an assessment of the maturity and likelihood of future success of that technology projects More mature projects have a shorter time to completion and therefore to potential deployment than concepts requiring more research and consequently more time. However, an unbalanced RD&D program having only relatively mature projects would fad!
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From page 7... ...
One nontechnical issue is that some remediation approaches are constrained by existing regulatory agreements and cannot be changed without renegotiation. The earlier recommendation for OST to participate in a review of the site remediation functional flowsheets will provide OST with information germane to both the technical and the nontechnical issues identified here.
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the point at which OST program unit managers establish their statements of technology needs. Recommendation on 9~: OST should have an in~lependent, external body review the bases for the annual decisions, made at the OST upper management level, that establish budget targets for OST program units.
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From page 9... ...
In 1997, OST received many more site proposals under these terms than could be funded, as an indication that DOE-EM sites can be given sufficient financial incentive to introduce fully demonstrated technology into their plans to expedite cleanups and accomplish remediation goals. However, the deployment of OST-developed technologies is not in general subject to these same site incentives, particularly if an OST-developed technology lacks full approval and wide acceptance as a proven technique, or if it cannot be integrated into the site baseline approach.
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From page 10... ...
in baseline remediation functional flowsheets. Deployment will continue to be a challenging battier if the different DOE-EM program offices have different goals and incentives related to technology development.
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