Contractor Earned 63 Percent of Total Available Fee
Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
10/10/2014
Bechtel National achieved a significant boost in fee for its performance at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant in the first half of this year, according to information the Department of Energy released late this week. The contractor earned 63 percent of the fee available for the six-month period that ended June 30, or $3.97 million out of $6.3 million. That stands in contrast to the 48 percent of available fee Bechtel National earned for its work at the WTP in the second half of 2013, which was its lowest fee determination to date. The DOE Office of River Protection declined to comment further on Bechtel National’s latest fee beyond the information released.
In a message to employees, Bechtel National WTP Project Director Peggy McCullough said, “For this period, it is clear that our initiatives to improve the quality of our work are showing positive results. Our scores were up in every area in which we were evaluated.” She went on to state, “DOE recognized that our efforts resulted in an upward, positive trend. The 63 percent award is an improvement from our previous four awards and is due to each of you checking and double-checking your work, raising issues when you have them, and working as a team with our DOE counterparts to address our many challenges.”
67.5 Percent for Project Management
The vast majority of Bechtel National’s available fee for the latest evaluation period–$5.3 million—was tied to project management. Of that, the contractor earned $2.45 million out of an available $3.5 million tied to Bechtel National’s ability to self-identify issues, part of a new management approach put in place by ORP Manager Kevin Smith. DOE praised Bechtel National for making “substantial improvements” in the area of transparency with the Department, as well as for making improvements in the quality of assessments and extent-of-condition reviews, as well as in trending evaluations and incorporating lessons learned. DOE did note in its award fee scorecard, however, that Bechtel National could “improve in timeliness of resolution of issues, project issues evaluation reporting, cut-sheets (specifications, instructions, dimensions, etc.) and corrective action plans.”
Bechtel National’s project management incentive fee also included $770,000 out of an available $1 million tied to environmental, safety and health performance. Bechtel National put a “significant emphasis” on improving its Nuclear Safety and Quality Culture (NSQC) and “safety performance remained in the range of best-in-class for a project of this size and complexity,” DOE’s scorecard states. The Department did note, though, that “some worker sentiment still showed it will take a longer sustained effort to reach desired levels of NSQC excellence.”
For Bechtel National’s quality assurance program, long an area of concern, the contractor earned only 45 percent of the available fee, or $360,000 out of $800,000. DOE praised Bechtel National for developing and submitting plans to address quality assurance program (QAP) and corrective action program (CAP) concerns, as well as for efforts to address technical and quality assurance issues. However, “CAP improvements have not had enough time to demonstrate results,” DOE’s scorecard states.
BNI Only Earned 39 Percent of Available Cost Incentive
Bechtel National’s fee for the first half of 2014 also consisted of $1 million in cost incentive, of which the contractor only earned $390,000 or 39 percent. Among the areas where Bechtel National came in for praise, according to DOE’s scorecard, were efforts to develop the conceptual design for a proposal to directly feed the WTP’s Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility and the identification of process efficiencies for the direct feed-LAW option, the achievement of $8.1 million in cost avoidance in procurement and subcontracts for key portions of the Hanford vit plant and improved schedule tracking and confidence. DOE did note, though, that Bechtel National has had “difficulty acquiring needed staffing throughout the organization,” as well as missed schedules for contract modification proposals and work plans for resolving technical issues at the WTP’s Pretreatment Facility.
