Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
7/18/2014
Reforms that have helped cut costs and streamline operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Kansas City Plant may not be widely applicable elsewhere across the weapons complex, according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week that summarizes previous studies of the Kansas City Plant model. The model, which relies on adopting industry standards, refocused federal oversight toward contractor performance, and clear goals and incentives, has been lauded for its effectiveness at the non-nuclear parts production plant, but previous efforts to implement the model elsewhere across the complex have floundered, most recently because of the July 2012 security breach at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
The security breach was partially blamed on an overreliance on contractor assurance systems, and plans to implement elements of the Kansas City Plant model have been put on hold, and may not be ultimately feasible, according to the GAO study. The NNSA is currently studying the feasibility of implementing the Kansas City Plant model across the complex in response to language in the Fiscal Year 2014 Defense Authorization Act. “Although some opportunities may exist for implementing KCP-like reforms at other NNSA sites, since the Y-12 security breach, NNSA officials and studies we reviewed noted that key factors enabling implementation of the reforms at KCP may not be present across the nuclear security enterprise,” the GAO said.
Those factors included high-level support from NNSA headquarters, site conditions like having a single parent company running the site like at Kansas City and a non-nuclear mission, and a trusting relationship between contractors and their federal overseers.
Multiple Corporate Partners an Impediment to KC-like Reforms
The GAO noted that a 2008 study commissioned by the Kansas City Plant concluded that having a single parent company like Honeywell running the site was key to the success of implementing the model. Only at one other site across the complex—Lockheed Martin-run Sandia National Laboratories—does a single company run a specific site. The GAO said the study noted that “having multiple corporate partners could limit successful implementation of KCP-like reforms at other NNSA sites. Specifically, the study notes that a single corporate parent can more easily use existing corporate systems to oversee and manage its subsidiary M&O entity, whereas this model may not work with an M&O having multiple member organizations.”
Nuclear operations at other sites could also stymie attempts to implement the reforms, the GAO said, citing a 2008 review by DOE’s Office of Health, Safety and Security. “The March 2008 review by the department’s HSS noted that KCP is a unique operation within NNSA and that careful analysis would need to be done if consideration will be given to applying the reforms to other sites, particularly where hazards are more complex or where the contractor’s ability to self-identify and correct program weaknesses is not mature,” the GAO said.
GAO: Without Trust, Reforms Unlikely
Further complicating reform efforts, the GAO said, is the deteriorated relationship between the NNSA and many of its contractors. A 2012 study by the National Academies of Science found a “persistent level of mistrust” between the NNSA and its nuclear weapons laboratories, while the recently released interim report of the Congressional advisory panel on governance of the nuclear enterprise called the relationship between the NNSA and its contractors “dysfunctional.”
