Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) received $39.2 million, or 87 percent, of its annual award fee for fiscal 2016 from the Department of Energy – a total amount earned for both its Environmental Management (EM) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) missions.
The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor could have earned up to $44.9 million. By comparison, SRNS earned 82 percent of the award fee for fiscal 2015. Contractors earn award fees each year by completing a task on time, or for implicit performance in areas of cost, schedule/timelines, and business relations, according to the Energy Department.
The department noted several “significant achievements” under the SRNS work scope on the contractor’s award fee determination scorecard, including operating all units of H Canyon, the Savannah River Site’s nuclear materials separation facility, for the first time since 2011. For instance: SRNS announced in February that it was resuming a key step at H Canyon that involves uranium processing.
SRNS also received praise for the September start-up of a project to process 6 metric tons of nuclear weapons usable, non-pit plutonium. The diluted plutonium will ultimately be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
DOE noted two significant areas for improvement, including the implementation of contractor assurance systems (CAS) – a system that ensures work is being conducted safely and in compliance with federal requirements. The Energy Department noted areas where CAS has improved, but wrote that “it is still immature and SRNS needs more time to implement” procedures. Specifically, the contractor needs to implement corrective actions in a timelier manner and do a better job of documenting its work
In the second area for improvement, SRNS needs to do a better job of acquiring and managing subcontracts, and needs to better communication with DOE counterparts, according to the scorecard.
