Staff Reports
NS&D Monitor
12/18/2015
While Consolidated Nuclear Security received a low performance score in its first 15 months on the job – 57 percent out of 100 – the operator of the Y-12 and Pantex plants earned $42.6 million in fees.
CNS President and CEO Jim Haynes said the company wasn’t pleased with the performance ratings but would work to meet the National Nuclear Security Administration’s expectations.
“The score is lower than expected and should be disappointing for every one of us,” Haynes said in a message to employees at the Tennessee and Texas sites, “but it should not be allowed to overshadow our important work supporting the Front Line of Global Security."
CNS is a Bechtel-led contractor team that assumed management of the Y-12 and Pantex nuclear weapons plants on July 1, 2014.
The overall rating for the evaluation period – which included the last three months of fiscal 2014 and the entirety of fiscal 2015 – was “good,” with a performance score of 57 percent out of 100.
Haynes said the initial report card does not include work on the Uranium Processing Facility, the multibillion-dollar project under development at Y-12. He said that project is being evaluated separately. Much of the UPF work is subcontracted to Bechtel National, a parent of Consolidated Nuclear Security.
The NNSA has not yet released the performance evaluation report for the federal contractor at Y-12 and Pantex. Shelley Laver, a spokeswoman at NNSA headquarters in Washington, said the document might not be released until January.
CNS received about $42.6 million in fees because the company’s contract was highly tied to fixed fees in its early stages, and those fees were not impacted by the performance metrics.
About $20 million of the available fee that was based on six performance objectives, and Consolidated Nuclear Security got 57 percent (about $11.4 million), according to DOE fee documents obtained unofficially.
The use of fixed fees is expected to decline significantly as the CNS management contract proceeds, becoming based more on performance.
Along with Bechtel National, the other members of the CNS corporate team are Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK Inc., and SOC LLC. Booz Allen Hamilton also serves as a special subcontractor to the team.
For the contract period ending Sept. 30, the contractor’s six performance objectives were: manage the nuclear weapons mission; reduce global nuclear security threats mission; DOE and strategic partnership project; science, technology and engineering; operations and infrastructure; and leadership.
In his message to employees, Haynes said the contractor’s performance ratings ranged from “very good” to “satisfactory.” He said the contractor’s self-evaluation of its work at Y-12 and Pantex was different than what the NNSA said.
“So we must now step back and thoroughly analyze the message we have received through this assessment,” he said.
“While the score reflects on all of us and our collective performance, I can assure you that I and the rest of the CNS leadership team feel ownership for the rating. We have not accomplished what the NNSA desired and we have much more work to do,” Haynes stated.
