After the several well publicized failures this past year, will LANL get a contract extension from NNSA? Was one of Tom D's final acts to fix this? Anyone know the answer here?
coment:LANS is doing a good job. Just look at their reward fee and compare it to what UC used to make.
21 comments:
Good question. LANS is on narrow ice,the cost of running LANL far exceeds the mission. It's time to began cutting on the "exorbitant" expenditures that are much too expensive. As a country we cannot afford this type of spending any longer. Not counting the "screw-ups" the cost per FTE is approaching 300K per year if not more....wow! The weapons complex have high-jacked many in Congress and some supporters are calling for a 21% increases at some sites. They are trying to put the Lab in charge of it's own over site. The labs have become an empire to themselves. How large and powerful will this complex get before it begans to rule the ruler?
To/MS: LANL-All
From/MS: Charles F. McMillan, DIR, A100
Phone/Fax: 7-5101/7-2997
Symbol: DIR-12-244
Date: December 21, 2012
SUBJECT: NNSA Evaluation of Lab Performance
As a premier national security laboratory, we are held to very
high standards for safety, security and mission performance – and
rightly so.
These expectations are reflected in NNSA’s evaluation of our
performance for Fiscal Year 2012, which we received last week.
While we fell short in some areas, I can report that NNSA gave us
a final score of 80% and – I’m very pleased to say – did award us
an additional contract year.
To be sure, our performance evaluation is only one measure of our
success. I have always maintained that if we do the right thing
for our customers and the nation, the award term and fee will take
care of themselves. They are, however, a documented evaluation of
how the government values our work. This year, we have very plain
evidence of how issues in safety or project execution can
overshadow a very successful year when measured in other ways.
As I did last year, I’d like to take a moment to explain the award
term and fee and what they mean to us.
The Award Term
Under the Prime Contract, if the Laboratory meets certain
performance standards, the government may choose to award an
additional year, called an “award term,” to the LANS contract. It
has done so for five consecutive years now.
The award term this year is significant. In its letter, NNSA cited
LANS’ “full responsibility and accountability” and “aggressive”
actions to correct issues facing the Nuclear Materials Safety and
Security Upgrade Project (NMSSUP), as among the reasons for the
award term decision.
The LANS contract now continues through FY 2018. We continue to
have opportunities to earn award terms that could extend the
contract to 2026.
In my view, the stability and consistency afforded by a long
contract term is extremely important to the success of the Lab. I
am pleased that we have added another year to this stability.
Overall Assessment
We received high marks for accomplishments including:
* our weapons mission successes with NNSA and the nuclear
security enterprise;
* programmatic accomplishment;
* breakthroughs in science;
* the handling of the Voluntary Separation Program;
* completion of seismic upgrades at PF-4; and,
* our shipment of Cold War era transuranic wastes for
permanent disposal.
We received low marks for the NMSSUP issue, the contamination
event at the Lujan Center, certain nuclear formality of
operations issues, and our quality program. This translated into
a reduced award of fee for LANS. We received 80% of the total
available fee.
Out of a possible total of $74.5 million, NNSA awarded LANS a
combined total of $59.6 million in fee for executing more than
$2.2 billion in work for the nation in FY 2012.
It is a fact of life that negative issues often outweigh positive
accomplishments. The Laboratory successfully completed its
missions despite having nearly $400 million less than in 2011.
However, I agree with the principles that underlie our contract
and our partnership with the government. Just as the NNSA rewards
us for excellence in science and mission execution, it must hold
us accountable for failures.
We have a streamlined Performance Evaluation Plan for 2013 and a
clear picture of where we need to improve.
We are not given easy work. We solve the most difficult problems
humans have ever known. Each year, you rise to the challenge. I
deeply appreciate your efforts. With our predecessors, we have
helped keep the world safe for nearly 70 years. Because of your
dedication to excellence, we stand ready to continue for decades
more.
LANL has the new Contractor because it was claimed that University of California was not a good manager! Ant the contract was taken away,after having managed LANL for decades and made LANL what it was. How ironic,that it only took LANS a few years in the drivers seat to turn this Lab into just another "highly profitable" endeavor. Do you think that hiring another Contractor will solve the problem?
Remember where there's meg a bucks to be made meg a bucks will be made, screw the mission!
I see Charlie is taking credit for the lay-off's . Only at LANL could this happen. What a spin Doctor!
Yep, that management contract that the wunderkind Pryzbylek designed is a real doosie.
Lots of very helpful performance incentives to assure outcomes. Yep.
Bluster and show, amounting to nothing. A good example of another government failure.
When you wonder why taxpayers want government to have less money to waste... think D'Agostino, Bodman, Pryzbylek and Chu.
We are not given easy work. We solve the most difficult problems humans have ever known. Each year, you rise to the challenge. I deeply appreciate your efforts.
Charlie McMillan
December 26, 2012 9:12 AM
Oh God, Charlie is really good at making science fiction grandiose statements. He has the view that the world revolves around himself. Only one word back to you Charlie, bullshit!
We are not given easy work. We solve the most difficult problems humans have ever known. Each year, you rise to the challenge. I deeply appreciate your efforts.
Charlie McMillan
December 26, 2012 9:12 AM
Oh God, Charlie is really good at making science fiction grandiose statements. He has the view that the world revolves around himself. Only one word back to you Charlie, bullshit!
December 26, 2012 1:59 PM
Yeah, it's clear that Charlie has been watching too many Star Trek videos. He forgot to say "to go where no man has gone before".
Ohhhhooohhhohhh.....
We received high marks for accomplishments including:
* breakthroughs in science;
Charlie McMillan
Notice how Charlie didn't mention the specific "scientific breakthrough" . Please provide any details. Nobel Prize? Anybody?
Do any of the employee's at LANL buy into the latest memo for the director? I would like to hear from you......
Do any of the employee's at LANL buy into the latest memo from the director? I would like to hear from you......
We received high marks for accomplishments including:
* our shipment of Cold War era transuranic wastes for permanent disposal.
Charlie McMillan
You know the Charlie is really struggling for citing accomplishments when he has to cite our efforts to dispose of our waste. The problem is that the LANL TRU program has been an abysmal failure for 40-years, it's only now that we have begun to do our job on this, ONLY after the Governor reamed us on this following the recent fire. Geeezzz!
Notice how Charlie didn't mention the specific "scientific breakthrough" . Please provide any details. Nobel Prize? Anybody?
December 26, 2012 2:07 PM
The problem is that Charlie has no idea what a "scientific breakthrough" is. It's unfortunate that we have another LLNL Manager (LLNL, the Lab that brought us NIF, Brilliant Pebbles, X-ray Lasers, and the Magnetic Fusion Test Facility (MFTF)) come to LANL to declare "scientific breakthroughs". Charlie has no credibility to be declaring scientific breakthroughs! This guy is so full of BS, his eyes are brown.
80% is pathetic. They should be at 95% before breaking out the champagne. Anything below 90% means the senior management needs to be let go or put in jail. And the scoring system is screwed. Poor performance in certain areas need to nullify positive performance in others. That is the only way incentives can work -when there are significant disincentives to screwing up. NNSA is unfortunately having to play into this whole sham where they also have perverse incentives to declare success even when the labs obviously failed.. Why they are forced to be do supportive of NIF when it has been an embarrassment at every turn, is beyond comprehension. Obviously the system of governance one oversight is completely broken. One lab needs to be shut down, though sadly both should be shut down for gross incompetence and Livermorons style inbreeding and patronage .
Charlie is a man of such few words, and those words lacking any insight that one has to wonder if he had suffered brain damage limiting his capacity to articulate very complex and profound ideas and concepts. You should lay off if your attacks on him. It may be physiological. It's a low blow to go after someone with a disability like Charlie.
Charlie's pathetic memo reads like a script from a scene in 'The Pentagon Wars'.
Interested parties can take time this week between the years and see how it ended.
The annual award goes straight into Riley Bechtel's bank account and into the lab executive's pockets as a bonus. Who on the regular staff cares any more?
wow!, what a remarkable turnaround. Just before the break, all LANL employees were required to attend a mandatory event regarding "risk" to LANL (so poorly planned, that many employees had to stand in line three times (talking to you CARL BEARD--union employees were paid overtime to attend--Mr. cost efficient--the auditorium holds 670--do the math next time). But now, after huge security breaches, cost over-runs, LANL is suddenly back in favor in less than a month? Lujan--Udall--how much in bribes did you get from Rectal/Bechtel?
Notice how McMillan said nothing about Annie "Maestas" Oakley on a U.S. Goverment tank firing 0.5 caliber rounds using a personal cell phone to post on You Tube. This is a disgrace, outrage, and cover-up, plain and simple; and LANS KNOWS IT!
So to summarize. Yes, LANL gets all the chances it needs. Effective nuclear weapons are an instrument of national policy.
Meanwhile, compared to the President and Congress, LANL is a choir of angels.
Work extra hard next year, labbies.
Riley Bechtel has enough loot from this years' lab management contract fee to buy a swell luxury yacht this year but has his heart set on acquiring a big corporate jet for his family travels for next year.
Riley will need every bit of the annual fee profits he can lay his hands on for next year, so keep up the lab efforts and put in some extra hours at work in 2013 to help get him over the top.
This is nice thing to share keep it up
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