Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
10/10/2014
B&W Conversion Services fell just short of achieving its Fiscal Year 2014 production goals at the Department of Energy’s two depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plants. BWCS reported a total production of 22,596 metric tons, compared to a goal of 22,700 metric tons, according to the DOE Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. BWCS did not respond to requests for comment this week.
The two DUF6 conversion plants, located at DOE’s Portsmouth and Paducah sites, are intended to help disposition more than 700,000 metric tons of material stored in thousands of cylinders at the two sites. BWCS—made up of B&W and URS—took over as the plants’ operating contractor from Uranium Disposition Services in the spring of 2011. In Fiscal Year 2013, the plants processed a total of approximately 13,578 metric tons of material, exceeding a goal of 12,865 metric tons.
BWCS Received ‘Negative Performance Assessment’ Earlier This Year
Notably, midway through FY 2014, DOE issued BWCS with what it described as a “negative performance assessment,” expressing concern over the contractor’s performance in several areas. One such area was poor conduct of operations (CONOPS) performance, which DOE said was especially pronounced at the Paducah plant. “Paducah had approximately 15 issues related to poor CONOPS compared with only three at Piketon [Portsmouth]. The number of issues at Paducah indicates persistent performance issues which have not been emphasized or effectively addressed by BWCS as they pursue individual issues vice a more global, culture improvement approach to solve the underlying problem(s),” said the April 25 assessment, a copy of which WC Monitor obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
DOE also expressed concern over what it described as BWCS’s “inaccurate subcontract work scope,” related to a subcontract for technical evaluation of project waste streams to support determination of the need for authorized limits. “The subcontract work scope deliverable description did not reflect the intended deliverable and the deliverable did not match the stated requirement. In spite of this, BWCS paid the subcontractor as if the deliverable met the stated requirement,” the assessment said. “This lack of attention to subcontract requirements and review of deliverables is evidence of a lack of quality and effectiveness of project management.” The assessment added, “Separately, PPPO expected the subcontracted work could have been done in-house and the repeated need for subcontracting base project work is a concern.”
DOE rapped BWCS for the poor quality of submittals to the Department. “PPPO rejected or corrected 11 BWCS submittals for PPPO action due to inadequate review. … In most cases, BWCS was slow to respond to the rejected letters and did not advise PPPO of the corrective actions to reverse this trend even though the actions on these letters were in November and December 2013,” the assessment said. “The common theme is lack of accurate preparation and informed review by BWCS prior to submittal to PPPO,” the assessment says. “The issues noted are straightforward and indicate a lack of interest by BWCS management in ensuring processes and involvement which produces a quality and defensible product.”
BWCS Has Worked to Resolve Concerns, DOE Says
Since the assessment, BWCS has implemented a variety of corrective actions that have addressed “the specific and general concerns” outlined in the assessment, according to Brad Mitzelfelt, a spokesman for the DOE Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. “BWCS took immediate and longer term corrective actions to address the specific and general concerns cited in the negative performance assessment. The actions included revised processes for review of formal documents, including subcontract statements of work and a revised approach to the review of Conduct of Operations issues with DOE,” Mitzelfelt said in a written response late last week. “The actions and commitments by BWCS address the specific and general concerns of the negative performance assessment. Several actions involve changes over time which will demonstrate whether the changes are effective and move BWCS closer to the performance expected by DOE and BWCS,” he said.
