Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
11/7/2014

The Energy Facility Contractors Group is eliminating nine of its 13 working groups and cutting its December semi-annual meeting following a Department of Energy request for the restructuring. The changes come as part of efforts by DOE and EFCOG to bring a greater focus to the group’s efforts and ultimately make the organization more effective, officials said. “By doing this we’ll be a much more valuable asset and have a much stronger relationship and partnership with the Department of Energy going forward,” EFCOG Chair Bob Cochran, who is President of CB&I Federal Services, told WC Monitor this week.   

EFCOG is a volunteer organization made up of industry executives from DOE contractors, and holds regular meetings and workshops with DOE officials. The Department expects to save money as a result of the changes due to less frequent travel to the working group meetings. The changes come after DOE Under Secretary for Management and Performance David Klaus sent an Aug. 13 memo requesting the restructuring. “To maximize the effectiveness of the working groups and promote greater accountability, we have been collaborating with your organization to restructure our partnership with EFCOG and sunsetting several working groups,” the memo states.

EFCOG Will Continue Mission

Despite the elimination of the majority of the working groups, Cochran said EFCOG will continue its mission. “It’s an institution that has been supplying very good independent, insightful review of incredibly difficult challenges facing the Department of Energy,” he said. “I don’t see that changing significantly in the future. I do believe that what we’ve done over the past six months has been focused on attacking the most difficult challenges and putting to conclusion a lot of work that has been very good over a number of years to ensure that we have the resources properly allocated to the challenges that they have coming down at the current time and into the future.”

The working groups that will continue include project management, waste management, safeguards and security, and safety. “These four working groups will use a more structured process to manage their activities, including annual work plans with resource requirements. In addition, as needed, short-term task groups will be established to tackle specific challenges,” Klaus’s memo states. The groups that will be eliminated include business management, contractor assurance, safety analysis, sustainability and infrastructure, D&D/facility engineering, enforcement coordination, engineering practices, ESH, ISM/QA. “In some cases, the activities of the sunsetted working groups will be assumed by one of the four remaining groups,” according to the memo.

EFCOG to Continue Looking at New Initiatives

Though many of the working groups were eliminated, EFCOG will “continue to look at new initiatives,” Cochran said. “If it would require resurrecting a work group or sub work group in order to attack that initiative in concert with DOE we would do that,” he said. “Just like we do everything and have in the past, we would have to collaborate with DOE to make sure that is actually going to meet the letter of what we are trying to accomplish. It has to have a priority and a real serious champion associated with it.”

The ultimate goal for EFCOG is to develop more effective products out of the meetings. The group is now looking to develop a “serious set of plans for the coming fiscal year,” Cochran said. “We have put a more disciplined structure in place to make certain that what we do with each of the contributing entities is going to be productive in a way of a product that can be used throughout the community and through DOE,” he said. “That’s been a positive aspect of all of this.”

The plans will be developed over the next 45 to 60 days and will be in place early next year. “For the last three quarters of the fiscal year we’ll have all of that laid out and it will be a nice marker as to how we are going to operate for the remainder of the fiscal year,” Cochran said. “Our game plan is to have in place at the beginning of each fiscal year these plans so that we can map the year out with the Department of Energy and we can all plan on the necessary resources and look forward to the products that will come out of the initiatives.”

December Meeting Cancelled

EFCOG has also cancelled its December semi-annual meeting with DOE and will instead hold a small workshop in early 2015 with DOE and the remaining working groups. The organization will still hold its June annual meeting. “We based this on the success of we had in the last meeting. … We had breakout sessions at that meeting. As we looked at it, we determined that what we’d do is have a meeting post-December and bring the work groups together and have working breakout sessions. They would be in respect to initiatives and issues and have a very structured dialogue around those to get input and direction and to have an exchange,” Cochran said, adding later: “We felt that was a more beneficial use of the resources and how we look at things going forward. Everybody, we all discussed it and felt that was the way to go.”

When asked about the decision to eliminate the working groups, a DOE spokesperson said in a written response: “DOE has a long history of partnering with its contractors through the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) to improve operations by developing and disseminating solutions to common problems, lessons learned and best practices. Recently, DOE worked collaboratively with EFCOG to focus its efforts on the areas critical to achieving the Department’s strategic priorities, including project management, waste management, safety and safeguards and security. As needed, short-term task groups will be established to tackle specific challenges.”