The National Nuclear Security Administration said this week it has migrated all up-to-date data on buildings at its eight sites to the BUILDER system, which it called a “cutting-edge infrastructure management tool” backed by the National Academy of Sciences.
In total, more than 225,000 data points covering inventory and condition of NNSA real property buildings and trailers, along with their components, have been consolidated into BUILDER from headquarters and site data systems, agency spokeswoman Francie Israeli said by email Thursday. Without discussing a specific dollar amount, she said “Resources have been spent to provide training and assist sites with the transition of data from multiple systems into BUILDER.”
The BUILDER system, developed by the Pentagon and owned by the federal government, will promote “consistency and transparency” in management of the agency’s infrastructure when completely operational in fiscal 2018 across the NNSA, according to a press release. When completed, the system will also feature data on non-building infrastructure such as utility systems and provide “physical assessments to generate and update inventory and condition data needed to complete a comprehensive representation of all NNSA assets and components,” Israeli said.
Along with its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and its Albuquerque Complex in New Mexico, the NNSA oversees eight nuclear security sites: the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories in New Mexico, the Nevada Nuclear Security Site, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, the Kansas City National Security Complex in Missouri, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The data migration is being carried out by personnel with the agency and its site managers.
“This data migration marks another major step by NNSA to transform our management and operations culture into one that is accountable and efficient at all levels,” NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said in the release. “NNSA is committed to meeting our mission goals while ensuring we are good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
The BUILDER system will also assist the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency in addressing its $3.7 billion backlog of deferred maintenance, Israeli said.
“Once fully implemented, NNSA will use BUILDER to calculate deferred maintenance across the Nuclear Security Enterprise, providing consistency to the methodology,” she stated. “Upon full implementation, BUILDER will provide NNSA with the ability to better predict repairs at the optimal time in each piece of equipment’s lifecycle. This will allow NNSA to better prevent deferred maintenance from occurring in the first place and prioritize investments to quickly reduce deferred maintenance costs when it does occur.”
The BUILDER system is being used increasingly throughout the federal government, the agency said.
