Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
1/10/2014
Savannah River Remediation, LLC, the liquid waste cleanup contractor for the Savannah River Site, earned 95 percent of its total available award fee in Fiscal Year 2013, or about $29.7 million out of $31.4 million, according to information the Department of Energy released this week. “SRR has provided safe, timely, and cost-effective management and execution of the Liquid Waste program at the U.S. Department of Energy Savannah River site in an excellent manner,” states a Dec. 19 letter from DOE to the contractor. “The contractor has exceeded almost all of the significant performance-based incentive criteria and has met overall cost, schedule and technical performance requirements of the contract in the aggregate as defined and measured against the Performance Evaluation Management Plan for the evaluation period.” SRR this week declined to comment on its latest award fee.
SRR received similar high marks from DOE in its FY ‘12 award fee determination, where it earned about $31 million out of $31.8 million in award fee available, or about 97 percent (WC Monitor, Vo. 24 No. 4). Among the achievements DOE noted in its FY ‘13 letter include record operational performance in salt and sludge processing, maintaining “an outstanding safety record among the top in the complex,” coordination with SRS managing contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions on impacts to H-Canyon due to funding shortfalls and “outstanding project management performance overall.”
‘Quality-Driven Program Management’
SRR saw a management change towards the end of the fiscal year when President and Project manager Dave Olson left for another post and was replaced in September by Ken Rueter. DOE commended SRR for a “seamless transition to a new President/Project manager handled with sensitivity especially in light of significant Human Resource impacts due to the [workforce restructuring.]” In September the contractor announced layoffs for 465 employees due to anticipated budget cuts.
DOE did note some opportunities for improvement, though, including issues with a conduct of engineering that “resulted in need for self-evaluation and corrective actions to address weaknesses.” It added that there was a “trend of increasing maintenance backlog in liquid waste facilities which was self-recognized and corrective actions identified in FY14.” However, DOE said, “ Measured in terms of significance, the contractor’s positive performance far outweighed the opportunities for improvement. The contractor’s management clearly and continuously demonstrates quality-driven program management with a focus toward safe and optimized performance.”
