Sunday, July 31, 2005
What attributes does a top-level manager at LANL need
I think this comment from the "Productivity" post deserves top billing. The topic being discusses was what attributes does a top-level manager at LANL need to posses in order to be effective. Could you please elevate it?
Thanks,
Anon.
_______________________________________________________________________
A good upper manager at LANL needs to have the ability and courage to push back against unacceptable requirements which the contractor and DOE attempt to mandate. UC in particular has been completely and totally spineless when it comes to saying "No!" to DOE upon receipt of yet another stupid bureaucratic requirement from them.
To give a counter-example of this attribute: Cobb.
Just because DOE is the customer most certainly does not make them always right. It is the poorest customer that usually needs the most guidance, and DOE is certainly the poorest customer that I have ever had to deal with.
Elevate a couple of buried posts
I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on the possibility of having highly qualified MBA's in management instead of PhDs. For instance, what about technically competent people (BS or MS level engineers with extensive R&D experience) with an MBA from Harvard as an associate director or division leader? Assuming the person was an effective high-level manager (in industry that does mean "hands-off"), would they be respected by LANL technical staff?"
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Productivity
_____________________________________
One of the keys to DOE’s behavior are the assumptions built into the system. DOE assumes that the Laboratory management and workforce will provide productivity as a matter of course. The Lab’s workforce has historically been productivity focused, and DOE has had to provide all the other requirements: safety, security and compliance to keep the Lab’s from making too many politically costly mistakes.
Here is the catch: the Lab management and much of its workforce no longer provides productivity. We have a lot of people at the Lab who have bought into the bureaucratic way of life both at a management and working level. DOE should no longer assume that productivity would just take care of itself. This is been going on for a long time, but Nanos accelerated the process both through his hiring and the various policies that he initiated.
This is why there needs to be a systematic rollback of Nanos’ decisions, almost everything he did hurt productivity (there are exceptions!). Almost everyone he hired for a management job is not committed to productivity, but rather bureaucracy that provide the illusion of safety, security and compliance for DOE’s consumption. The net result is a Lab that produces nothing but safety, security and compliance and the destruction of the balance of “responsibility” that implicitly assumed that productivity was something the Lab would take care of. Instead of management that values productive work including science, we now have management that rolls over and plays dead.
I look up the management chain and for the most part, I feel nothing but distain and certainly little or no respect. There are exceptions, but not many. It’s time to clean house.
Sandia worker accused of using lab credit to buy electronics
WASHINGTON (AP) - A former employee of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque is suspected of using a government purchasing account to buy computers, iPods and even a robotic dog and possibly selling them on eBay, according to a federal search warrant.
Federal investigators asked for the warrant to search the Albuquerque home and storage shed of Peter Micono, who had worked for Sandia for 20 years before he was terminated in 2004 for failing to return to his job after medical leave.
[...]
Full Story
LANL Tests More Sites for Radiation
Journal Staff Writer
Federal and laboratory radiological specialists are checking two locations out of state as a precaution to see if a Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher contaminated by radioactive americium-241 may have spread the contamination beyond his house and car.
While he would not say where the team was dispatched, lab spokesman Jim Fallin said the contaminated researcher visited his wife and mother and may have spread the contamination to those locations.
"We know we are dealing with an issue related to contamination, and we are going to exercise extreme caution and take the conservative route," he said. "We want to go with the most conservative approaches here and make absolutely certain we are doing what we can to protect the general public."
LANL officials have said this week that due to the small levels of americium detected off lab property, the contamination poses no credible risk to the general public.
A radiological team also surveyed three other homes in Los Alamos County in addition to the researcher's home, where some contamination was discovered and removed earlier this week.
[...]
Full Story
Friday, July 29, 2005
Santa Fe Police Wrap Up Whistleblower Beating Probe
Associated Press
SANTA FE — Santa Fe police have wrapped up their investigation into the beating of Los Alamos National Laboratory whistleblower Tommy Hook and were preparing Friday to turn the results over to the district attorney.
"It will be up to them to decide whether any charges would be filed against individuals involved in this whole incident, including Mr. Hook,'' Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson said.
Johnson had announced seven weeks ago that Hook's beating outside a topless bar was not related to his status as a whistleblower at the nuclear weapons lab.
"There's nothing new'' to contradict that, Johnson said Friday.
Police said the altercation was an "isolated incident'' that began when Hook struck a pedestrian in the club's parking lot.
Authorities have not released the names of the other men involved.
[...]
Full Story
Am-241 Incident
I have been following the Am-241 contamination incident in the news and on the LANL:The Real Story blog for the past two days. From what I read, I assumed that the person was contaminated by handling Am-241 metal. The deployment of the DOE Radiological Assistance Program team to survey the persons car and home made me believe that this was a very serious incident. Reading that the person plus five more people, who worked in the same area, were put on a bioassay program further increased my concern. Reading that people were sent home while experts cleaned the workspace and the person's car and residence did nothing to reduce my concern.
Today, a responder to the blog said that the material the person handled were encapsulated uranium nitride pellets externally contaminated with Am-241. Adam Rankin of the Albuquerque Journal said:
"We were not told how the individual was contaminated or in what form the americium was in. I only happen to know the shipment contained uranium nitride pellets because I got a copy of Wallace's e-mail, which did not make it clear that the pellets were externally contaminated, if that is indeed the case. We were told such questions were under investigation.
Remember, that being a reporter is like being blindfolded in a dark room and having a few hours to describe its contents and their purpose (my emphasis).
That said, I am always open to information that will improve my stories and their accuracy. Please, don't hesitate to contact me or get me the information."
But this is not the end of the story. What remains unanswered is:
What was contaminated? Were the vials or the pellets inside contaminated?
How did the material get contaminated? Were people at the source of the delivery, the delivery person, or the person(s) who received the material contaminated?
How big a deal is this? What is the risk of getting cancer to those contaminated?
Larry Creamer, LANL Retired
78 Granada Dr.
Los Alamos, NM 87544
(505)672-9433
lcreamer@mindspring.com
Contaminated Lab Worker Back Home
A Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher who was contaminated by a dose of radioactive americium— and in turn contaminated his car and parts of his house— was allowed to return home Wednesday evening.
A team of federal nuclear incident responders finished decontaminating the researcher's home late Wednesday afternoon, according to LANL spokeswoman Kathy DeLucas.
The researcher was contaminated by a sample of americium-241 received July 14 in a package shipped from a neighboring plutonium research facility at the lab. The contamination was discovered 11 days later by a radioactivity control technician on Monday.
[...]
Full Story
DOE priorities -- Safety, Security, Compliance
July 27, 2005
DOE priorities -- Safety, Security, Compliance
The letter indicating unhappiness at losing the Laboratory's goal of productivity (Bernard Foy -- 7/22/05) indicates that the Lab unilaterally decided to prioritize safety, security and compliance while ignoring productivity. It wasn't the Lab that made the decision. Those of us who attended the Department of Energy panel discussions at the 2003 (or so) Waste Management Symposium heard that safety, security and compliance are the top three performance measures for all DOE labs. That's it, plain and simple.
The number one priority for evaluating a contractor's performance is safety. Number two is security. Number three is compliance. I was there and I heard an audience member ask Ines Triay of DOE where in the scheme of things did productivity occur. "It is not a priority," was the answer. So, until that edict changes, the Lab's mission does not include productivity unless we want to provide something that our mother agency does not value.
--David Yeamans
DOE Investigates Ex-Sandia Lab Worker
Journal Staff Writer
A trio of iPods, laptop computers for the kids, a robotic dog to show off to family and computer equipment to sell on eBay were all paid for with tax dollars. Now, they have landed a former Sandia National Laboratories technician in hot water.
Federal agents recently served a search warrant at Peter Micono's Northeast Heights home looking for the items that the employee is accused of purchasing with a Sandia account.
Micono has not been charged with a crime.
When some of the purchases were made, Micono was on an eight-month leave of absence due to medical reasons, the search warrant states.
Micono was terminated in October when he didn't return to work, according to the warrant.
The investigation, which was conducted by the Department of Energy, has been submitted to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
[...]
Full Story
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Decontamination operation conducted at local home
CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer
Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Nuclear Security Administration and Los Alamos County conducted a decontamination operation at the home of a lab employee in White Rock on Wednesday.
[...]
Full Story
Given the quality of some of the posts and comments here,
Thursday, July 28, 2005; Posted: 6:01 p.m. EDT (22:01 GMT)
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- A man who compared a woman's anatomy to a carburetor won an annual contest that celebrates the worst writing in the English language.
Dan McKay, a computer analyst at Microsoft Great Plains in Fargo, North Dakota, bested thousands of entrants from North Pole, Alaska to Manchester, England to triumph Wednesday in San Jose State University's annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire," he wrote, comparing a woman's breasts to "small knurled caps of the oil dampeners."
[...]
"We want writers with a little talent, but no taste," San Jose State English Professor Scott Rice said. "And Dan's entry was just ludicrous."
[...]
--Doug
Report deals with LANL's impact on health
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DARRYL NEWMAN, Monitor Staff Writer
SANTA FE - A federal agency has issued through a report that no harmful exposures to chemical or radioactive contaminants from Los Alamos National Laboratory are occurring, nor are the current conditions expected to cause illness in the future.
[...]
Full Story
Similarities between LANL and NASA
I find myself feeling irate that we have 7 astronauts in space who are facing the same kind of reentry that killed their predecessors in the last shuttle flight. Yes, I am aware that NASA now says the lost foam from the liftoff didn't damage the orbiter, but NASA has grounded all future shuttle flights, which suggests it doesn't have much faith in the safety of the shuttles. The part I find so appalling is the fact that the shuttle Discovery was found unfit to fly on June 28 and NASA sent it off anyhow. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072800035.html
Sandia worker accused of fraud
By Maggie Shepard
Tribune Reporter
July 28, 2005
A 20-year employee of Sandia National Laboratories is under investigation, suspected of using a lab credit account to buy dozens of computers and electrical items - including a robotic dog - for his own use. Peter Micono's house and shed in the 4000 block of San Andreas Avenue Northeast were the subject of a federal search warrant as authorities looked for laptops, monitors, iPods and other items they say Micono bought while working at the labs, according to the warrant. [...]
Journalism’s Backseat Drivers
The ascendant blogosphere has rattled the news media with its tough critiques and nonstop scrutiny of their reporting. But the relationship between the two is more complex than it might seem. In fact, if they stay out of the defensive crouch, the battered mainstream media may profit from the often vexing encounters.
"We see you behind the curtain..and we're not impressed by either your bluster or your insults. You aren't higher beings, and everybody out here has the right--and ability--to fact-check your asses, and call you on it when you screw up and/or say something stupid. You, and Eason Jordan, and Dan Rather, and anybody else in print or on television don't get free passes because you call yourself 'journalists.'"
– Vodkapundit blogger Will Collier responding to CJR Daily Managing Editor Steve Lovelady's characterization of bloggers as "salivating morons"
"Please join us in this conversation. It's where the future is."
– Greensboro News & Record Editor John Robinson, announcing a new "open source journalism" initiative at the paper
[...]
[Brief mention of the LANL blog in this story]
LANL Worker's Home Decontaminated
Journal Staff Writer
A federal team of nuclear incident first responders was busy surveying and decontaminating a Los Alamos National Laboratory employee's home Tuesday and checking to see that the contaminated worker didn't spread radioactivity elsewhere, according to lab officials.
"The contamination is very low level, but is serious," wrote Terry Wallace, LANL's associate director for strategic research in a Wednesday e-mail to employees.
"The health and safety of the employees is the absolute first priority, and the present analysis is that only one employee is affected," he wrote.
The uranium researcher at LANL's Sigma complex was contaminated by a sample of radioactive americium. It was part of a July 14 shipment from a neighboring plutonium research facility at the lab, though the Sigma facility is only equipped to handle uranium. The contamination was discovered Monday.
[...]
Full Story
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Los Alamos Worker Exposed To Radiological Contamination
Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS — A decontamination team is cleaning the home of a Los Alamos National Laboratory worker who was exposed to a radiological contaminant while working at the northern New Mexico lab.
An investigation confirmed that contamination was present in the employee's workspace and on his clothing, the lab said in a statement issued Wednesday. A survey by the decontamination team also detected trace amounts of americium 241 in the worker's car and trace amounts inside his home.
[...]
Full Story
Should LANL adopt Google's motto and try to live by it?
I would prefer to post this anonymously lest I be accused of being a pie-in-the-sky idiot. Nevertheless, I think it is a good idea.
OFFICIALS INVESTIGATE CONTAMINATION EVENT
A DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY/UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LABORATORY
Communications and External Relations Division
A decontamination team made up of experts from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Nuclear Security Administration and Los Alamos County are conducting a decontamination operation at the home of a Laboratory employee today. This action is being taken after an investigation confirmed that contamination was present in the employee's workspace and that the employee had received radiological contamination to his skin and his personal clothing while working at the Laboratory.
Upon discovery of the contamination incident by a Laboratory employee on Monday, health physics and nuclear response experts were sent to the employee's house as part of the Department of Energy's Radiological Assistance Program (RAP) team to survey the employee's car and residence. The survey detected trace amounts of americium 241 in the car and in several locations inside the employee's home.
Americium 241 is a man-made metal produced when plutonium atoms absorb neutrons in a nuclear reaction. The largest and most widespread use of americium-241 is as a component in household and industrial smoke detectors, where a small amount is used in an ionization chamber inside the detector.
Experts involved in the investigation have estimated that the amount carried off site is a fraction of the radioactivity contained in a typical residential smoke detector.
Officials are also examining any possibility that the contamination was more widely spread to other locations. However, the extremely low levels of radioactive material found at the employee's home do not pose a credible risk to the general public.
An investigation is underway to determine the origin of the contamination and whether established safety procedures and protocols were followed.
"Our first concern is to ensure that every employee is safe and that the general public is protected," said Laboratory Director Robert Kuckuck. "We believe that this has been accomplished."
"It is important that we establish the causes of this event and whether our institutional procedures were adequate and followed so that we can learn from this incident and take appropriate measures to prevent this from happening in the future," Kuckuck added.
The researcher has been placed on a special bioassay-sampling regimen. These are tests that reliably measure the amount of americium in a urine sample, even at very low levels. Using these measurements, scientists can estimate the total amount of americium 241 present in the body. Tests are also being conducted to determine if any americium is present in the researcher's lungs.
Five coworkers who work in the same workspace have also been placed on similar bioassay sampling regimens.
Workers in the facility where the contamination occurred were sent home Tuesday afternoon so experts could complete radiological surveys and clean up any residual contaminants in the building. Subsequent testing has confirmed that no other employees in the facility have been contaminated.
RAP is NNSA's first-responding resource in assessing such situations and advising decision-makers on what further steps could be taken to evaluate and minimize the hazards off site. Specific areas of expertise include assessment, area monitoring, and air sampling, exposure and contamination control.
RAP is capable of providing assistance in all types of radiological incidents. Requests for assistance may relate to facility or transportation accidents involving radiation or radioactive material. RAP's support ranges from giving technical information or advice over the telephone to sending highly trained people and state-of-the-art equipment to the accident site to help identify and minimize any radiological hazards.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the U.S. Department of Energy and works in partnership with NNSA's Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories to support NNSA in its mission.
Los Alamos enhances global security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health and national security concerns.
-30-
For more Los Alamos news releases, visit World Wide Web site http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php?fuseaction=nr.subject
Why we are not as productive as we could be
Hi Doug
Could you post this anonymously ?
Could you post this page 6 from IMP 352.0, Implementation Procedure on the blog. It is a pdf file
and I don't know how to do this. I would put it as a response to the productivity issue.
I think it is a nice illustration, why we are not as productive as we could be. I really wonder, what a level 8 milestone would mean. And also once you take an average inflation of 4 lower milestone/per one upper we will get 84=4096 milestones a year.
Assuming 240 days in a working year, will give us 17 milestones a day. Further assuming
it takes 20 minutes to write a report fo every milestone, we will be roughly using 6 hours a day
working on these milestones. I wonder if this is the "Foley" business model?
Americium241 Contamination Closes Sigma Complex until at Least Thursday
Please post this anonymously....
Advisory board criticizes Laboratory productivity
July 22, 2005
Advisory board criticizes Laboratory productivity
Once again, a panel of outside experts has assessed the Laboratory and the other national labs and provided some interesting insights -- that will probably be forgotten. While I don't agree with everything in the report of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, I think we should pay attention to two excerpts about plutonium work here. (The full report is publicly available at www.seab.energy.gov/publications/NWCITFRept-7-11-05.pdf online.)
On page 91 of the pdf:
"[Technical Area] 55 is a remarkable facility. The attention to detail at every level of manufacture is to be commended. It is obvious that processes have been laboriously developed to provide a quality product safely. However, the manufacturing priorities appear to be: (1) Safety, (2) Security, (3) Quality. The one missing element is: Productivity. The enormous investment made in the TA-55 facility has not yielded anywhere near the productivity levels this facility should be capable of attaining."
And the panel's recommendation, on page 54:
"NNSA should focus TA-55 on pit production until CNPC is fully operational, by making the following changes: remove Pu 238 to another location; relocate pit surveillance to LLNL SuperBlock, relocate plutonium R&D to SuperBlock or CMR, relocate gas gun efforts to Jasper."
Had the panel analyzed other large Lab facilities, it would have discovered the same inattention to productivity, so this issue goes beyond plutonium work. The message is clear: be a productive facility, or your funding will be eliminated.
It is long past time to abandon the hierarchical view of safety and security at Los Alamos. The hierarchical view holds that safety and security are the top goals, or priorities, or objectives, or whatever you may call them. With the changing of the guard at the Lab, it is time to adopt a new view (once in place, but now forgotten) that the top goal of the Lab is productivity, and that safety and security are integral to how we accomplish the mission. Otherwise, many more facilities will find their best and most interesting scientific work transferred to our friends at Livermore or elsewhere in the complex, as this panel recommends for TA-55.
--Bernard Foy
More on procurement costs
July 25, 2005
More on procurement costs
I'm glad to hear that Albert Jiron is in favor of reducing procurement costs and delays. I think that we all are.
However, Supply Chain Management (SUP) has no record of reducing costs. For a number of years the Department of Energy has required all contractors to report costs by "Functional Categories." Procurement costs are contained within "General Support" costs. These reports can be found at http://www.mbe.doe.gov/progliaison/scfa.htm online. Since fiscal year 2000, the cost of running the Lab's procurement system has increased by $9.5 million (84 percent) from $11.3 million to $20.8 million. By contrast, the costs of running the procurement systems at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - systems operating under similar conditions - have increased by 22.9, 21.7 and 49.6 percent, respectively.
I don't think that this increase occurred on Albert's watch. Hopefully, under Albert's direction these costs will be reduced. Assuming that DOE continues to publish these reports, we'll see what the fiscal year 2006 numbers look like.
As an aside, what are "institutionally imposed requirements?" They sound like self-imposed requirements.
--Bruce McReynolds
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
CU bids for Los Alamos
University joins consortium seeking to operate facility
By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
July 26, 2005
CU is one of 22 research universities so far that have joined in a consortium with defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the University of Texas in a bid submitted this week to the Department of Energy.
[...]
Monday, July 25, 2005
Bid for lab includes fewer partners
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 25, 2005
In submitting its bid Tuesday to manage the lab, a team headed by defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the University of Texas touted a national network of universities and institutions that would work with Los Alamos lab.
[...]
Blog Hit History
Recent posts have requested information on the hit rate trend for this blog. The graph at the left shows the complete history of hits. The tallest peak which occured around April 30 corresponds to the first NYT article, followed shortly after by another spike caused by the NYT article being linked on the Drudge Report for two days. I believe the next big peak around May 18 corresponds to a flurry of stories about Nanos' resignation. The next big peak around June 8 was caused by the Tommy Hook business.
--Doug
The Sisterhood: Sandia from Z Division to Z Machine
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
This is the first of an occasional series of articles on Los Alamos National Laboratory's sister labs in the nuclear weapons complex.
ALBUQUERQUE - A visitor from Los Alamos looking for comparisons between Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory might not be entirely surprised by what has become of the Manhattan Project's old Z Division, now SNL, six decades later.
Sandia's Albuquerque facility is located inside Kirtland Air Force Base on the southeastern edge of the city on a dusty 12-square-mile expanse of desert with plenty of room to expand, unlike Los Alamos' 43-square miles cramped on strips of mesa tops and straddling deep ravines.
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Hulks of new buildings are sprouting up in bunches these days in both locations, although those at Sandia tend to be lower to the ground.
[...]
Same Old, Same Old
Same Old, Same Old, as the story goes. The DOE has said their intention is to make changes at LANL and across the complex, however, the procurement process will continue to keep small businesses on the outside, unless you are selling pens and pencils. Both competitors will have little or no incentive for change after award of the contract. Lockheed Martin made what was viewed as a good effort to include the participation of small business, however, at the end of the day they have failed and the DOE has failed all small businesses again. The Lockheed Martin approach resulted an outcome that included only a letter of thanks. The RFQ, however, was costly for each small business that applied. A lot of time and money to respond to what was advertised by Lockheed as an good opportunity. Everyone know that it is small businesses that are risk takers and who will make the changes necessary to move the country forward in growth and innovation. Not dinosaurs like Bechtel and Lockheed and certainly not the U of C or U of T. DOE, another missed failed opportunity.
Inability of UC to admit that it has made mistakes
http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com/2005/07/bid-to-run-lanl-formidable-duel.html
post:
___________________________________
As the months drift by, I'm sometimes jerked awake, as though within a nightmare, by the possibility that UC might actually win (re-win) the contract. Having started as a fully gung-ho UC sucker, Nanos's ongoing, relentless work of turning over his own shared-with-UC rock finally showed me that no-way, no-how, should that corrupt organization be given the contract again, but still--the ever-startling epiphany keeps coming back: no, it really _could_ happen.
The worst of it wasn't Nanos, or The Emperor (Foley), it's the remarkable, ongoing, abundantly demonstrated inability of UC to admit that it has made mistakes, specifically with the shutdown and with the capricious, untimely, irrational, counterproductive, and purely vengeful withdrawal of 26 days of freedom every year from its workers ("our people are our greatest asset") here. Recently, waves of awards connected with the "restart" gave the impression that management was buying (cooping) personnel as co conspirators in the shutdown (by having them accept cash gifts for their "efforts" with the restart), and UC's amazing ongoing refusal to reinstate 9/80 points to the same, horrible disease within: these guys just can't admit when they've made a mistake.
_That_ is the reason UC must not win the contract again. Otherwise, it'll just be more of the same old cover-up-ridden Reign of the Self-Congratulatory.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
I'm Convinced
--Doug
----------------------------------------------
I'm a manager (GL) and I read this blog faithfully; and post here too -- anonymously. Believe it or not, retaliation is alive and well within the management community.
I find the blog useful in several ways: current news not available via official means, a sense of the "pulse" in the Lab, and as a means for venting in the face of senseless edicts.
I believe UC reads the blog but just gets defensive and blames the employees. If LM/UT isn't reading this blog and developing plans to win back the employees, they are missing a tremendous opportunity.
I support keeping the blog anonymous. Enlightened managers can gain a perspective not available through official channels (UC's filters). Employees have a way to blow off steam and/or offer constructive comments to improve LANL operations.
The fact that the blog is so public is unfortunate; and an indictment on UC. If UC woke up one morning and decided the employees weren't the source of all their problems, they might create an internal forum for healthy debate. If that were to happen, the blog might not be necessary. Until then, this is our only venue.
My vote, Doug, is to keep the blog alive and anonymous. There's lots of water yet to run under our bridge and retaliation is alive and well in Los Alamos (the Lab and the town).
Free Advice
The Manhattan Project's 'secret town'
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Kay Froman Johnson still remembers the steep, rough road she traveled up to the secret town where her physicist-father moved his Chicago family in 1943. Once she arrived, the 11-year-old was enrolled in a school so unstructured that when she and another fifth-grader decided to promote themselves to the sixth grade, no one even noticed.
I thought it was a big adventure," says Johnson, 73. ''And everybody was new. Everybody didn't know what was going on here. And none of the daddies said anything."
[...]
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Bid to Run LANL a Formidable Duel
Los Angeles Times
The competition for the newly lucrative contract to run Los Alamos National Laboratory is now a head-to-head battle between two formidable teams: on one side, the University of California and engineering powerhouse Bechtel; on the other, the University of Texas and Lockheed Martin, the nation's largest defense contractor.
At stake is not only the day-to-day operation of Los Alamos, the vast nuclear weapons design center that stretches across 40 miles of New Mexico high desert. The contract winner also will claim a key role— potentially for the next two decades— in advising policy-makers on the safety and reliability of the nation's aging nuclear stockpile and whether new bombs are needed.
[...]
Full Story
LANL's academic network compared
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
A Los Alamos National Laboratory official said the lab's current network of academic alliances is already three times the number the University of Texas System has included in its proposal with Lockheed Martin for managing Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"We'd have to cut way back to get down to 33 agreements and partnerships with universities in this country; and we'd have to get rid of a fair amount of classified research and developmental projects as well," said Terry Lowe, acting program manager of LANL's Science and Technology Base Programs (STB) Office.
[...]
Friday, July 22, 2005
Use this post to complain about the blog
People started to complain about my having openly considered disabling anonymous posting. Feel free to complain about that here.
--Doug
"Surprise" meeting
As it turned out Paul did not take advantage of my offer, but for a very interesting reason as was explained to me in a recent email that I received from him. In that email. Paul explained that Lockheed Martin actually has an official corporate policy in place that addresses the use of blogs. I will include the paragraphs from his email which explain that policy:
As you can see, Lockheed Martin's official policy regarding freedom of speech issues is very much like LANL's own policy. LM's policy regarding the use of blogs, however, extends beyond the above description regarding an individual employee's use of blogs, as the following excerpt from his email explains:
I learned that there is indeed a written policy within Lockheed Martin with
respect to Blogs. It is entitled Release of Information (Personal
Statements.) It begins with a 'freedom of speech' statement that "any
employee may express individual beliefs or convictions with respect to
legislation, government action, public officials, candidates, and other
public interest issues, but that employees must clearly state, however,
that such expressions represent a personal view". These expressions must not
convey, indicate, or imply that such an opinion is or is not the view of
Lockheed Martin management, or that the employee is acting as a spokesperson
for or on behalf of Lockheed Martin or its entities.
The policy points out that this policy "applies in all cases, including but
not limited to interviews with news media, and personal websites, blogs (web
logs), Internet chat rooms, and bulletin boards whether accessed using
personal computing and information resources, or Lockheed Martin's computing
and information resources."
[...]Lockheed Martin's policy on Blogs is specifically supportive of such a genre as Blogs,This policy, Paul told me, was why he had not used the LANL blog to provide factual information about LM's benefits program. However, he went on later in the email to offer me his own personal views regarding the utility of blogs in the corporate work environment, and he gave me permission pass those personal views on to whomever might find them interesting. Here, extracted and paraphrased from the email is what Paul told me were his own
as an important tool for communication of individual views, but it forbids the
Corporation from 'usurping' the Blog for its own, corporate purposes.
personal opinions regarding blogs:
- He said that that he was supportive of blogs, and that he did not believe that Lockheed Martin would try to abolish them if they became the M&O for Los Alamos.
- He said that he was pleased that Lockheed Martin does recognize the important function which a blog can fulfill as a vital communication tool for individuals, but not the corporation to have their opinions heard.
- That, in his opinion, the value of reading a blog is obvious, as it provides a source of information on how a corporation is succeeding, or not, and as such was a valuable source of real-time feedback to management.
--Doug
More on LANL Procurement System
1.
Purchasing process
Albert Jiron completely missed, or ignored, the point that Steve Ashworth made in his recent letter to the Reader's Forum.
Jiron's July 7 letter says:
Over the last several months, statistics show that almost 90 percent of all purchase requests (PRs) are incomplete when received by SUP procurement. A review of the data and direct discussions with requesters shows that a large number of requesters are not aware of institutionally imposed requirements that must accompany a purchase request.
When 90 percent of purchase requests submitted by thousands of intelligent, competent people are incomplete, it says that there is something profoundly wrong with the purchasing process. Perhaps some form of training will help, but I suspect that dedicating FTE's to this is not the answer.
I suggest that if the procurement process, instructions, forms, etc. were clear and concise, these same "requesters" should be able to get it right at least 90 percent of the time. Rather than devote time and resources to training people to use a complicated and convoluted system with partially hidden requirements and poorly communicated rules, SUP should be devoting those resources to attacking the process.
--Bruce McReynolds
2.
Response to purchasing process
In a July 20 letter to the Reader’s Forum, Bruce McReynolds highlights exactly the type of issues we are investigating and fixing as we endeavor to improve procurement. As I stated in my previous letter, “Supply Chain Management (SUP) Division readily acknowledges that we have weaknesses in our procurement processes. We are in the process of mitigating identified weaknesses …” Indeed, we currently are determining how best to improve and streamline numerous aspects of our processes, including instructions, forms, etc. like McReynolds mentioned.
But there is another crucial aspect to improvement. As pointed out in my July 8 master management memo, “A review of the data and direct discussions with requesters shows that a large number of requesters are not aware of institutionally imposed requirements that must accompany a [purchase request].” Because of the nature of Laboratory operations, we are obliged to build complexities and requirements from multiple sources into our purchasing systems. These complexities probably never will be reduced to a merely rote process.
However, systems improvements coupled with training are an effective, cost-efficient way to rectify procurement difficulties arising from a misunderstanding of institutionally imposed requirements. It is important to note that the target audience for training is designated individuals within organizations who have been or will be assigned specific authority to generate purchase requests. We do not intend to bog down bench scientists with training that they might not benefit from.
We are taking a systems approach to improving procurement. That means we are focusing on improving our processes, such as simplifying paperwork and instructions, enhancing requester awareness of institutionally imposed requirements through training, and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of procurement staff, among other improvements.
These improvements, when taken in the aggregate, will help improve our acquisition capabilities and reduce our acquisition costs. Reduced costs can mean more available funding for programs, while improved acquisition capabilities can mean fewer delays to programmatic work. I believe these are outcomes we can all support.
--Albert Jiron, acting Supply Chain Management (SUP) Division leader
Renewal at Los Alamos Weapons Lab Resurrects Deeper Debate
While a bidding war for control of the US’s top nuke facility pairs two state universities with two corporations, critics are asking questions that won’t appear in either team’s proposal.
Jul 22 - As the 60th anniversary of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, one of the nation’s top nuclear weapons laboratories is seeking new management. Or more accurately, the Department of Energy is sponsoring a competitive bidding war for control of the Los Alamos National Laboratory – the first since the lab’s secretive genesis during World War II as the Manhattan Project, the birthplace of the bombs that devastated out those Japanese cities.
But the contest over who will run the nation’s premier nuclear arms facility has prompted activists to ask harder questions than just those concerning who will operate the facility safer and more efficiently. Some critics challenge the very wisdom of what they see as an administration trudging headlong into another nuclear arms race.
[...]
UC will keep Livermore lab contract for two more years
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
The University of California will manage Lawrence Livermore Laboratory for at least two more years, as the UC regents authorized an extension of the contract to operate the lab through September 2007.
The contract was due to expire Sept. 30, 2005, along with the Los Alamos National Laboratory contract. All three of UC's contracts to manage Department of Energy labs, including Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, are being put up for competitive bids following a series of security, safety and accounting blunders at the labs.
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
Panel warms to lab director
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
SANTA FE - Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Robert Kuckuck told a state legislative committee he was trying to change external perceptions of the laboratory after a decade of extreme stress.
At the same time, he said he wanted to instill an atmosphere of "civility, trust, communication and respect," inside the laboratory.
"The lab is in a state of overload," he said, adding his biggest goal was to streamline the workload.
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"I can't imagine the lab more overworked than it is now," he said.
He described a recent tendency to try to fix too many things at the same time.
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