Energy Technology Engineering Center

The Boeing Corporation owns the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in southern California where the Department of Energy (DOE) established the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC).  ETEC ceased operations as a research center and Boeing initiated cleanup and removal of DOE's facilities in 1990. The project is complicated by several factors including high public visibility and concern; multiple regulatory authorities; and having multiple contractors performing the work.  Even though work was ongoing, as a result of changing project conditions DOE required Boeing to develop a new project baseline to reflect the reality of emerging regulator expectations and DOE and Boeing budget constraints.

In 2007 Boeing retained Sapere to develop a project baseline to define the scope, schedule, and budget for completion of the DOE project at ETEC.   The resulting project baseline is made up of three main components:

• The resource loaded schedule laying out $93 million in estimated work over 11 years.
• The basis of estimate documents  for each major WBS which includes the current status, end state, technical approach, required Government Furnished Services and Items (GFSI), and uncertainties for all scope.
• The risk management plan which using a probabilistic approach defines the expected value for the project, related confidence levels and a risk register.

Sapere worked with DOE and Boeing staff to convert existing project information into a current and cohesive plan to achieve EM Completion and meet the requirements of DOE Order 413.3, Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets. Sapere reviewed and updated all existing cost estimates, schedule durations, technical approaches, schedule logic, regulatory and stakeholder requirements, major assumptions, end states, scope definitions, and GFSI requirements. New BOE documents were created to document all current information and assumptions, as well as interface with the Risk Management Plan.

As part of the internal review process for approval, Sapere conducted a Project Definition Rating Index self assessment and supported Boeing during the formal DOE Independent Project Review (IPR). The resulting baseline was approved by DOE based on the IPR team recommendations as part of the Critical Decision (CD) 2/3 package.