Cis 499 project 1 6

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Assignment 1: IT Project Management Assessment

Eustace Langley

CIS 517

April­08­2013

Facilitator: Dr. Darcel Ford

Strayer University

IT Project Management Assessment Introduction

In 1990, the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the Department of Energy (DOE) build a laser capable of simulating thermonuclear conditions, which would allow nuclear weapons scientists to evaluate nuclear weapons’ behavior without testing. In 1993, DOE approved plans for the laser, now called the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and in 1996, chose to build it at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

DOE’s goal is to produce intense pressures and temperatures that may, for the first time, simulate in a laboratory the thermonuclear conditions created in nuclear explosions. This quest was to bring star power to earth by harnessing the power of nuclear fusion as a source of energy. This NIF project was approved in 1995.

The purpose of this monograph is to summarize an article on recent recipients of the Project Management Institute’s Project of the Year Award. The monograph will further discuss the role of the project manager or team, the organizational setting, the recipient’s approach to project integration management, and obstacles that had the potential of adversely impacting the triple constraints (Strayer University Materials April, 2014)

Summary of how the project manager or team exhibited exceptional and ethical project management practices Construction of the facility was a massive project that began in 1997. NIF was originally expected to cost about $2.1 billion and completed in 2002.

In 1997, DOE approved a $100 million increase and delayed its completion until 2004. In September 1999, DOE announced that NIF would cost up to $350 million more and be completed in 2006. Now DOE estimated that NIF will eventually cost about $3.3 billion and will be completed in 2008. With these

new estimates, it would mean that NIF will cost over $1 billion more than what was originally planned and take 6 years longer to complete.

Construction The stadium­sized facility was to be 500,000 square feet. The excavated soil was 210,000 cubic yards. The amount of concrete poured was 73,000 cubic yards. More than 7,000 workers completed NIF three week ahead of schedule and 2 million dollars under budget. There were challenges to overcome. One was the target bay which serves as the target point for 192 lasers had to be installed 45 feet below ground. Concrete had to be poured for 18 continuous hours to overcome this challenge.

Another challenge occurred 6 months after the ground breaking when heavy rains from El Nino flooded the NIF worksite.

It took wet weather construction engineers 3 weeks to restore the project. Then a month after the flood, crews unearthed the remains of a 16,000 year old remains of a mammoth. Construction was halted for 4 days until paleontologists worked to remove and preserver the skeleton.

Management Issues

By August1999, the project was under severe scrutiny. There were forecasts of massive schedule delays and overruns. The management teams had misidentified the project scope and greatly miscalculated their engineering complexity. This was due to management and inadequate DOE oversight. Troubles started when Lawrence Livermore officials planned, and DOE approved, a NIF budget and a construction cost contingency that were inadequate.

The project manager put in charge of NIF had little experience directing large projects and had no control over separately funded laser research and development programs that were essential for NIF’s success which resulted in a poorly integrated management team.

When problems started to arise, there were no aggressive actions taken to address them sooner. It was more than 6 months after they were first documented before anything was done. To get the project back on track, the team developed new baseline costs and schedules.

New costs and risk management practices were established. A new senior leadership was put in place, and industrial firms were enlisted as construction partners. Working together, the team built the world’s largest and highest energy laser as well as the

world’s largest optical instrument. The 192 laser beams were comprised of 60 miles of mirrors, fiber optics, crystals, and light amplifiers. Each laser must fire simultaneously a tiny target of hydrogen fuel housed in 130 ton target chamber. When the laser hits, the hydrogen would heat up to around 180 million degrees Fahrenheit or about 100 million degrees Celsius. Livermore said that the Nuclei of a hydrogen item would fuse and mimics a reaction only known in stars which would release a vast amount of thermonuclear energy.

Throughout the construction process, collaboration among governments, academia, and industry fueled innovation. Challenged with the need to secure enough potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals large

enough to be cut into plates which will convert infrared laser beams into ultraviolet light, the team turned to Moscow State University in Russia.

Scientist from the university helped devise a way to grow the crystals in 2 months compared to the 2 years required with traditional techniques. The process that did not exist when the project was conceived allowed NIF to stay on schedule.

After nearly seven years of testing, the National Nuclear Security Administration certified the facility’s equipment in March 2009. NIF officially opened 2 months later.

Livermore points out that in January 2010, scientist at the facility set a world record by firing more than one mega jewel of ultraviolet energy into a target the size of a pencil eraser. All objectives were met. That’s about 30 times the amount of energy

previously delivered by any laser system.

This monumental breakthrough would not have been possible without the coordinated efforts of the NIF project management team. NIF officials called the accomplishment a major milestone that demonstrates the facility’s power and reliability. National Ignition pointed out that the experiment demonstrated the integration of the complex systems required for an ignition campaign.

The Role of Project Manager and Team Conclusion

References http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00271.pdf

Strayer University Materials, retrieved April, 2013

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