UT-Battelle draws praise, $10.5M for managing ORNL

12/19/2011

UT-Battelle, a partnership of the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute, received high marks and more than $10.5 million for managing Oak Ridge National Laboratory during Fiscal Year 2011.

The Department of Energy notified ORNL Director Thom Mason of the appraisal in a letter from Johnny Moore, DOE's site manager. 

Moore praised UT-Battelle not only for scientific and technical accomplishments at the lab, but also for the contractor's "measurable progress" in reducing the cost of doing business.

The ORNL contractor received an overall performance score of 94 out of 100, the same score as it received for FY 2010. UT-Battelle received a higher fee, however, because the maximum fee pool was increased, DOE spokesman John Shewairy said Friday.

In his letter to Mason, DOE's Moore had mostly good things to say about UT-Battelle's performance. He was particularly flattering about the contractor's leadership and stewardship of the laboratory, saying it "significantly exceeded" the department's expectations.

"The Laboratory Leadership Team developed a bold vision for the future of ORNL," Moore wrote.

Because of funding issues, ORNL changed plans for developing a new supercomputing capability, the DOE official wrote. Instead of purchasing a new machine, the Oak Ridge lab worked with Cray Inc. to develop a solution that upgrades the current Cray XT5 system and will save about $25 million over the life of the machine, Moore wrote.

The revamped supercomputer, to be called "Titan," will have a computing capability of at least 10 petaflops — 10,000 trillion mathematical calculations per second — and maybe double that.

The Department of Energy official also said ORNL has done an "excellent job" of managing the U.S. office for work on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Project.

The letter also cited areas in need of improvement.

While the Oak Ridge lab has been highly successful in developing proposals for new work, Moore said ORNL needs to pay greater attention to the life-cycle of projects/programs after being selected to do the work, Moore said.

He noted that the Spallation Neutron Source's planned power upgrade had to be put on indefinite hold because of "significant growth in cost and projected schedule."

Moore said ORNL "did not promptly recognize the significance" of a cyberattack earlier this year, which resulted in an operational impact at the lab.

Source: Knox News Sentinel