Summary

Various studies of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado have highlighted numerous management weaknesses that have affected some projects at the plant. GAO identified two ongoing projects--the supercompactor and upgrades to the plant's low-level waste transfer system--that have experienced massive cost growth during the past four years. In both cases, project managers did not properly oversee the early stages of the projects' development. Both the plant contractor and DOE have taken steps to address some of these weaknesses, but GAO is concerned that these actions may not be comprehensive enough to resolve all the problems. Although the plant contractor has developed corrective action plans and has made progress implementing them, the plans were based only on the contractor's business management review study and may not include some urgently needed corrective actions. DOE officials have said that they have addressed the problems cited in previous management studies but have not yet developed a comprehensive corrective action plan with detailed tasks and completion milestone dates. DOE officials believe that such a plan is necessary and have designated someone to draft one. The agency, however, still needs to define the plan's scope and set a date when the plan should be finished.

GAO found that: (1) inadequate implementation of the project management process has adversely affected certain projects; (2) the supercompactor and upgrades to the plant's low-level waste transfer system have experienced substantial cost growth; (3) the cost of the supercompactor program increased from $1.9 million to $10.5 million, and the cost of the waste transfer system increased from $1.5 million to $14 million, because project managers did not properly oversee the early stages of the projects' development; (4) two other Rocky Flats programs lacked sufficient documentation to assess the extent to which project management implementation may have caused cost increases or schedule delays; (5) since November 1991, DOE and the contractor have issued four separate studies identifying numerous strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of the project management process at Rocky Flats; (6) in response to the studies' recommendations, the contractor developed a 15-point corrective action plan to resolve its management problems; and (7) Rocky Flats has not developed a comprehensive corrective action plan of its own with detailed tasks and specific milestones.