ML20003F313
| ML20003F313 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/18/1980 |
| From: | Dircks W NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO) |
| To: | Ahearne J NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19284C410 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-81-13 NUDOCS 8104200582 | |
| Download: ML20003F313 (5) | |
Text
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UNITED tTATEs i
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7 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION E
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NOV 1 S 1980 MEMORANDUM FCR: Chairman Ahearne FROM.
William J. Dircks, Executive Director for Operations
SUBJECT:
THE NRC DOCUMENT CONTROL SYSTEM MPA has just completec a comprehensive review of the Document Centrol System (DCS). The purpose of this memorandum is to sumarize the major fincings of
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the MPA study and to describe the cecisions I have made to redirect the system +
and to reduce substantially the current 511 million annual cost.
The study results are presented in the form of a briefing package (Enclosure A). The principal findings are:
1.
To ca e there has not been extensive use of the DCS by the technical staff, and :ne CCS has not yet provicec the suestantial savings in tecnnical staff time that were cited in the original justification for :ne system. However, some crogram offices rely cn :ne DCS fcr scecial information procucts that support technical functions.
2.
Tne 005 ceveiccment pr cess is not yet ccm lete. Use cf :ne system by :ne NRC tecnnical staff may increase if acci:icnal system capabilities, sucn as sucject incexing and backfitting of olcer documents, are reali:ed.
It is very uncertain, however, how grea:
these ctential increases in use and associated cenefits will be.
3.
Tne DCS is currently performing a num er of necessary acministrative i
functions -- f;r exemole, providing accession lists for tne public, l
cistributien lists for NRC use, and file integrity. The total annual cost of performing these accinistrative functions without the DC5 is estimatec at 54 to 56 million.
l a.
Since ab0ut two thirds of the 511 millicn current annual cost of :ne l
DCS is in labor cost, major cost savings in this area may be possible.
Based on these findings, I have decicec to make sucstantial changes in the DCS.
l The resulting system will perform necessary acministrative functions and serve l
several limitec but well-established technical staff needs; however, it will not foreclose tne possibility of providing more sucstantial technical benefits in the future.
i I am cirecting tne Office of Acministraticn to take acticns that will result in substantial cos: savings, improve the management of the DCS, allow for CDNTACT:
L. Vancenberg, MFA l
49-25245 l
'8104200 N F
Chairman Ahearne appropriate tests of system concepts and capabilities, and -- in a few cases --
improve DCS capabilities. A list of the actions I have directed, with descriptions of each, is provided in Attachment 1.
The more important actions are:
1.
Reduce the document backfit effort, 2.
Negotiate lower contractor billing rates, 3.
Limit the number and type of documents processed into the DCS, 4
Test the feasibility of having NRC staff perform part or all of the coding function, 5.
Defer implementation of the subject search capability pending a test of its utility, 6.
Establish a DCS Policy Advisory Group reporting to the EDO, and 7.
Expedite negotiations to permit recompeting the contract.
While it is difficult to predict accurately the savings that will be realized, these and the otner measures listed in Attacnment 1 may result in cost recuctions in the fourth contract year of as much as several million dollars. Some reductions may occur in the current year three contract.
The actions I have directed will be undertaken inlediately. When the OIA and GAO reports en the DCS are completed and made available, I will ask the DCS ?olicy Advisory Group and the Office of Acministration to review the reports and make additional recommendations to me.
/
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WilliaV J. Dircks Executive Director for Operations : DCS Actions i
Enclosure A: Study Results A1. MPA Briefing Package: Study of the NRC Document Control System A2.
Evidence to Support DCS Study Findings A3. NRC Office Director Comments on the DCS cc: Comissioner Gilinsky Corm!issioner Hendrie Cox1issioner Bradford SECY OPE OGC DCS ACTIONS The folicwing list contains a brief description of actions being taken to redirect the Document Control System. The estimated annual contractual cost savings shown for some items represent the maximum amounts that might be realized. Achieving savings in one area may limit the savings possible through others. For example, if lower labor billing rates are negotiated (Item 2), then the maximum savings associated with other labor items would be less. Further, some of the actions that reduce contract costs may involve in-house costs.
1.
Reduce the document backfit effort (Estimated Savings: < S2 1/4 million)
Eliminating the extra effort currently devoted to backfitting older documents into the DCS will stretch out the current backfit schedule. Backfit of documents will continue during the normal day shift; this backfit effort will proceed through the already established priority list (e.g., LER's first) at a slower pace than originally planned. Reducing the backfit should produce some cost savings in the current contract year.
2.
Exa-ine_octions to lower contractor billine rates (Estimatec Savings: < S1 million) 53 sed on October 1950 actual hourly wages, the laccr hour billing rates in the DCS contract are as much as 4 times actual wages. The negotiated billing rate (tnat NRC actually pays) is cased on an assumed billing level of 3 times actual wages. Since NRC is currently paying annually about 5700,000 more than it would if billings were three times wages, significant savings may be possible. The Office of Acministration will negotiate new labor billing rates for any further extansion of the current contract. By recompeting the contract at the earliest possible time (see Item 7), or negotiating with the current contractor, NRC may also be able to reduce the total overhead paid to the contractor, resulting in additional savings.
3.
Limit content of the DCS data base (Estimated Savings: 4 51/2 million)
In the short term, the Office of Administration will act to limit documents entered into the DCS to:
(1) materials that are supplied to the Public Document Room (PDR) and (2) Docket 59 materials. Other documents will not be entered into the DCS unless the relevant Office Director vouches for the essential need for the product or service and the DCS can perfom the service without significantly detracting from primary functions. The DCS Policy Advisory Group (see item 6) will recomend criteria for including non-PDR, non-Docket 50 documents in the DCS based on user needs and cost considerations.
4.
Test, and where feasible, have NRC staff perfom document codina (Estimated Savings: potentially up to $3 million)
Currently contractor staff perform nearly all document coding.
If coding were perfomed by NRC staff, substantial savings might be possible.
It is uncertain, however, whether NRC staff can perfom the coding function for all document types with the needed consistency and reliability. Therefore, staff coding
2 will be pilot tested first to determine its feasibility. The Office of Administration will plan to conduct and evaluate a pilot test involving one or more branches in the Offices of NRR and IE. The DCS Policy Advisory Group (see item 6) will participate in the planning and evaluation stages of the pilot test and reconsnend whether to phase out contractor coding of documents.
5.
Test the DCS subject search caoability The Office of Administration will prepare fomal plans leading to ear?y com-pletion of the development phase of the subject search capability (including the set of defined subject codes and software and estimates of subject coding costs). Before implementation, the DCS Policy Advisory Group will review the utility and cost of the subject search capability and detemine which documents will be subject indexed.
6.
Establish a DCS Policy Advisory Group The Policy Advisory Group's charter will involve management and policy oversight of the DCS. The group will monitor the implementation of EDO decisions on the DCS and make recommendations to the EDO on any further changes to the DCS.
The group will De comoosed of about six staff r: embers drawn from the user offices.
7.
Exoedite necotiations to oermit recomoetino the contract The current contractual arrangement provides that at NRC's option the contractor is obligated to support the DCS for a fourth year, June 1981 to June 1982.
The Office of Administration will examine the possibility of recompeting the contract at an early date by negotiating less than a full fourth year contract with the present contractor. Negotiations underway to resolve contractual issues that may hinder recompetition (proprietary software rights and lease arrangements) will be completed as soon as possible.
8.
Conduct user needs study To clarify needs for technical and administrative information, a DCS user needs study will be added to the contract for the NRC Management Study.
9.
Desianate full-time contract manaaer Although several staff members in the Office of Administration work on managing the DCS contract, no one perso, is assigned full-time overall responsibility for managing the contract on a day-to-day basis. ADM will designate one person whose full-time responsibility will be to act as the Contracting Officer's
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Technical Representative (C0TR).
- 10. pefer any exoansion of video teminals The DCS was originally planned as an all video terminal system in which the actual image of the document is available on the terminal. Twelve video and 32 digital terminals are now in place. A separate microfiche reader must be used with the digital terminals to access the document image. Depending largely l
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on the number purchased, video terminals cost 3 to 6 times more than digital termi nals. Until problems with video image quality are resolved and the user needs study is completed, there will be no expansion of the video portion of DCS.
- 11. Reduce contractor olannino and develooment staff (Estimated Savings: 4; $1/2 million)
Contractor personnel perform a wide variety of functions related to planning and developing major aspects of the DCS (e.g., backfit imolementation, subject index) and for identifying and resolving problems with documents not yet routinely entered into the DCS. The Office of Administration will develop a plan so that after June 1981 the planning and development work, especially that of resolving problems with document flows, can be accomplished by NRC staff. This action may require additional staff resources.
- 12. Eliminate duolicate document orocessine (Estimated Savings: 4 51/2 million)
Altnougn firm statistics are not available, uo to 30% o# the documents sent to DCS for processing may be duolicates of documents already crocessed. The contractor scends a significant amount of time screening out duplicate documents. The cost imolications of this problem increase when duolicates are fully orocessed through the DCS. The Office of Administration will study options to control the duplicate document problem and make a recommendation to the DCS Policy Advisory Grouo.
13.
Imorove cuality control and user statistics The Office of Administration will collect statistics to better measure data base quality, the number of NRC staff using the system, the kinds of documents being retrieved, and other information that will be helpful in estimating the benefits the DCS provides to the technical staff.
14 Investicate technicues for user offices to share the cost of DCS Under current arrangements, the DCS is essentially free to user offices; thus there is no financial motivation to limit special products and services. The Office of A ninistration, in conjunction with the Office of the Controller, will develop a pu, and recomrendations for charging user offices for special products, reports, and sc* vices from the DCS. This procedure will force offices to compare the cost of special service from DCS to other means of obtaining the information and to other uses for the funds.
- 15. Consider limited cost imorovements Some additions to the DCS may provide improved service or lower cost. The Office of Acministration will prepare recommendations on the following items:
a) possible purchase of DCS equipment currently being leased b) addition and relocttion of digital terminals c) changes in DCS operating hourt.
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