In August 2023, the Office of Inspector General received an allegation that a contractor had not provided any deliverables supporting the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $90 million Safety, Analytics, Forecasting, Evaluation, and Reporting (SAFER) system. The allegation claimed that the project was halfway through its 5-year contract period, but it had been “staggeringly unproductive given the money spent.”
We initiated this inspection to determine the facts and circumstances regarding alleged productivity weaknesses and lack of deliverables from the contractor supporting NNSA’s SAFER system.
We did not substantiate the allegation that a contractor had productivity weaknesses and had not provided any deliverables on its project with NNSA. However, we identified inadequate project planning and management of the SAFER system by NNSA. For instance, key performance indicators were not developed to measure project success. In addition, user acceptance criteria was not established to measure the success of the development process and ensure that delivered functionality aligned with user requirements. Further, a required Contractor Performance Assessment Report was not completed for the base year of the contract but was completed in subsequent years.
Based on feedback provided by SAFER users and a lack of acceptance criteria to measure the success of the development process for the safety programs, we question whether SAFER is meeting user needs. Although not fully implemented, we were unable to obtain evidence that SAFER had produced widespread benefits and improved oversight across the NNSA enterprise.
As a result of the weaknesses identified, NNSA may be unable to determine the overall health of its safety programs and potential improvements needed to those programs. The lack of progress in completing actions outlined in the Federal Data Strategy may also have hindered effective data-driven decision making. Without improvements, NNSA may continue to encounter weaknesses related to managing the SAFER project, which could delay project progress.
We made three recommendations related to establishing quantifiable metrics to measure the performance of NNSA’s investments and ensuring that data management practices and project management requirements are followed. These recommendations should improve the management of the SAFER project and help inform future technology projects.
