An apparent greater acceptance for the industry practices of systems engineering, hiring of experienced personnel, and an effort to proceduralize a systems engineering standard have resulted in a path forward that is reflective of a systems engineering approach.
Improvements are still necessary, however.
The pace of the current effort is slow. Coordination between the group responsible for systems engineering and those that may benefit from it requires improvement. Significant comments included the need for implementing a systems engineering approach at the project level and a need to perform an independent design review of major projects. The Secretary further committed to submit an acceptable Implementation Plan by September 30, 1994. These improvements include development of a governing directive for TWRS systems engineering, hiring of additional technical personnel at DOE-RL with experience in systems engineering, scheduling of independent design reviews, and amended planning due to realization of uncertainties associated with the number of needed additional tanks.