This section describes: (1) Los Alamos’s role in NNSA’s nuclear security enterprise; (2) DOE and NNSA programs’ plutonium analysis needs at Los Alamos; (3) DOE and NNSA project management orders and policies; and (4) best practices for project cost and schedule estimating. NNSA is responsible for managing the nation’s nuclear security missions: ensuring a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear deterrent; achieving designated reductions in the nuclear weapons stockpile; and supporting the nation’s nuclear nonproliferation efforts. NNSA directs these missions but relies on management and operating contractors to carry them out and manage day-to-day operations at each of its eight sites that comprise the agency’s nuclear security enterprise. These sites include laboratories, production plants, and a test site. Together, these sites implement NNSA’s stockpile stewardship program. Specifically, under this program, NNSA annually assesses the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile and (1) determines which components, including the pit, will need refurbishment to extend each weapon’s life; (2) designs and produces the necessary components; (3) installs components in the weapons; and (4) certifies that the changes do not adversely affect the safety and reliability of the weapons. The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review—which outlines U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities, and force posture— identified long-term stockpile modernization goals for NNSA that include sustaining a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal through life extension programs and investing in a modern infrastructure. NNSA has identified the revised CMRR project as critical to its infrastructure modernization efforts. Of NNSA’s eight sites, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico houses most of the nation’s capabilities for plutonium analysis in support of its nuclear weapons mission. Los Alamos also has a broader plutonium-related research and analysis mission. For example, Los Alamos conducts basic and applied research in the chemistry of plutonium and other radiological materials for the study of nuclear materials, including nuclear materials separation, processing, and recovery. Currently there are three main facilities at Los Alamos that support plutonium analysis: Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility. This facility became operational in 1952 and houses equipment for performing plutonium analysis. With this equipment, NNSA conducts analysis activities that support: the production, development, and testing of nuclear weapon pits, programs to extend the life of nuclear weapons in the stockpile, and efforts to dismantle surplus nuclear weapons. NNSA continues to operate some plutonium analysis equipment in the facility, but the agency has committed to ending plutonium operations in the facility by the end of 2019. Plutonium Facility 4. This facility began operations in 1978 and is the nation’s only high-hazard, high-security, fully operational plutonium facility that produces pits. Plutonium Facility 4 is also used to support the production of plutonium-238 heat sources used for NASA spacecraft missions as well as the development of methods for fabricating advanced nuclear fuels. Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building (radiological lab). NNSA began operations in the radiological lab in 2014. NNSA built the radiological lab—consisting of office space, training areas, utilities, and laboratory space for analysis—to complement the previously approved CMRR nuclear facility. The radiological lab has the capacity to handle small plutonium samples for use in analytical chemistry analysis to support plutonium program missions in Plutonium Facility 4. Several DOE and NNSA program offices conduct plutonium analysis in the three main plutonium facilities at Los Alamos. The following are the primary users of plutonium analysis capabilities at Los Alamos. This office is responsible for maintaining the reliability, security, and safety of the nuclear weapons stockpile by assessing the reliability of existing nuclear weapon pits and producing new pits to replace those destroyed in the testing process, among other activities. The majority of funding and scope associated with plutonium work at Los Alamos supports the Office of Defense Programs’ missions. Pit production relies on plutonium analysis to produce war reserve pits—pits that are certified for inclusion in the nuclear weapons stockpile—in support of life extension programs. Los Alamos has used its analytical chemistry equipment to support pit production more than to support all other program activities combined. From 2007 to 2012, NNSA produced a limited number of war reserve pits at Los Alamos; according to NNSA, by 2011 the agency had demonstrated a production rate of up to 10 pits per year. In 2008, the Nuclear Weapons Council—a body that serves as the focal point of the Department of Defense and DOE interagency activities to maintain the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile—established the requirement for NNSA to develop pit production capabilities of 50 to 80 pits per year. We found in March 2016 that modernizing NNSA’s pit production capacity, including implementing the revised CMRR project, is fundamental to supporting a multi-billion-dollar life extension program. NNSA’s Fiscal Year 2016 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan contains the agency’s plan for meeting the weapons council’s requirement and supporting life extension programs. According to the fiscal year 2016 plan, NNSA will develop the capability to produce at Los Alamos an increasing number of new pits over time. These pits will be of a different type than the pits produced earlier, so Los Alamos has started a development process to establish a pit production capability for a new pit type. Beginning in fiscal year 2024, NNSA plans to be able to produce 10 war reserve pits per year, increasing to 30 war reserve pits per year in fiscal year 2026, and 50 to 80 war reserve pits per year by 2030 (see table 1). NNSA’s ARIES supports the disposition of surplus weapons-grade plutonium by disassembling pits and converting the plutonium into a plutonium oxide. NNSA established ARIES in Plutonium Facility 4 as a technology development and demonstration project for pit disassembly and conversion and has used plutonium analysis equipment there to analyze plutonium samples from the oxide converted from existing pits. According to NNSA, ARIES currently conducts most of its plutonium analysis that supports disassembly and conversion at NNSA’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. However, ARIES will likely need more analysis equipment in Plutonium Facility 4 if its mission at Los Alamos is expanded, according to NNSA. This office provides plutonium-238 heat sources for electric generators used on NASA spacecraft and for national security applications. The plutonium-238 heat sources are also used to heat critical components on NASA spacecraft. The office relies on plutonium analysis equipment to support its work. The office recently stopped operating in the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility and installed its plutonium analysis equipment in Plutonium Facility 4. This DOE office shares the plutonium-238 analysis equipment with NNSA to support work examining existing pits. DOE Order 413.3B governs NNSA’s capital asset acquisition activities. The order establishes the critical decision (CD) process. This process breaks down capital asset acquisition into project phases that progress from a broad statement of mission need into requirements that guide project execution, through design and construction, and conclude with an operational facility. Each phase ends with a major approval milestone—or “critical decision”—and each critical decision requires the successful completion of the preceding phase. DOE’s capital asset acquisition process, or critical decision process, is depicted in figure 1. DOE Order 413.3B provides direction for preparing a mission need statement at CD-0 (identify need). According to the order, a mission need statement identifies the capability gap between the current state of a program’s mission and the mission plan and is part of the first phase of identifying and executing a capital asset project. The mission need, however, should not identify a particular solution such as equipment, facility, or technology. In addition, Order 413.3B and NNSA’s business operating procedure for creating program requirements documents for capital asset projects (NNSA’s requirements policy) provide direction for preparing and updating a program requirements document. According to Order 413.3B, requirements identified in a program requirements document are statements that define the ultimate goals a project must satisfy. According to A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, defining requirements for a project is a key step in developing a project because the requirements dictate what is included—and what is not included—in a project’s scope of work. Order 413.3B states that NNSA must prepare a program requirements document for capital asset projects at CD-0. Order 413.3B directs project managers to implement NNSA’s requirements policy when preparing the program requirements document at CD-0. According to this policy, a project’s requirements should include a specific type of requirement called a key performance parameter. Order 413.3B states that key performance parameters define how well a project will perform its functions, and appropriate parameters are those that express performance in terms of capacity, throughput (i.e., the amount of material or items passing through a system or process), or processing rate, among others. These parameters, among other things, identify vital characteristics, functions, or design bases that, if changed, would have a major impact on facility or system performance, scope, schedule, cost, or risk. Under Order 413.3B, the first two decision points—CD-0 (identify need) and CD-1 (select alternative)—span the analysis of alternatives process. The use of the analysis of alternatives process is a key first step to help ensure that the selected alternative best meets the agency’s mission need. The majority of the analysis of alternatives process is conducted during the conceptual design phase and ends with CD-1 approval. To provide assistance in preparing high-quality cost and schedule estimates, we compiled best practices used throughout government and industry in two guides.