As one of the three multi-program scientific institutions supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration in the Department of Energy, the Laboratory faces some unique challenges. In order to accommodate the wide range of scientific support needs, LANL's approach to facilities has been highly decentralized, with 16 facility managers working for individual tenant organizations and drawing on services from a central facilities organization, as opposed to reporting to that organization. Because the supporting service sectors within LANL are so spread out, a sophisticated level of connectivity is necessary for efficient operations.

"A computerized work management and control system is critical in a decentralized organization such as ours," says Bob Patterson, group leader of LANL's Support Service Contract Management group. "It allows individuals in the organization to initiate work orders remotely and track them electronically through the process. Used properly, it drives consistent delivery of services at the lab, and that permits roll-up and reporting as one unit in a distributed environment."

CMMS: Computerized Management for the 21st Century

LANL personnel had been using a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) that was developed in-house since the mid-1980s, but the shift to a decentralized FM model emphasized the need for a single integrated system. After an extensive selection process, LANL chose to adopt a commercial package: PassPort from Indus International.

The LANL project team indicates that PassPort is one of the most comprehensive CMMS products on the market, offering a diverse suite of tools that can be used to manage and account for work. With PassPort, any one of LANL's trained facilities support staff can initiate a work request. The relevant facility manager then uses the system to conduct a thorough review of the request, including such things as ensuring that applicable facility hazards are identified, and that necessary approvals to perform the work are secured. After initial approval, the FM electronically passes the request to a support services subcontractor for cost and schedule estimates.

The service provider is currently refining its processes for achieving total electronic integration. Eventually, the service provider will be able to download the work order to project management software for estimating and scheduling, and uploaded it back to PassPort for inclusion in the final work package that is then routed for approval. Work tracking and cost collection are also integrated into the systems and can be monitored remotely.

The LANL goal is to drive a resource-loaded, integrated electronic schedule with its subcontractors. When the system is fully developed, a lab employee will no longer need to bother the facility manager to find out when a project is scheduled. The employee can simply access PassPort, or the subcontractor's Web site, sort data as necessary, and know exactly when the work is scheduled.

PassPort interacts with a number of other LANL computer applications, including Labor Capture for costing and payroll, the financial management systems, and the employee information system. PassPort receives daily updates on all activity and stores selected data in a server repository called the data warehouse.

The data warehouse creates an electronic record of work at each stage of the process and makes the data available to all users. It keeps users and staff up-to-date on project status, and allows them to break projects down by cost, schedule, or location. It also allows comparison of current information to historical data, as well as performance measurement against pre-established metrics with just a few mouse clicks.

Lessons Learned: Driving Common Work Processes

LANL selected several PassPort modules and sequenced their implementation to achieve initial operability. Other modules will be implemented as the need arises during the coming years. Each implementation requires considerable effort. LANL learned a number of lessons throughout the implementation process. Most significantly, the implementation team learned that it's very important to define, understand, and implement consistent work practices within the organization.

"When you have 16 facility managers and their staffs are all doing their own thing, soon you can't track what's going on, which makes it very difficult for the supplier," Patterson says. "Each one of these systems, whether it's simple or highly complex, relies on the foundation of a work process. You can modify the program, or you can modify your behavior. I'm not sure which is easier, but the cost of implementing computerized maintenance management systems goes up markedly if you intend to rely on simply modifying the program."

Some of the process problems LANL encountered had to do with differences regarding when and how users enter work order information or status it. As a result, LANL CMMS project personnel strongly recommend that organizations intending to adopt similar systems clearly map out all work processes beforehand and get consensus from those involved. LANL initiated a users group to test and recommend approaches, and while this helped considerably, broader institutional conventions would have improved implementation. The project team also encourages other organizations to carefully select modules for sequential implementation and reminds them not to underestimate the project's cost or schedule.

MOADs?the Mother Of All Databases

Five decades of work at LANL have generated an enormous amount of facility-related data that is often helpful to the FM organization in developing or assessing projects. Much of the data, including Legacy/Hazardous Waste Database, Facilities Project information, and Physical Plant Accounting information resided in a number of older Cobol- or Fortran-based database applications. These programs were difficult to access remotely, incompatible with Web-based query systems, and sometimes made organizational reporting difficult. So the Facilities Information Technology team engaged in an initiative to integrate them with a Web page search interface on the front end and an Oracle-based server on the backend.

"These databases contain information that is useful for everybody, but they are owned by a lot of different organizations within the lab," says Pat Nelson, Team Leader for Information Support. "So we struck a deal with each of the database owners that they would make their data available for access via a single intranet portal that we would create."

Using the Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC) application programming interface, a small team of programmers spent three months compiling information from the various databases and depositing it into a series of searchable tables. The "window" into these databases is a custom search engine that allows the user to create custom reports based on a variety of criteria available within all the databases. The development team refers to this application as the "Mother Of All Databases" (MOADs) because of the integrating function it performs, and it now receives more than 25,000 hits per week.

"MOADs is essentially a number of distributed databases linked together by our Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) system, which is the database of record," Nelson explains. "The search engine is really the magic behind it all. Users can log on to our home page, access MOADs, and search it for facility specific information.

"Web-based access to a lot of these old databases doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg," she continues. "I would be surprised if we spent $200,000 on this. In fact, we probably spent more time working with the owners of those databases and determining who's responsible for the information than we did setting up the query engine and combining the data."

According to Nelson, the key considerations in managing such a transition are ensuring the reliability of the underlying network, maintaining the system's data integrity, and adopting standard nomenclature.

"Some people might call heating, ventilation, and air conditioning HVA, some might call it HVAC, and others might call it something else, but if you can't get your nomenclature straight, it becomes very difficult to sort data efficiently," Nelson points out.

Impacts of System Integration

These two initiatives give LANL's FM organization improved efficiency in its operations. Facility managers now have access to a wider variety of Web-based and centralized tools for planning and decision making. They can review occupancy, order space online, and will eventually be able to bundle large maintenance projects across the lab into one job to give to a single contractor.

The system encourages positive behavior by providing online tenant/landlord reviews and customer input. It also provides access to extensive performance data including preventive maintenance and safety accomplishments, project cycle time, and final cost versus estimate, all of which can be broken down by FM unit, service provider, or facility.

"We measure all kinds of things relative to our performance and the performance of our support subcontractors and facility managers," says Patterson. "It helps us in meeting the Department of Energy's overall expectations, and allows us an unprecedented level of access to data that can be crucial to operations."

By Johnathon Allen