Mission Support Alliance: Focused on the future

When construction began at the Hanford Site in 1943, few could have imagined the evolution from plutonium production for the Manhattan Project, to the Cold War, to environmental cleanup and a new National Park. Today, supporting the Department of Energy’s (DOE) One Hanford mission, the site begins a new decade and continues to be one of the great public works projects of the century.

As the site services provider, Mission Support Alliance (MSA) is privileged to support DOE’s priorities to expand Hanford integration and innovate sitewide solutions. Focusing on the future, MSA remains ready to continue enabling Hanford cleanup. We will do so through the pursuit of innovation and by maintaining our focus on the safety of employees, the public and the environment.

HANFORD INTEGRATION – Enabling the One Hanford mission requires a trusted partnership with DOE and all Hanford contractors. MSA is proud to integrate services and needs and promote transparency as part of our mission to ensure the success of everyone at Hanford. We will continue to foster collaboration and integrated approaches to cleanup using a variety of best practices.

Best practices include a number of integration solutions recognized over the years, such as our service delivery model that offers more than 150 distinct and essential services across the Hanford Site. The Hanford Site Governance Model institutionalizes a structured framework to meet the challenges of the future while ensuring sound decision-making and risk reduction across all contractors.

The Infrastructure and Services Alignment Plan forecasts DOE and contractor needs for services to ensure capabilities to support the many cleanup priorities will be in place to meet demands for water, electricity, transportation and other essential services.

Integration initiatives currently underway include the business management system upgrade. This will consolidate more than 50 business system applications, some more than 20 years old, into just eight. These standardized applications will improve functionality for finance, supply chain, human resources, and reporting – used across all Hanford contractors.

SITEWIDE SOLUTIONS – As the footprint of the Hanford Site shrinks and we transition to a 24/7 pace of operations to support treating Hanford tank waste as part of the direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) program, cleanup becomes more complex and requires innovative solutions to meet increased service demands.

Whether it’s transforming electrical systems as usage goes from today’s 133,000-megawatt hours to over 350,000-megawatt hours when tank waste treatment systems come on line, or preparing for annual water needs to increase from 922 million gallons per year to the 1.4 billion gallons Hanford will need in 2022 – innovation matters. MSA is actively researching and partnering with industry giants such as Microsoft to bring innovative solutions forward.

An example is the Microsoft HoloLens/mixed reality technology. This integrates and streamlines collaboration between Hanford’s electrical, water and sewer utilities – in some cases, on an infrastructure system that is 60 years old. HoloLens provides a mixed reality platform that will enhance operational efficiency, improve maintenance planning, modernize training and improve the reliability and availability of key infrastructure systems. Of significance, this technology will allow MSA to implement design media and place work-planning improvements directly into the hands of operations and maintenance personnel – never before done on the Hanford Site.

ONE HANFORD – For the last 11 years, our team has successfully created and continuously improved our service delivery model – one that focuses on providing the right solution at the right time and for the right value. As we look toward the future, we will continue to collaborate with stakeholders and integrate their needs to evolve our approach and meet the changing needs of our One Hanford mission and prosperity for our community.

This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Mission Support Alliance: Focused on the future."