Y-12 Blog
Gene Patterson (left) and Alison Sides present a donation on behalf of the Y‐12 Employee Advisory Committee to the Little Ponderosa Zoo’s owner James Cox.
After a unanimous vote, members of CNS’s Y‑12 Employee Advisory Committee donated $1,500 to @The Little Ponderosa Zoo and Rescue in Clinton. The main barn was destroyed by a fire on December 4, and dozens of animals died in the blaze.
Gene Patterson and committee member Alison Sides visited the zoo. “Members of the Y‑12 committee did not hesitate when asked to help out the zoo. They saw the need and voted with their hearts,”
Patterson said.
Sides said, “Visiting the zoo and seeing the destruction was a real eye‑opener. I am proud of our committee for the unanimous vote to help the zoo. It is going to a great cause in a time of dire need.”
For 15 years, Y-12 employees have recycled aluminum cans and donated the proceeds to local charities. The donations are made twice a year, and fall of 2017 marked the thirtieth distribution of donations.
Y-12’s employees and contractors nominated 17 worthwhile organizations to receive an Aluminum Beverage Can (ABC) recycling program donation this fall. The ABC Committee selected four local charities that each received a $200 donation.
Compassion Closet — Compassion Closet provides clothing, durable goods, and support for local foster and adoptive families. This donation will be used to purchase new convertible car seats as those are the number-one requested item.
East Knox Free Medical Clinic —a free medical clinic that provides care to indigent East Knoxville citizens. The funds will be used to purchase materials to improve the clinic space.
Gracie’s Gifts — provides specialized clothing for premature babies free of charge in the NICU. Gracie’s Gifts will use these funds to purchase the fabric and special closures needed for the smocks and dye-free fabric for the over-sized blankets.
Hands of Mercy — a food pantry in Kingston, Tennessee, providing food for needy families. This $200 donation will be used to purchase food and supplies for needy families.
Y‑12 craftsmen learn how to use a grease caddy for ultrasound lubrication.
Has your air conditioning ever gone out in the middle of August? Did your dishwasher quit working when it was fully loaded from a dinner party? These types of equipment failures certainly leave us frustrated, but have you ever thought about much larger equipment failures … like the type that can delay production at a national security site for days, weeks, or months?
Enterprise Reliability and Maintainability manager Paul Durko spends a lot of time thinking about keeping Pantex and Y‑12’s equipment running so both sites can operate safely, securely, and productively. With many World War II‑era buildings and a variety of aging equipment, achieving those objectives is no small feat.
Durko’s team works with more than 530 craftspeople to complete more than 61,000 work orders each year. Just keeping up with that amount of work is a daunting task, but wanting to improve the way that work is accomplished requires a process and a special level of commitment. Fortunately, CNS has that process — preventive maintenance optimization (PMO) — and committed crafts and maintenance staff.
Maintenance strategies are evaluated through PMO, resulting in standardized tasks, which reduces maintenance errors and increases reliability. PMO has already reduced planning time by an average of 64 percent while increasing throughput by 19 percent. Durko is quick to credit the crafts as the driving force behind this success. “They are the eyes and ears of the enterprise,” he said. “Their input brings the preventive maintenance program up to date and adds value to the customer.”
Through PMO and efficiency gains, maintenance and crafts have the opportunity to implement best practices for the various maintenance tasks. “There’s a tendency to equate improved efficiency with job loss,” noted Durko. “We’re looking for efficiencies so we have the time to improve the way we provide maintenance, while also increasing the amount of preventive maintenance work completed at both sites.”
One way the crafts have driven improvement is by using ultrasound lubrication to ensure proper lubrication of bearings, which is essential to equipment reliability. This technique has been successfully piloted at both sites, and further expansion is planned.
Now ER&M wants to capitalize on those efficiency gains by using precision maintenance techniques and the resultant data to move toward condition‑based maintenance. Going back to the original, more mundane example, they want to know when to work on your air conditioner so it doesn’t go out in August.
CBM is maintenance that is performed based upon indicators from activities like surveillances, inspections, vibration monitoring, and ultrasound detection. Vibration analysis on rotating assets is the most mature predictive technology across the enterprise. In the last few years, the focus on this technology has shifted to effective use of the data provided. By analyzing this data, personnel can perform maintenance in advance of equipment failure that could injure personnel, adversely affect production, and potentially cause secondary damage to the equipment. At Y-12, the vibration program currently monitors more than 300 mission-critical assets. The program also monitors rotating assets at the Pantex High Explosives Production Facility, with revitalization and expansion planned during this fiscal year.
Predictive technology has also strengthened the effectiveness of post-work testing. Use of the vibration meter allows the craftsperson to verify that maintenance activities conducted on rotating assets did not adversely impact the reliability. The ultrasound meter has been used to improve post‑work leak checks, thus increasing the confidence in the repairs.
Durko is enthusiastic about where CBM can take the enterprise, while incorporating reliability centered maintenance‑based principles during the design phase to decrease overall maintenance cost. “Crafts and Maintenance management can evolve into a world‑class maintenance organization,” he said.
Kevin Probst of the Nassau County Police Department speaks with colleagues at a customized Alarm Response Training course.
A team from Y-12 traveled to New York to conduct a customized Alarm Response Training, or cART, course for members of the Suffolk County (@SuffolkPD), Nassau County (@NCPolice), and New York City (@NYPD) police departments.
Darrell Poteet of Global Security Analysis and Training said, “Members from these agencies had previously attended our Alarm Response Training and requested a customized course that would reach more of their personnel.”
The cART training program supports NNSA’s Office of Radiological Security by helping local law enforcement agencies develop their own coordinated training programs to prepare for and prevent the theft of radiological materials. cART also supports the Office of Radiological Security’s 2020 Cities Initiative, which aims to integrate radiological response functions in the 20 most populous metropolitan areas in the U.S.
Poteet said, “Sites that attend the on-site training are allowed to bring three to four law enforcement representatives. By conducting the customized course, local police departments get the ability to train their personnel on a much larger scale.”
Anderson County students attending the Dream it. Do it. kick off at Roane State Community College’s Higher Education and Workforce Training Facility in Clinton.
The Anderson County Chamber of Commerce and its partners, Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (CNS), Anderson County Schools and Oak Ridge Schools, kicked off the third straight year of the “Dream It. Do It.” program at the Roane State Community College’s Higher Education and Workforce Training Facility in Clinton.
The program pairs middle-school students with local businesses to learn about job opportunities in advanced manufacturing.
“We’ve grown from four schools in its first year to six schools in 2017,” said Rick Meredith, head of the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce. “Dream It. Do It. is opening the eyes of area school kids about the future job opportunities in manufacturing; and they are learning in a fun way.”
CNS provides each student team with a GoPro camera to create videos highlighting area manufacturing and industrial operations. Those videos are then posted online and viewers cast a vote for their favorites. Winning team members each receive their own GoPro camera.
On hand for the kickoff were this year’s participating school teams from Clinton, Jefferson, Lake City, Norris, Norwood and Robertsville Middle Schools. Also in attendance were representatives from the participating industries, including Aisin Automotive Castings, Protomet, Techmer PM, Eagle Bend Mfg., Clayton Homes, and SL TN.
At the kickoff, the students drew out of a box to see which industry they would be representing this year. The pairings are as follows: Norwood Middle – AISIN, Clinton Middle – Techmer PM, Lake City Middle – Eagle Bend Mfg., Robertsville Middle – SL Tennessee, Jefferson Middle School – Clayton Homes, and Norris Middle School – Protomet.