Andrews, Nicole S.

Bray, Olin H.

Chambers, William B.

Deland, Sharon M.

Peterson, Marge

Thompson, Grace E.

UNT Digital Library

, 9AN INTEGRATEDINVENTORYINFORMATIONMANAGEMENTSYSTEMGrace Thompson, Nicole Andrews, Sharon Deland,Bill Chambers, Marge Peterson, Olin Bray +g~~~ ~EoSandia National Laboratories*PO ?30x5800 ‘$EP ~ j 2JJ8Albuquerque, NM 87185-0449 USA505/844-3330 ~$~jAbsfracfSince the end of the Cold War, the focus of the Department of Energy (DOE) DefensePrograms (DP) has shifted from developing and producing new weapons to themaintenance and stewardship of a much smaller stockpile. This change of focus--alongwith the downsizing of the nuclear weapons complex, reduced budgets and the initiationof stockpile rebuild activities--has created a challenging set of circumstances under whichnuclear materials and special non-nuclear materials must be managed. To address thechallenges associated with managing these materials and reliably forecasting fiturenational security needs, Sandia National Laboratories is working with DOE/DP and otherDOE laboratories and plants to define an Integrated Inventory Information ManagementSystem (IIIMS). This paper will describe the general architecture and the capabilities ofthe IIIMS that have been identified to date and discuss the proposed approach to systemdevelopment.IntroductionOver the past 40 years DOE/DP has developed a number of inventory systems to managethe various stages of nuclear weapon development, procurement, production, testing, andmaintenance. To date, these systems have performed the fictions for which they weredesigned. However, over the past several years the number of operational weapons in theactive inventory has been reduced resulting in a greater materials managementresponsibility. Also, as the weapons, materials, and facilities age, budget restraintsrequire more precision in planning and forecasting to accomplish the Department’smissions.To address these new challenges, Sandia National Laboratories has proposed thedevelopment of an Integrated Inventory Information Management System (IIIMS). In thepast decade, the state of computer science has advanced beyond traditional transaction-based computer systems to analysis based systems that support the decision-makingprocess in addition to automating record keeping. Large corporations now routinelymake use of information systems to assist in the analysis and planning of decisions at theenterprise level. These tools and techniques should be helpful in assisting DOE/DP in itsweapons material stewardship mission. A major goal of the IIIMS project is to* Sandia is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed MartinCompany, for the United States Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.-1-DISCLAIMERThis repoti was prepared as an account of work sponsoredbyan agency of the United States Government. Neitherthe United States Government nor any agency thereof, norany of their employees, make any warranty, express orimplied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility forthe accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of anyinformation, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, orrepresents that its use would not infringe privately ownedrights. Reference herein to any specific commercialproduct, process, or service by trade name, trademark,manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constituteor imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring bythe United States Government or any agency thereof. Theviews and opinions of authors expressed herein do notnecessarily state or reflect those of the United StatesGovernment or any agency thereof.DISCLAIMERPortions of this document may be illegiblein electronic image products. Images areproduced from the best available originaldocument.demonstrate the benefits of an enterprise-wide information system for DOE/DP. Thispaper describes the architecture, features, and fhnctions of an IIIMS.BackgroundOver the past five years, Sandia National Laboratories has been working on theintegration of material management technologies to create a comprehensive materialsmanagement capability. Through these efforts Sandia has developed a materialsmanagement integration architecture based on the Zachman Framework for EnterpriseArchitecture planning model ‘l]. The architecture has three levels: enterprise, site, androorn/building. The Enterprise Materials Management architecture is shown in Figure 1.Enterprise Materials ManagementPW -*Network Data Enterprise OperationsGI!!3=services Warehouse Analysis & ModelingSystemIntegrity AnalysisLANLLFigure 1: Enterprise Materials Management ArchitectureThe goal of the Enterprise Materials Management architecture is to provide an advancedinventory information system that provides the user with analysis and modelingcapabilities to make accurate and timely decisions necessary for the management ofnuclear materials and special non-nuclear materials. This goal is realized in thearchitecture’s Enterprise Operations Analysis and Modeling module. The materials datarequired for the Enterprise Operations Analysis and Modeling will be acquired from DOEnational nuclear material databases, DOE forecasting, scheduling, and transportationdatabases, and the DOE/DP sites. The Network Services module supplies all the servicesrequired to deliver the data to the Data Warehouse. The Data Warehouse is where thedata are stored in a format appropriate for retrieval and analysis. The System Integri~Analysis module evaluates the data for consistency, duplication, and other discrepanciesassociated with merging disparate data from multiple sources.-2-To meet the goals of this project, information of interest to DOE/DP will need to beobtained from the site systems in an efficient and timely manner. This will require eachof the sites to implement an architecture similar to the Enterprise architecture. The SiteMaterials Management architecture is shown in Figure 2,Site Materials Management~EModular Monitoring & Contrai Syatarn[k pHNetwork DataSerwces WarehouseInventoryFFControlI Materi4Handling F~Figure 2: Site Materials Management ArchitectureThe same basic modules that appear in the Enterprise architecture model are required inthe Site architecture: Site Operations Analysis and Modeling, Data Warehouse, SiteIntegrity Analysis, and Network Services. The monitoring, inventory control, materialhandling, material processing, physical security, and intra-site transportation systems arethe site level systems that have the data necessary for Site Operations Analysis andModeling. The Site Operations Analysis and Modeling module would supply the datarequired for the Enterprise level analysis.Implementation of the Site level architecture would provide the DOE/DP sites with asystem that will also support their operations and modeling needs. To assure thisobjective is met, site representatives will be involved throughout the entire lifecycle ofthe project. Our project team is working to map the material management and inventoryaccounting systems from several sites onto this architecture. We are also investigatingthe requirements for operational analysis and modeling at both the enterprise and sitelevel.The lowest level of this architecture, the Monitoring and Control System module (Fig. 2),is focused on monitoring systems for inventory control and accountability, safety,security, or international safeguards within a specific room, magazine, or building. It isexpected that the underlying features of the architecture at this level will be site-specific-3-,and development as such is not a specific objective of the Integrated InventoryInformation Management System project.This project will utilize existing systems at the enterprise level (e.g., NMMSS, NMIA)and at the site level (e.g., LANMAS) to obtain the required data. Existing data systemsand their contents will be surveyed to determine their capability to collaborate and sharenecessary data. Enhancements and new system development activities will be carefullyevaluated in terms of their costs and benefits. To reduce development costs, this projectwill use tools already developed by the itiormation technology community and in use bymajor corporations to support their analysis, planning, and decision making.Initially, this project will be limited in scope to the following materials:. 239Pu. HEU, Depleted U, Natural U. Lithium, Tritium, DeuteriumOnce DOE/DP users have a system to support accurate and timely decisions for themanagement of these materials, the architecture can easily be expanded and scaled toincorporate other materials of interest to DOE/DP.ApproachThe approach to the development is business-driven rather than technology-driven. Abusiness-driven implementation stresses understanding the context in which theinformation system will be used. Experience has shown that many software developmentefforts fail because they do not adequately account for the “corporate culture” and theassociated unstated issues. A more “holistic” approach to software development, whichconsiders the development effort from many different viewpoints, has been successfullyused at Sandia to arrive at business-driven solutions ‘2].In order to focus our interactions with the sites and DOE personnel, we are using acombination of modeling techniques: 1) natural language-based information modelingand 2) business process modeling. The information modeling methodologies help uscapture the information required to address DOE’s nuclear material management needs,the data processing that occurs at the sites or at DOE, and the information flow betweenDOE and the sites.-4-In the natural language information modeling methodology, the initial problem statementis often a narrative. The methodology provides away to decompose the problemstatement into simple sentences and formally model them to unambiguously identifi allof the relationships and constraints in away the user can review them to verifi or correctthem. The information model consists of a set of facts, examples and constraints. A factconsists of two objects and the role or relationship they have with each other. The modelcan be represented in either of two ways – verbally or graphically. The verbal, naturallanguage, representation can be read and critiqued by subject matter experts with notraining in the formal methodology. The graphical representation shows relationshipsamong entities more clearly and concisely, but does require a brief explanation to beunderstood ‘3]. Figure 3 is a graphical representation of a model of an operation (e.g.,machining) that may be included in a material process (e.g., make part), that uses acertain type of equipment (e.g., lathe), that has some costs and capacity (e.g., twooperations/day) associated with it,consists of I is included///ihas fixed cost of I is fixed cost ,-- —.>of\( Dollars )\\ /’/____has variable cost of/is variablek“ ‘ Iuses I is usedby~~ QuanW ‘Jhas capacity off is capacity \ //of=----Figure 3. Information Model for a Site OperationIn the business process modeling methodology, the central item is a process which takesinformation/data as an input and transforms the inputs into one or more(information/data) outputs. The process is enabled by mechanisms which are illustratedby arrows coming in from the bottom and controlled by constraints, shown as arrowscoming from the top. Processes may be broken down into sub-processes using the sameapproach. This methodology lends itself well to atop-down look at the businessprocesses. The graphical approach can help clarifi where a business process can bestreamlined. This approach helps capture the infrastructure and information processing-5-.. details in a way complementary to the natural language information modeling approach.The input and output data flows are sets of facts identified in the information modeling.Figure 4 is a graphical representation of the DOE inventory and forecasting informationprocess.In parallel with these modeling approaches, we are exploring commercially availabletechnology options for implementation. While we may still consider data warehousingand enterprise-resource planning tools for the long-term solution, we are currentlyfocusing on PC-based modeling/simulation and optimization tools for a proof-of-conceptdemonstration. The HEU forecasting and planning example described above isessentially a supply-and-demand problem. We are in the process of building up a modelwith all of the relevant features necessary for simulation and optimization. Amodeling/simulation tool will provide an intuitive graphical user interface and the abilityto explore what-l~scenarios. An optimization tool will provide the ability to exploreoptimal solutions, either in terms of cost or time. We are also exploning communicationoptions including a Java servlet approach and the networking infrastructure provided byCOMPASS (Confederation of Models to Perform Assessments in StockpileStewardship), a DOE/DP-wide production modeling project.Forecast Guidance \User Pro! 1 F Compute ScheduledDOEUser Proi 2● Total Demand5660.1 B>User Proi 3 + DemandUser Proi 4 , v- Compute Net AvailableInventoryTotalAvailable➤ Available Allotment➤ Inventory Forecastr > FASum2iv Proi 1 Compute f@=iPts ,b AvailableSwxdv Proj 2 b supply Recovery ,Site Inventory& MaterialManagementInactive 1 F Compute UnavailableDatabasesInactive 2 Unavailable ‘nvento~ >Inactive 3InventoryFigure 4. Process Model for HEU Inventory Information Flow-6-ResultsDOE/DP requires better nuclear material management-related assessment, forecastingand planning tools in order to:● Identi@ material gaps;. Identi@ gaps in processing capabilities;. Identi& container needs;. Identifi storage requirements; and● Optimize storage volume and costs.As described above, we are in the process of identifying the major DOE informationsystems that contain the relevant data. We are using the information modeling approachto define in detail the information that is needed to address planning and forecasting ofmaterial usage and where that information resides. Data from current inventory datasystems will need to be combined with additional information, including conditiotigrade,form, material quantity, material commitments, and material processing options(including status, cost, and capacity). The sensitivity of this information is quite high,especially when aggregated in one system. As a result, computer security requirementswill be a significant constraint on any software development effort.A high-level five-year plan for this activity is being developed. During FYOO the projectis focusing on the definition of the concept and the development of a more detailedproject plan for FYO1 -FY05. A phased approach will be used to provide capabilities forDefense Programs users as soon as possible.During Phase I, the Enterprise Operations Analysis and Modeling component will exploitcapabilities that are immediately available through commercial products. The EnterpriseData Warehouse will obtain data from existing national nuclear material databases andexisting site systems. The Enterprise Network Services will utilize existing networkservices (e.g., SecureNet) and provide DOE-DP with some basic features to help answerquestions and will help to further clarify the system requirements.During Phase II, the Enterprise Operations Analysis and Modeling component will beexpanded to provide core analysis and modeling features that are not directly availablethrough the commercial products. This will establish a foundation of analysis andmodeling tools that will become more powerful as the system acquires more datathroughout the phases that follow. The core Enterprise System Integrity Analysisfeatures will be developed and the Network Services will be expanded to provide newfeatures required for connecting with and securely transmitting data from all the plannednational and site information sources.During Phase III, new functions developed during Phase II will be integrated with thePhase I system. This will include the new analysis and modeling features, the newintegrity analysis capabilities, and the new network services features and connections. Itis expected that in parallel with the Enterprise Plan, each site will have a plan to integrateand enhance their capabilities to support their local operations as well as the Enterprisesystem. This might include: the integration of existing systems to decrease redundancy-7-, .and consolidate resources; enhancements or new systems to provide additional data andsite analysis and modeling capabilities; integration of new systems and old systems; andformal testing, training, and acceptance. In addition, national nuclear material databaseenhancements are expected to become available. These new systems and data will beincorporated with the Enterprise system during this phase of the project. At the end ofPhase III, the DOE/DP will have a system that, in addition to answering questionsquickly, will help them understand the implications of decisions, monitor their decisions,and forecast future needs. Phase IV will conclude the effort with formal testing, training,and acceptance of the system.ConclusionThis paper outlines an ambitious multi-year development project to provide a state-of-the-art Integrated Inventory Information Management System for DOE/DP. This projectwill focus on understanding DOES material management requirements and developing asystem to support these needs. This project team is aware of other DOE materialsmanagement initiatives and will work to assure that the goals of the IIIMS project areconsistent and synergistic with all other DOE material management initiatives.AcknowledgmentsThe authors thank Ed Reynolds (DOE/DP), Nazir Khalil (DOE/AL) and Shirley Cox (Y-12) for their guidance and support; and Chris Pickett (Y-12) and Heidi Johnson (MHC-Pantex) for technical consultation and development support.References1.2.3.Zachman, John. “A Framework for Information Systems Architecture”, lBMSystenzsJournal, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1987.M. Petersen, and J. Mitchiner, “Developing Collaborative Environments: A HolisticSoftware Development Methodology”, SAND2000-0612C, Sandia NationalLaboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 2000.0. H. Bray, Data Fusion for Adaptive Control in Manufacturing: Impact onEngineering Information Models, SAND97-0048, Sandia National Laboratories,Albuquerque New Mexico, January 1997.-8-

An Integrated Inventory Information Management System

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An Integrated Inventory Information Management System

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