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Dorfan Today: The Beat Goes On*

(Photo - Jonathan Dorfan)Friday was a real "feel-good" for all of us. What pleased me the most was the sense of unity, pride and joy that we, the SLAC family, felt as we sat 1,000 strong under the tent. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our staff who made the LCLS groundbreaking such an enormous success. It was a mammoth event put together on very short notice. There are too many individuals to thank, so rather I will acknowledge their groups. A huge "thank you" to those from: Communications for the planning, invitations and media; SLAC InfoMedia Solutions in Technical Information Services for the video and invitation; Security for the transportation plan and logistics, and CEF for the safety oversight and the carpentry. I am very grateful for the outstanding cooperation that we had from Turner Construction.

With the elation of Friday foremost on our minds, we move on to two very busy weeks, each filled with high-level external reviews. From Tuesday through Thursday of this week, the DOE's Office of Science will conduct a Management, Technical, Cost and Schedule (Lehman) review of the LCLS Project. In addition, the PEP-II Machine Advisory Group meets on Wednesday and Thursday.

And beginning next week, from October 30th through November 9th, an eleven member DOE team will evaluate our Integrated Safety and Environmental Management System (or ISEMS as we commonly refer to it). This team is from the Office of Independent Oversight (OIO) which is not part of the three under-secretariats of DOE. To maintain independence, OIO is part of the newly formed Office of Health, Safety and Security which reports directly to the Secretary of Energy. ISEMS assessment teams in past years have been staffed from within the Office of Science, so we can expect a different style of review this time around. The OIO will be reviewing the ten DOE Science labs in a two-three year period and its our turn next week. Recently they have completed reviews of Argonne National Laboratory and Oakridge National Laboratory.

Though we have had many ISEMS reviews over the last two years, the OIO evaluation is the most extensive of all. The team will spend the eleven-day evaluation period assessing the effectiveness of our ISEMS and its systems and practices in order to identify areas we should strengthen. We expect they will interview SLAC employees and users, observe work being accomplished, and evaluate documents and records in reaching their final conclusions.

Each OIO team member has been assigned a SLAC counterpart, sometimes referred to as an escort. The counterpart will accompany the OIO team member on all activities. The counterpart will generally give prior notice to both building managers and line management of OIO activity in their area. As always in these situations, please be forthright and cooperative in your conversations with the OIO team.

The final report from the OIO team will be presented in the last week of November. Any findings will require SLAC to prepare a corrective action plan.

While here on-site, the OIO evaluation team will occupy Building 266. My sincere thanks to the BaBar project staff for lending this space so as to best support the OIO team.

If you have questions about this evaluation, don't hesitate to contact Robin Wendt, our Interim Director, Office of Assurance at x4295.

* Chart-topper by Sonny and Cher, 1967

—Jonathan Dorfan, October 23, 2006


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