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Performance Assurance
What is Performance Assurance?
Performance Assurance is the outcome of a program that evaluates Contractor Assurance Systems (CAS) and provides recommendations designed to help ensure prevention of events, rather than responding to events. This is accomplished by evaluating issue identification; performance assessment; causal analysis; extent-of-condition; and tracking, trending and corrective action management processes, including effectiveness reviews. Performance Assurance can be done from either an interdisciplinary perspective, crosscutting all programs and disciplines, or from the perspective of examination of individual programs. In addressing ESH&Q issues effectively before they become events, Performance Assurance programs and practices play an important role in helping to avoid events that can shut operations down, postpone projects, cause lost work days (or worse), and result in enforcement and other outside investigations and audits (e.g., DFNSB, GAO, etc.).
Why is Performance Assurance Important?
The DOE Complex has been criticized for managing performance by event and correction (reactively), rather than assessment and prevention (proactively). Implementation of ISMS, VPP, and HPI have somewhat achieved the desired results from an OSHA perspective. However, it is risky to assume, based upon safety statistics that safety processes are working as they should, without verification through effective performance assessment programs. In addition, significant safety performance vulnerabilities exist that can affect disciplined operations at DOE sites. Although CAS have been implemented, at least on paper, per DOE Order 226.1A (Implementation of Department of Energy Oversight Policy), evidence indicates that the CAS are not meeting one of their most significant objectives which is to “establish and effectively implement corrective and preventive actions.”
Who Are the Members of the Performance Assurance Team?
Dade Moeller & Associates has collaborated with three other organizations to develop an approach that will provide the highest caliber of CAS evaluation and development of effective corrective actions. These four companies, Dade Moeller & Associates, Longenecker & Associates, Epsilon Systems Solutions, and EnergX, LLC, have a long association with the Department of Energy and the interdisciplinary talents and problem solving skills to assist contractors in implementation of effective Performance Assurance programs, as well as to conduct independent assessments of established programs. These four companies call upon each other's resources to ensure that the expertise matching the client needs is applied. Our available resources, experience, and insight ensure that the assessment and recommendations will be completed efficiently and with minimal impact to ongoing operations, as well as assisting in the implementation of recommendations, training of staff, and subsequent evaluation of effectiveness if desired.