Uranium Enrichment Facility Rises Out of New Mexico Desert

From the start, the strong partnership between CSC and Louisiana Energy Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of URENCO, has been crucial to the success of the United States' first uranium enrichment facility in 30 years. With both LES's IT management team and our leadership team working together as peers, the construction of the National Enrichment Facility in the New Mexico desert remains on schedule and within budget.

"The IT element for our business is hugely important in terms of reliability of business systems and — as we get into the production buildings — reliability of control systems and reliability of communication systems across our site," says LES chief financial officer Tony King of the facility, which will provide the United States with a domestic source of enriched uranium for its commercial nuclear power plants.

At full capacity, the plant is estimated to produce sufficient enriched uranium for nuclear fuel to provide approximately 10 percent of America's electricity needs.

"Based on the fact that it's a greenfield site — that we're literally building out of the sand - the remoteness was a big challenge in terms of IT infrastructure," says CSC account manager Rick Cassidy. "They've since run fiber optic cable all the way around the site, from each of the adjoining closest communities. We now have the network bandwidth that we need to be able to communicate on a global basis."

			The "Soft" Factors Working on a greenfield project in New Mexico means a weekly one-way 10-plus hour commute for those traveling from the east and west coasts. To keep employees motivated and foster a team feeling, LES provides a fitness trailer for everyone onsite. And various departments have formed volleyball and bowling teams, along with movie nights. "Those soft factors matter because they really do affect the sustainability of the team," says Jim Hawkins, director of IT for LES. "One of the things as LES management I've tried to facilitate is a team feeling here that doesn't care whether you're CSC or LES or whomever. You're part of the IT team. And we're here to accomplish something."     Want more information? Learn more about our Chemical, Energy & Natural Resources Group. Contact us. Download a PDF of this story.

Building a robust IT infrastructure

Given the lack of mature infrastructure in the area - along with the dearth of experience necessary to provide enterprise-level service expectations — LES turned to CSC to provide a global level of services and support, resulting in a unified IT function. CSC also continues to provide outsourcing, project and consulting work at URENCO facilities in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

In Eunice, N.M., an on-site CSC team with a broad set of capabilities is setting up, maintaining and hosting all of the facility's IT operational infrastructure — including all network, desktop and application support, along with backup, recovery and data management. The team also built and installed an SAP implementation to run purchasing, financing, warehousing, plant maintenance and human resources.

URENCO and CSC have previously dealt with government compliance issues for the European facilities. But adhering to the much more stringent U.S. standards was a real challenge, with LES receiving a combined construction and operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to begin operations while the facility is still under construction. Uranium enrichment will begin at the end of 2009, with construction continuing through 2015. An estimated 350 people — including a CSC IT team — will work at the facility during this time.

"The work, for our people, is just incredible," says Rob Ash, CSC managing director, who's been involved with LES since discussions began in June 2006. "We have people who have been on this project since there wasn't a single wall up at the building site. People have been able to see this grow from nothing to something that's going to be a pretty significant manufacturing facility."

Planning for opening day

While a construction crew continues building a mini-city in New Mexico's Lea County for the project's trailer-housed 1,200 team members — engineers, project managers, construction schedulers and others — the IT team focuses on ensuring a cohesive infrastructure.

"We need to make sure all of these pieces, whether people issues, construction issues, IT or further infrastructure issues, come together at the right time," says King, "so that we can prove to our regulator and to LES and URENCO that we're ready to start operating this plant in the way that it needs to be operated, which is high quality and high safety, with a well-trained staff."