The future of the Lab
OK, here is a topic. What ideas do all of us (whomever is reading the blog and Eric) have to help LANL diversity in a smart manner, such that we retain the good workforce we have now (that does not mean retain all, just halt attrition at the top level) and attract the workforce of tomorrow?
- GL
The text above was a question by GL as a comment under the post titled "Winston Churchill". I put it at the top so that it would be easier for people to find.
Please comment.
I moved it to the top again. There is starting to be a discussion in the comment section.
If we are going to do anything to avoid becoming solely a pit production facility, I think that the time to do it is now. In a few months, I think that the time will have passed.
There has been a request to move this to the top again so that more can find this post and join the discussion. To those new people, welcome.
A post from July 2007 and again from December 2007
posted by Eric at
5:31 PM
12 Comments:
Here are two thoughts to get the discussion going.
1. The top scientists will not leave if they can get their science done here, meet their deadlines, and have reasonable costs.
One way to do this is to split the Lab into multiple parts at a financial and organizational level so that science can be completed on time and under budget without the overhead imposed to cover unfunded weapons security costs.
For myself, as an example, I have two projects that would fit into diversifying the Lab. I am unlikely to make them part of the Lab because I cannot figure out a way to make them part of the Lab that makes sense to me.
2. As to attracting the new workforce, I have a daughter who is a physicist and her boyfriend who is an expert in computer graphics, especially for games. They have worked at LANL over a few summers.
They are not planning having careers here.
They are not planning on having careers here because they are ambitious and feel that they can get more accomplished in fields that they care about elsewhere.
LANL could attract them by diversifying into parts of nanotech and computer science that are current topics elsewhere and then by giving them the resources to compete with others globally.
I think that "making LANL attractive to the young" is the winning strategy across a lot of people.
More later, once others join the conversation. I would like a discussion not a monologue.
A lot more of my thoughts can be found at ScienceAtLanl (see link on the left of the main page) and in posts below.
I had commented on the "What Now?" thread on LANL-the-rest-of-the-story blog (7.4.07 9:22 & 7.5.07 1:23, 3:45) because I can see a future with a much more diverse capability and funding base.
I could easily see this facility being reduced to TA-55 and margins nearby to support pit production if they overcome some of the transportation concerns (railroad, etc).
That would largely leave an infrastructure that would or could be available for a consortium of world-class thinkers and researchers to take over (negotiated, of course, not hostile taker) and operate a research and science-based laboratory with a wide range of opportunities.
The brainstorming isn't difficult - rather, it is fun and exciting. The courage and work to be done is a little daunting to me though.
To me, the courage and work are a lot daunting.
Maybe with more of us, we can spread the work around.
A challenge -
I have a standing offer that if we can get a few people working on making a good future for the lab then we will get a lot more help. The first step is to get the few people.
It is daunting to start to improve the Lab. It is less daunting to do nothing and hope that things turn out decently for a person.
Why is it so hard, even anonymously, to make a couple of suggestions for improvement?
I am no longer convinced that our costs are really costing us that much business. It is my understanding that we really do not cost that much more than the other national laboratories. Some of the data I have seen on this is actually quite revealing. It may not be the whole story, but claiming we cost too much is a cop out without the data to back it up.
Terry Wallace is working on turning us into a "capabilities" laboratory which, to first order, is like your number 1 above -- breaking the lab into pieces.
To rebuild the lab and make it viable, we need to think about what capabilities we have that are truely unique and what the opportunities are to fund them, and go after them with single-minded relentlessness. That means there is a lot of stuff that we would not do anymore.
- GL
I agree completely.
The question is : Who will lead this effort?
On costs, I do not know, project by project, if LANL costs too much.
In WFO, universities and most national labs are dramatically cheaper. If WFO is the future, then LANL's costs probably need to decrease.
In weapons, who knows? LANL's weapons cost may actually be low compared to other labs, prorated for the level of the employee (an assembly tech is not an experienced Ph.D.), because WFO seems to be paying substantial costs that are actually weapons related, such as security.
I have tried to use a standard financial tool - Activity Based Costing - to see what the real costs are for particular WFO projects and for certain weapons projects. Like everyone else including Motorola, I gave up. It is more time consuming to follow the money than I was willing to do.
GL,
Where can I find some of this cost data?
Like you, I would like some facts.
Thanks,
Unfortunately (and this is the bad part about LANS I guess), it is not available publicly that I know of. I don't know why, though. If the analysis is correct, why not make it public?
- GL
Here is another thought.
Most of the people who work at LANL expect someone else to provide security for them.
At one point, it was Pete Domenici. In the heyday of the Lab, it was group leaders and division leaders.
Most of the people do not expect to provide their own security.
Now, they have to band together to provide this security and to preserve the legacy that was the heyday of the Lab under UC.
Banding together is hard but is necessary. Who, other than me, will start?
Diversify
Diversify in types of work done at the Lab, for instance in alternative energy.
Diversify in funding sources.
Here the goal is to have less than 20% of the Lab's budget come from DOE/NNSA.
Among the non DOE funding would be DoD, universities, and companies. Such funding would be tricky to get but would release the stranglehold of nuclear weapons funding.
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