Examine Success of the The National Ignition Facility (NIF) (Research Paper Sample)

NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY PROJECT
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National Ignition Facility Project
Introduction
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) project constructed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a project that faced management issues from the start became one of the successful projects around the world. NIF proved growing fusion yields, through manipulating these parameters in its experiments; however, the project was a success, where it attained its titular goal because the management discovered some management issues and took some steps to salvage the project (Schwalbe 2010). Despite the financing issues that plagued this project, these ended up having minimal effect on NIF’ds science capacity. Rather, the codes used to predict the ignition performance failed to predict the appearance of a huge Rayleigh-Tailor instability on the surface of the fusion, restricting NIF’s capacity to attain the needed ignition. NIF was officially sponsored by the U.S Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This project was approved in 1995 (DOE 2000).
The stadium-size facility was to be 500,000 square feet. They excavated more than 210,000 cubic yards of soil, poured nearly 73,000 cubic yards of concrete, and had over 7,000 employees completed the project three weeks ahead of the schedule, as well as $2 million under the budget. The National Ignition Facility is a cosmological case of how appropriately applied project management excellence may bring together worldwide teams to deliver a project of this scale and significance proficiently. Furthermore, there were many challenges to overpower. One was the target bay that serves as the target point for about 192 lasers had to be installed 45 feet below the ground. Concrete had been poured for 18 hours to conquer this challenge. The other challenged happened six months following ground breaking when heavy rains from El Nino flooded the NIF work site. It took wet weather building engineers about three weeks to restore the project. Then a month later, crews unearthed the remains of 16,000-year-old remains of a mammoth. Construction was stopped for four days until experts worked to take away and preserve the skeleton (DOE 2000)
Stakeholder Analysis
The NIF project, which was constructed at and led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, CA, became the world biggest and highest-energy laser attributed to the contribution by the major stakeholders. Accomplished by a global teamwork that included representatives from the academia, government, as well as industrial partners the project goals was attained. In addition, the project sponsor was the U.S Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). They contributed massively towards the success of the project because they provided the needed funding. They monitored the project to ensure that the project was successful, which means that they are accountable for the entire stages of the project. The other stakeholder that contributed to the success of the project was the input of project manager (Hutchinson 2012). The project manager was charged with handling day-to-day management of the project. The manager interacts with project team members who handle the project. The project team members work in teams to ensure that the goals of the project and tasks are handled (Khosrow-Pour 2000).
Management of the Project
The project was honored in 2010 by Project Management Institute (PMI) as the winner of the prestigious PMI Project of the Year Award. The award acknowledged the achievements of the project team for better-quality performance, ideal project management, implementation, novelty in the application of modern project management technology and standards. In 1999, the project was under intense scrutiny, because there were forecasts of massive schedule, as well as overruns. Thus, the project management teams had miscalculated the project scope and significantly miscalculated their engineering complexity. This was due to mismanagement, as well as inadequate DOE oversight. Challenges begun when Lawrence Livermore officials planned, and DOE approved an NIF budget, as well as a construction cost contingency, which were inadequate. The project manager placed in-charge of NIF had little experience directing huge projects and had no control over separately financed laser research and development programs, which were essential to NIF’s success that leads to poorly integrated management team (DOE 2002).
When the problems began to appear, there were no actions that were taken to deal with them. It was over six months before anything was done. To get the project back on track, the project team designed new schedule and baseline. New costs, as well risk management practices were established. A new senior leadership was engendered, and industrial companies were recruited as partners (Schwalbe 2010). Working together, the project team established the world’s biggest and greatest energy laser and biggest optical instrument. The 192 laser beams were built using 6o miles of fiber optics, mirrors, light amplifier, as well as crystals. Every laser fired a tiny target of hydrogen fuel housed in 130-ton target chamber. When the laser hits, the hydrogen could heat up to 180 million degrees Fahrenheit or approximately 100 million degrees Celsius.
Faced with the challenge with the need to secure adequate potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals large enough to be cut into plates that will convert infrared laser beams into ultraviolet ray, the project team turned to Moscow State University in Russia. Accordingly, the scientist from the university assisted design a method to grow the crystals in two months contrasted to the two years needed to do it (Khosrow-Pour 2000).
After about seven years of experimenting, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) approved the NIF’s equipment in March 2009. The facility opened two months later. Livermore said that scientists at the facility set a world record by firing more than one mega jewel of ultraviolet into a target the size of a pencil eraser (Yirka 2011). Additionally, this was attributed to great project management, competency among the project managers and team members because the project objectives had been met during this time. That is nearly 30 times the amount of energy previously delivered by any laser system. The breakthrough could not have been feasible without the coordinated efforts and commitment of the NIF project management team. NIF’s project management team called the accomplishment of the main milestone, which shows the facility’s reliability, as well as power. National Ignition Facility underscored the fact that the experiment shown the integration of the complex systems needed for an ignition campaign. Through the use of skilled, as well as certified project team employed and the rigorous application of the project management processes, standards, and methods promulgated by the Project Management Institute as embodied in A Project Management Body of Knowledge. The project was nearly completed on a budget of $2 million under the $3,502 million, three weeks of the schedule (Hutchinson 2012).
Critical Analysis of the Project Outcome
The project management skills demonstrated by the project managers, sponsors, and team members contributed immensely to the success of this great project. Since its finishing point, the NIF has again and again demonstrated exceptional reliability and accessibility, serving a wide scientific society, exploring novel technologies in energy production, as well as new frontiers in astrophysics, materials science, and nuclear science.  The NIF project that was managed by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was a great success because of the certified personnel and through the application of PMI principles, as well as standards to undertake the project through all the phases. Furthermore, by utilizing PMI ethics and principles, the project design and commissioning was finished with the assistance of a worldwide cooperat...