August 2015

Review of Emergency Management Exercise Program

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) independent Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) conducted a review of National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) exercise program.  This review complements EA’s severe event response review performed at Y-12 in 2014 to allow conclusions based on a more complete evaluation of the exercise program.  The purpose of this EA assessment was to evaluate the exercise program’s effectiveness in validating, through tests and demonstrations, all elements of the Y-12 emergency management program and fostering continuous program improvements.  EA performed this review from March 24 to April 9, 2015.  EA also drew on its observations of Y-12 exercise planning and execution activities from the 2014 site-level exercise to reach conclusions for this review.