The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in partnership with the Department of
Defense, maintains the Nation's arsenal of nuclear weapons through a geographically dispersed
Nuclear Weapons Complex (Complex). In support of this mission, NNSA relies upon numerous
and disparate site-specific and cross-Complex information systems to help manage the nuclear
weapon product life-cycle process. NNSA, in its own planning documents, has noted that since
Fiscal Year (FY) 2000, it had devoted considerable resources to these systems, acknowledging
that their operation and management costs were not always well defined nor completely
understood.
To respond effectively to changing requirements, and, share and exchange weapon product
information among sites, NNSA established its Product Realization Integrated Digital Enterprise
(PRIDE) Program in FY 2007. PRIDE was established to develop and deploy a modernized,
integrated suite of enhanced information technology (IT) capabilities to securely deliver weapon
product life-cycle information to users across sites. NNSA anticipated that PRIDE would result
in a reduction in weapon development cycle times and associated expenses. By the second year
of the program, PRIDE consisted of over 100 sub-projects. NNSA originally planned to
complete development activities within the PRIDE program by the end of FY 2014 at a projected
total cost of approximately $83 million. Given the importance and significant cost of the PRIDE
initiative, we conducted this audit to determine whether development had been managed in a
manner that would permit the system to achieve its intended goals and objectives.
