BENCHMARKING MSET: A PROGRESS REPORT ON THE MC&A SYSTEM EFFECTIVENESS TOOL

The Material Control and Accountability (MC&A) System Effectiveness Tool (MSET) was introduced at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) 48th Annual Meeting in July, 2007. The introduction included two papers and displays of a nuclear MC&A model of fundamental elements and the use of probabilistic risk assessment technology for evaluating MC&A effectiveness and relative risk contributions. An effective system must establish a baseline risk portrayal for the facility in question and must address the threat posed by an active or passive \"insider\" acting alone or in collusion that could attempt protracted or abrupt diversion of attractive nuclear material. MSET has progressed through a peer review and the detailed stages for using the Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) approach to determine effectiveness and efficiency of the fundamental elements of MC&A necessary to establish the baseline risk for selected facilities. The techniques for assessing the insider threat issue have been explored and the MSET tool has been shown to be an effective vehicle for quantitative relative risk assessment for a MC&A system. This progress report is to provide a summary of the achievements and formal process of benchmarking to demonstrate that the system will work and meet objectives. Key activities include: (1) an exercise applying the PRA approach to a hypothetical nuclear facility, (2) refinement of a questionnaire that can be used to generate facility data needed to quantify the basic MC&A events to the model, (3) an exercise applying the technology to an existing nuclear facility to further evaluate the technology, and (4) documentation of the model for utilization as directed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of International Material Protection and Cooperation. Benchmarking assists in determining dependability of a uniform, repeatable, and cost-effective way of performing exercises in different systems involving processing and/or storage Material Balance Areas (MBAs), domestic or international sites, scalable to small and large systems, while recognizing graded safeguards among site, nuclear material categorization, and MBA-specific activities or components. The results will address any weaknesses and enable the advantages of a model system that can be used at a facility with minimum prescriptive rules by the federal authority and provide for maximum sustainable performance using continuing improvements in state-of-the science technology and methods.