Materials Control & Accountability System Readiness for HEUMF Operation at the Y-12 National Security Complex

The new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex is an impressive $549 million dollar facility designed for efficient, safe and secure storage of a vital national security asset. It is the first major engineering, procurement, and construction project to be undertaken at Y-12 since the 1970s. The new facility design and its unique operations created new requirements on the structure of Y-12’s Materials Control and Accountability (MCA) system. A systems development project was begun in 2007 to ensure continued MCA system inter-operability. This paper describes the system development process, the verification steps, and subsequent lessons learned to ensure that the MCA system met operational readiness requirements of the new facility.