The Hanford Vit Plant recently hosted a commercial-grade dedication (CGD) supplier collaboration workshop to continue its effort to ensure quality through increased engagement and open communication with its suppliers.
Representatives from eight of the Vit Plant’s key suppliers attended the event focused on improving CGD execution at all levels of the supply chain.
The workshop focused on suppliers that provide items and services with nuclear safety functions at the Vit Plant, which is managed by Bechtel National, Inc., (BNI) for the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP).
“The collaboration workshops create a foundation for success by allowing us to build partnerships and learning environments with our suppliers,” said Trisha O’Toole, BNI’s deputy manager of Procurement and Subcontracts.
The focus of the two-day workshop was to optimize CGD-related activities for application in the Vit Plant’s engineering, procurement, and construction environment through face-to-face collaboration, sharing of best practices and lessons learned, and leveraging supplier and subcontractor experience. Senior managers and staff from the Vit Plant and ORP conducted presentations, collaborative workshops, and question and answer sessions. Two suppliers presented their typical assembly of CGD packages to satisfy the documentation requirements of their dedication activities.
The Vit Plant team collected feedback from the suppliers on various topics to identify areas for improvement within the supply chain processes and ongoing collaboration opportunities with suppliers who are completing CGD activities for services, materials, and equipment for the Vit Plant.
“It is encouraging to see this collaborative effort drive success in a very complex process on this project,” said Spencer Daw, BNI’s CGD program manager.
This was the second event bringing Vit Plant and ORP managers and staff together with suppliers. Last August, the Vit Plant held a supply chain collaboration event with 50 key suppliers and subcontractors in Richland.
###