Government-Sector Services Group
If you want to be laser focused on chemical process engineering and you want to be successful, you need to offer your services to all business sectors and industries. After a few years of performing only private-sector process engineering, PROCESS decided to pursue government-sector clients. We did this to add more balance to our business plan and because one of the largest Department of Energy (DOE) sites is in our backyard, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Our first government-sector projects were landed in 1999 with the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Both have remained continual and consistent clients. Over the years we have also done work for DOE prime and subcontractors at the Savannah River and Hanford sites, and for the Idaho National Laboratory and the National Renewables Energy Laboratory. These clients have included both production and research facilities. While the vast majority of our government work has been for DOE contractors, PROCESS has more recently performed projects for the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Defense (DoD) M&O contractor at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Radford, Virginia and the Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Kingsport, Tennessee. Working through other engineering firms and clients, PROCESS has also performed process design support for the Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. Chalk River Facility and for the ITER energy project, a multi-national large-scale fusion power demonstration being built in France.
The basics of process engineering are the same regardless of the business sector in which they are performed. However, process design work in the government-sector is more often subjected to additional challenges because we are dealing with nuclear materials, energetic materials, or complicated wastes or by-products. The challenges include personnel and facility security, rigorous quality, and a plethora of safety requirements. Over the years, PROCESS has learned to work effectively in the government sector environment. PROCESS holds a non-possessing security clearance, a favorable Foreign Ownership, Control, and Influence (FOCI) determination, and employs a large number of Q-cleared chemical engineers. PROCESS engineers normally work under our clients’ quality assurance (QA) programs when working for government-sector clients. In doing so, we have performed many projects under QA programs compliant with NQA-1 and ISO 9000. The nature of these projects demands rigorous quality and safety to protect the public. PROCESS’ engineers have a great deal of experience in supporting the development and implementation of DOE/NNSA facility safety basis documentation and NRC integrated safety management documentation. PROCESS now has more than 25 years of familiarity in working in the rigorous world of government-sector process engineering.