The Defense Waste Processing Facilities (DWPF) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) is used to process high-level radioactive waste from the Tank Farm into borosilicate glass to reduce the mobility of the radio-nuclides and has processed and vitrified nuclear wastes into canisters for long-term disposal since FY96. All wastes vitrified to date in DWPF are “sludge only” wastes. The new selected technologies for treating the salt waste are Actinide Removal Process (ARP) and Caustic Side Solvent Extraction process (CSSX). The Modular CSSX Unit (MCU) is a cesium removal process that will be operated downstream of the ARP. The MCU is a short-term method for cesium removal, which utilizes the same technology as the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF). Once the SWPF becomes operational, the MCU will be shutdown. MCU, ARP, Waste Transfer Lines, and SWPF are projects in SRS Salt Processing Program.

The modeling task is challenging because there are six different facilities/projects/processes involved, i.e., Tank Farm, ARP, MCU, Saltstone, Waste Transfer Lines, and DWPF. Each facility, project, and process has their own management team and organization, with its own fiscal responsibility and performance accountability. In addition, from a task cost perspective, each facility is only interested in modeling effort directly associated with their facility.