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The following description of, and references
for, the Laboratory Integrated Prioritization System was provided on the
original Laboratory Integrated Prioritization System Home Page in 1996. It is
provided here for historical purposes as to its status of the System as
dicussed by the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity author under the topic
Laboratory Integrated Prioritization System Project and when he functioned as
the Defense Programs Line Manager directing the project and subsequently
functioned as the Departent of Energy Project Manager.
Description
The
Laboratory Integration and Prioritization System (LIPS) was
developed in 1993 to prioritize laboratory activities that
compete for limited resources. The Los Alamos National Laboratory
(LANL), the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and
the Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) collaborated with DOE
Defense Programs to develop a risk-based prioritization system
and implementation process to achieve as much risk reduction and
benefit enhancement as possible with available resources.
The LIPS
approach enables management to thoroughly, accurately,
and defensibly consider the diverse objectives of competing
projects as well as the diverse viewpoints of
stakeholders. It was designed as a management tool for
prioritizing operational activities or tasks. These activities or
tasks may address continuing requirements or new problems and
issues.
Unlike many other prioritization processes, LIPS is used to
identify the activities producing the most cost-effective risk
reduction, not to identify the activities addressing the greatest
hazard or source of risk. LIPS prioritizes the value of
solutions, not the severity of problems. Despite the emphasis on
cost-effective risk reduction, the LIPS prioritization model can
be used to help track and report on baseline risk levels. The
most appropriate applications of LIPS arise when managers have to
allocate limited resources to many different proposed activities.
Applications of LIPS are particularly useful when activities are
costly, are in different sub-functional areas managed by several
different individuals, and/or the constraint on available
resources is tight enough to generate difficult, and possibly
unpopular, decisions.
Managers may use LIPS to evaluate all activities within an
organizational or functional area. They may also elect to
evaluate only the subset of their activities about which funding
or manpower decisions are particularly hard, such as
investment/divestment options. LIPS could also be used to select the
most effective solution to a problem from several
competing
solutions. Alternatively, if
limited funding prevents all activities from being undertaken
simultaneously, the decision on which ones to implement could be
assisted by a ranking of only those activities for which some
flexibility exists.
This systematic prioritization procedure helps managers make
rational choices in the midst of technical, environmental, legal,
economic, and political complexities. The
approach documents decision-making logic and helps
managers explain and defend the allocation of resources. The
process also provides a basis for communicating the
logic of prioritization to the public, employees, regulators, and
if necessary, the
courts.
LIPS was designed to do the following.
-
Calculate the risk and benefits of
proposed activities in equivalent dollars.
-
Ensure consistency and ease of
interpretation across DOE sites while accurately
considering site-specific differences in objectives.
-
Prioritize a large number of
diverse activities such as mission or safeguards and
security.
-
Give appropriate credit for
partial, sequential, and phased-action plans.
-
Facilitate communication of results
to a wide range of audiences, including DOE, the public,
the courts, and outside technical reviewers.
-
Provide technical defensibility to
independent organizations and regulators.
Through its broad coverage of decision
objectives, LIPS is applicable to any set of activities.
Its greatest value comes when the diversity of the activities is
greatest (e.g., when some pertain primarily to health and safety,
others to enhancing mission, and others to improving
productivity). LIPS allows competing objectives to be compared on
the same scale and scored on a benefit-to-cost basis.
References/Reading List
Anderson et al, Supporting
Documentation: Laboratory Integration and Prioritization System,
LAUR 94-1696
Anderson, R.G., Gunderson, T., Cost Benefit of Compliance at
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, LAUR 94-4240
Anderson, R.G., Merkhofer, M.W., Voth, M., Sire, D., Risk
Based Prioritization of the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory
Environmental Programs, ASME, July 1995, PVP Vol. 296/SERA
VOL 3 page 437 LAUR 95-661
Anderson et al, Lessons Learned in the Application of the
Laboratory Integration and Prioritization System: The Slaying of
Dragons, LAUR 95-2026
Anderson, R.G., Voth, M., Merkhofer, M.W., Bayo
Canyon-Analysis of Remedial Alternatives using LIPS, LANL
LAUR-95-3686, 1995
Anderson, R.G., Voth, M., Patton, A., Cost Benefit
Analysis of Seismic Upgrades to the LANL Administration Building
using LIPS, LANL LAUR-95-3580, 1995
Anderson, R.G., The Laboratory Integration and Prioritization
System, Trials, Tributes, and Tribulations, Second Annual
Prioritization Workshop, Idaho Falls, Idaho, August 1995,
LAUR-95-4215
Anderson et al, An Introduction to The Laboratory Integration
and Prioritization System, LANL, 1994
Anderson, R.G., Voth, M., Evaluation of Support Services:
Wellness Center, LANL internal report, 1995
Anderson, R.G., The Comparison of Two Modeling Techniques
Designed to Address a Reduction in Force, LANL 1996
Anderson, R.G., Voth, M., Prioritization of the ES&H Five
Year Plan; A Comparison of the ES&H Risk-Based Priority Model
(RPM) and the Laboratory Integration and Prioritization System
(LIPS), LANL 1996
Barber, D.S., Mead, J.W., Applying the Laboratory Integration
and Prioritization System (LIPS) to Decision Making at Sandia
National Laboratories, Second Annual Prioritization Workshop,
Idaho Falls, Idaho, August, 1995
Bendure, A., Selecting a Risk-Based Tool to Aid in Decision
Making, ASME, 1995
Bennett, C.T., Strait, S., Using The Laboratory Integration
and Prioritization System (LIPS) to Promote Total Quality
Management (TQM) in the DOE, Second Annual Prioritization
Workshop, Idaho Falls, Idaho, August 1995
Faust et al, CMR Upgrades Project Cost Benefit
Analysis, LANL, March 1995
Jenni, K.E., Merkhofer, M.W., Williams, C., The Rise and Fall
of a Risk-Based Priority System: Lessons from DOE's Environmental
Restoration Priority System, Risk Analysis, vol, 15, No. 3,
1995
Jorgensen, J., Anderson, R.G., LIPS verses MUA, Second
Annual Prioritization Workshop, Idaho Falls, Idaho, August 1995
Krill, S., LIPS Regulatory Comparison, SAIC, Interim
Draft 6-7-95
Merkhofer, M.W., Conway, R., Anderson, R.G., A Successful
Effort to Involve Stakeholders in the Selection of a Site for a
Corrective Action Management Unit, ADA, 1995
Merkhofer, M.W., Anderson, R.G. Requirements and
Guidelines for Risk-Based Prioritization of Government Activities,
LANL, June, 1995, LAUR-95-4214
Randall, E.C., Toolbox Approach to Risk Based Prioritization,
Second Annual Prioritization Workshop, Idaho Falls, Idaho, August
1995
Voth, M., Anderson, R.G., Cost Benefit Analysis of Interim
Storage Alternatives at Rocky Flats using the Laboratory
Integration and Prioritization System, November 1995
Voth, M., Quantifying the Benefits of Prioritization,
Second Annual Prioritization Workshop, Idaho Falls, Idaho, August
1995.
Voth, M., Merkhofer, M.W., Anderson, R.G., The
Laboratory Integration and Prioritization System: Validation,
LANL, LAUR-95-3687, 1995
White House Issues Benefit-Cost Guidance, Ending Months of
Debate, Risk Policy Report, January 31, 1996, Special Report
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