The production mission of LANL is central to US national security as well as to our institutional Nuclear Deterrent Strategic Objective. The production mission is also embodied in several of the Critical Outcomes in the Laboratory Agenda. LANL must remain at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies, business systems, and processes to ensure that we are continuously improving our efficiency, productivity, scalability, and agility, with a view to anticipating future challenges, including the evolution of the global landscape.

This SIC will ensure that the Laboratory improves efficiency in production and business systems and ensure the safety and effectiveness of the LANL components in the nation’s nuclear stockpile. Focused areas within this SIC include the following four interrelated components:

• Production-enabling resources and technologies: The transformation of the LANL production agency is unique among production processes, with a scope that transcends Laboratory organizations. Robust production-enabling resources allow for increased workflow and worker performance, and improved efficiency and productivity. Investment in this component will increase support resources and technologies.
• Production support and innovation: Increasing manufacturing throughput, reducing time- or people-intensive processes, and decreasing production lags due to system upset events through technology investment allows LANL to reliably manage production outcomes. Investment in this component will support research and development of more efficient and robust production support processes and innovation of materials manufacturing, fabrication, and characterization. 
• Integrated planning processes and systems: Manufacturing and material planning processes are essential in determining the materials and quantities required in production and managing their flow to ensure timely order fulfillment. Investment in this component will help develop contemporary integrated manufacturing and material planning processes and systems.
• Employee retention: Decreasing the potential for upset events through increasing worker knowledge and retention, and ensuring the needed operational state of our manufacturing infrastructure, allows LANL to reduce significant delays and excessive rework, and is essential to successful enterprise products and projects. Investment in this component will aid in employee retention through development programs and projects that mitigate manufacturing risks across multiple programs. 

By investing in these high-level foundational needs, we will enable the scalability of production capability and the necessary supporting organizational maturity to achieve a robust, sustainable manufacturing capability with predictable results across the nation's plutonium and non-nuclear component production at LANL.

This SIC supports the Critical Outcomes in pit production, non-nuclear production, and responsive operations.