The GAO report states "NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the
material because it had kept few records of the process when the
material was made in the 1980s and almost all staff with expertise on
production had retired or left the agency."

While this does highlight nicely the importance of keeping good records,
it should also highlight the importance of a formal "knowledge transfer"
program so that knowledge that is not in the formal recordkeeping
process (for whatever reasons--and there may well be good reasons) is
not lost when employees leave an organisation.

Unfortunately, in its "Recommendations" section, the GAO report says
nothing about improving basic records management, much less considering
a knowledge transfer program. Another opportunity lost, it would seem.

The GAO report "NUCLEAR WEAPONS - NNSA and DOD Need to More Effectively
Manage the Stockpile Life Extension Program", GAO-09-385 (March 2009),
is at the URL http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09385.pdf.


Best regards.

Fred
===================================================================
Frederic J. Grevin
Deputy Commissioner and Chief Information Officer
The City of New York,
Department of Records
Email: [log in to unmask]
Land phone: 212.788.8615
Cell phone: 347.436.5360
Fax:  212.788.8614
www.nyc.gov/records
31 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Peter Kurilecz
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 16:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] RAINdrop How to make a bomb

"NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because *it
had
kept few records of the process* when the material was made in the
1980s"

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2494129.0.0.php

-- 
Peter Kurilecz CRM CA
[log in to unmask]
Richmond, Va
Information not relevant for my reply has been deleted to reduce the
electronic footprint and to save the sanity of digest subscribers

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