MySmartPlans for the NNSA National Security Campus Development Project – An Amazing Success Story

Written by Douglas Benton, Project Manager for GSA Heartland Region

In 2006 the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. General Services Administration began their partnership to modernize the NNSA manufacturing plant in Kansas City, MO. The government determined that it would be best to build a replacement facility, and so began the programming and funding process. In 2010, after a competitive procurement, GSA awarded a contract to a development team that was led by CenterPoint Properties.

The hard construction cost would exceed five hundred million dollars. The nominally one-billion-dollar development and relocation into the 1,500,000 square feet campus would involve thousands of people, so Internet-based collaboration was an economic necessity.

The NNSA NSC development project used MySmartPlans dashboards to manage communications. At its peak, approximately 175 firms and over 1000 users registered to securely access information that was posted by the MySmartPlans Project Information Managers.

The PIMs posted the information so that it was organized for easy access and maintained up-to-date. For example, the project required thousands of design drawings, with revisions posted weekly. The PIMs organized the information by building, then discipline, so that a contractor working on a particular building, constructing a particular system, need only monitor the dashboard and drawings that affected his trade.

On 11/15/2012, only 29 months after the lease was awarded, phase 1 construction of 190 acres and over 1,000,000 square feet of buildings were substantially complete–NNSA began moving into the new Campus. On 5/15/2013 all construction was substantially complete. In 2014 NNSA completed its relocation. 

The development project was delivered ahead of schedule and within budget; it was a huge success.

MySmartPlans was essential to the success of the NNSA NSC project. The interest cost on $500,000,000 of construction financing was significant–each day made a difference. Any alternative strategy to share drawings, such as printing and via overnight mail, would have been significantly more expensive and slower than MySmartPlans. Small changes could have been handled by copiers and fax machines, compounding the costs and delays.

Internet-based collaboration was a must for the NNSA NSC project. The MySmartPlans solution–their people and technology– worked well.

The NSC development was uncommonly successful for a Government construction project–it was completed on schedule and within budget.