Original Date: 11/03/1996
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

The Advanced Neutron Source (ANS) project, a proposed $2.9 billion research facility, would have furnished steady-state beams of neutrons for experiments conducted by more than 1,000 researchers per year. The ANS facility would have provided research in the fields of material science, engineering, biology, chemistry, materials analysis, and nuclear science, including irradiation capabilities to produce radioisotopes for medical applications, research, industry, and materials testing.

The ANS project has produced a paperless office infrastructure to handle all information electronically. It was estimated that more than 100 million pages of paper would be generated and managed over the proposed 10-year design of the ANS project. Storing that much information on paper would require the construction of a new building as well as additional personnel for handling the massive amount of paper.

Developed by Lockheed Martin Energy Systems’ (LMES’) Information Management Services and Central Engineering Services, the paperless office infrastructure consisted of a Banyan VINES local area network which is now being migrated to an NT server. During the proposed 10-year life of the ANS project, the infrastructure was estimated to produce a cost savings of over $60 million.

Upon cancellation of the ANS project, all project information including text; photos; engineering drawings; 3-D images; research and development codes for neutronics; videos; and thermal hydraulics were stored on two CD- ROMs. These CD-ROMs permit full interaction with the user through self-extracting, multiple, software applications. In addition, the CD-ROMs cost only $7 per set to produce versus the $35,000 cost needed to gather the material in paper and ship it to a requester. This impressive use of technology should be considered the benchmark for all future, large-design projects.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.