7.2.1 Robust Decision Making

The Idaho National Laboratory is funded through the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy and other customers who have direct contracts with the Laboratory. The people, equipment, facilities, and other infrastructure at the laboratory require continual investment to maintain and improve the laboratory's capabilities. With ever tightening federal and customer budgets, the ability to direct investments into the people, equipment, facilities, and other infrastructure that are most closely aligned with the laboratory's mission and customers' goals grows increasingly important. The ability to justify those investment decisions based on objective criteria that can withstand political, managerial, and technical criticism also becomes increasingly important. The Systems Engineering tools of decision analysis, risk management and roadmapping, when properly applied to such problems, can provide defensible decisions.