The Deputy Secretary's Excellence in Acquisition Award is presented to an individual or team that has demonstrated "exceptional" results in completing a project within cost and schedule. This prestigious honor is awarded to the Los Alamos National Laboratory Chemistry and Metallurgy Facility Upgrades Project Team.

This exceptional project involves upgrading a 40+ year-old facility system and infrastructure that is used for research, development, and analytical work with plutonium, uranium, and their alloys and other materials in support of weapons, nuclear materials, and other Los Alamos National Laboratory programs.

The Total Estimated Cost of the project is $106 million. The ability to reduce planned costs and define the scope of the upgrade of an existing facility with fixed price contracts is a result of diligent, thorough, and well-followed pre-planning activities. The team effectively used the earned value management system to track performance on the 19 separate upgrade projects. These combined facts contributed to the team's ability to recover between 6 - 12 weeks of schedule delays caused by the Cerro Grande fires. In fact, the project is scheduled for completion this fiscal year, ahead of schedule and $10 million under budget. In addition, the team received 6 pollution prevention rewards and has an impressive safety record with over 120,000 man-hours with no reported incidents.