Digital interface concept with connected devices and glowing elements.

Advancing energy security and environmental solutions with NETL 

Key takeaways

In support of the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s (NETL) mission to advance environmental sustainability, Maximus provided IT process management and digital transformation solutions to integrate enterprise IT and research-related assets, retire technical debt, and prepare IT to meet the challenges of the future. Among the project successes, Maximus and affiliates achieved agile project management workflows and execution and designed new systems for the lab’s Energy Data eXchange (EDX), AI/ML cluster, and high-performance computing (HPC).

Situation 

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory system, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has a singular and essential mission: to drive innovation and deliver solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. Core to its mission are the lab’s research and development activities, drawing on a wealth of scientific and engineering talent to develop commercially viable solutions that address national energy and environmental problems. These efforts require a substantial network of capabilities to perform IT support services for 1,800 users and the business processes necessary to operate a national laboratory.

Challenge 

NETL faced multiple IT-related challenges in its aim to capture the body of R&D work in progress within a project management framework while addressing innovation roadblocks and reigning in costs and duplication of effort.

Solution 

Maximus and its affiliates provided expert project management and digital transformation, including:  

Process development and improvement to provide measurable results
Cybersecurity and vulnerability remediation to improve security posture and reduce risks to energy security R&D
Software development to enable continuous innovation  
Cloud migration with FedRAMP-authorized solutions for security by design and increased data and application availability
Retiring of technical debt to improve IT resource allocation toward digital transformation
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to accelerate R&D

How We Did It 

Maximus leveraged a broad portfolio of integrated tools alongside deep knowledge of leading-edge technologies and partners to support NETL. We ensured our client’s success by:

Standing up a world-class project management office (PMO) focused on improving the work environment for users while phasing out legacy IT
Establishing work authorization, control, and reporting
Integrating disparate operations, including infrastructure, applications engineering, cybersecurity, and research
Enhancing capability for administrative processes and remote work
Designing a new HPC system
Establishing systems for secure, remote access to researchers worldwide
Leveraging emerging technologies for edge computing and to support development and operations of NETL’s EDX

Results

Continuous, secure research computing capability
Processes improvement appraised at Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level 3
IT systems enabling 50%+ of all NETL research
90%+ customer satisfaction score
Completion of 300+ separate IT projects