U.S. ATLAS HL-LHC Upgrade Level 2 and Deputies-NSF only Management Mailing List

[Gustaaf Brooijmans <gusbroo AT nevis.columbia.edu>]

Hi,


>   * The committee had a hard time disentangling the effect of COVID in
>     our simulation results.  This is in part due to the fact that the
>     COVID BCPs have been worked into the RLS on which the simulation is
>     based.  This probably should be dealt with at the presentation
>     level, maybe in our contingency summary tables.

Yes, this is fairly easy to do.  I think we can just subtract $1.3M from 
the totals with and without contingency.  To first order everything 
should cancel out as there are no risks and few new tasks associated 
with the covid changes.


>   * Although we’re not on the hook for COVID risks, the committee (and
>     NSF) would ultimately like an estimate of their potential exposure
>     to COVID.  And who better than us to estimate it.  So this leads to
>     the enhanced risk register (or whatever it was called) where we list
>     up not only risks directly connected to COVID but also the knock-on
>     effects that we expect to see in the next months as COVID itself
>     dies down but residual side effects remain.  Part of this would be
>     estimating the impacts on our external suppliers/collaborators, but
>     maybe also internal to the project (e.g. new hiring).
>   * I think what the committee ideally wanted to see was two
>     simulations: one with the non-COVID-BCP schedule plus uncertainties
>     and non-COVID risks, and the second with the current RLS (with COVID
>     BCP’s included) plus uncertainties plus all risks (non-COVID, COVID
>     and COVID knock-on effect).

I don't think we need to do the non-COVID BCP simulation.  To first 
order the $1.3M just cancels out.

What we do need to do, is assign covid risks to *all* our external 
dependencies (all acquisitions from vendors or deliveries from 
international collaborators) and then run a simulation with just those. 
 Maybe the best covid estimate going forward is to take Hal's low or 
medium scenario + the risk simulation.  I don't buy into another 
lockdown.  Columbia just sent out some guidance saying that starting 
September all measures will be dropped for all vaccinated people, 
including wearing masks indoors.


> So my question was whether the above interpretation sounds correct, and 
> how much of this we want to implement for the August review and how much 
> we want to save for the re-baselining (which some on the committee were 
> recommending take place as soon as possible, casting the unknowns in the 
> forms of additional  uncertainties and risks).

I would like to start on listing all the risks in the next few weeks.

Best,

Gustaaf