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United Cleanup Oak Ridge logoUnited Cleanup Oak Ridge

Environmental management contractor modernizes decades of records with OpenText to safeguard nuclear cleanup, accelerate insight, and prepare for AI

United Cleanup Oak Ridge logo

About United Cleanup Oak Ridge

United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) is the lead environmental management contractor for the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge Reservation. It deactivates and demolishes former nuclear facilities, manages nuclear waste, and remediates land.

See how OpenText helps the US Department of Energy save taxpayer dollars and prepare for AI
  • Employees:
    1,900
  • Location:
    Tennessee, USA
  • Established:
    1942

Summary

Challenges

  • Millions of aging documents required consistent metadata and retention control.
  • Siloed DOE systems made critical information hard to locate and trust, slowing work and risking mission integrity.

Solution

  • Modernized content governance with an authoritative system of record.
  • Transformed unstructured content into AI-ready insights.
  • Fast‑tracked innovation with OpenText™ Professional Services.

Results

  • Enabled faster decisions and greater visibility
  • Improved compliance with automated records
  • Built the foundation for future AI

Challenges

  • Millions of aging documents required consistent metadata and retention control
  • Siloed DOE systems made critical information hard to locate and trust, slowing work and risking mission integrity

At the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, history runs deep—and complex. Built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, the site includes massive nuclear facilities, contaminated land, and decades of records documenting construction, operations, waste management, and remediation.

For United Cleanup Oak Ridge, information is inseparable from mission success. Every report, survey, drawing, and procedure must be retained, classified, and retrievable.

“Some of our documents go back to the 1940s and 1950s,” said Matt Forester, information architect and content management administrator at UCOR. “If people can’t find the information they need, the work slows down—and the risk goes up.”

As federal mandates pushed UCOR to become fully digital, the challenge intensified. Millions of documents lived across systems and formats. Records specialists manually summarized content, assigned metadata, and mapped documents to more than 800 retention schedules. Training took years, and even experts sometimes disagreed.

UCOR needed to shrink the complex—without compromising security, compliance, or mission integrity.

Digital cloud system interface

Our goal is simple: shrink the complex. Build a clean, harmonious ecosystem of solutions that supports the mission—and saves taxpayer dollars.

Matt Forester
Information Architect and Content Management Administrator, UCOR

Solution

UCOR used OpenText™ Documentum™ Content Management (CM) for Engineering and OpenText™ Knowledge Discovery to create a secure, centralized system of record with automated enrichment, classification, and discovery—guided by OpenText Professional Services.

Products deployed

Services provided

Modernizing content governance with an authoritative system of record

To shrink the complex, UCOR modernized its content ecosystem around OpenText Documentum CM as its authoritative system of record—used enterprise wide for DOE nuclear cleanup operations. With the addition of OpenText Documentum Content Management for Engineering, UCOR is extending consistent governance into engineering projects and preparing to consolidate additional functions, such as HR and supply chain.

“Documentum is the backbone,” Forester said. “It’s where our projects, engineering content, and records come together in one authoritative system.”

Transformed unstructured content to AI‑ready insights

The breakthrough came when UCOR introduced OpenText Knowledge Discovery, enabling automated summaries, metadata enrichment, classification assistance, audio‑to‑text conversion, PII detection, and OCR for difficult historical documents. OpenText Knowledge Discovery provided the crucial foundation needed to clean and standardize unstructured data before expanding into advanced AI with Aviator.

“[OpenText] Knowledge Discovery is how we crawl and walk before we run with AI,” Forester explained. “It cleans the data, makes it searchable, and prepares us for what’s next.”

Fast‑tracking innovation with OpenText Professional Services

Critical to UCOR’s success was OpenText Professional Services, who guided a “train-the-trainer” proof of concept. Within nine weeks, UCOR was already processing legacy documents, testing predictive retention scheduling, and building workflows with NiFi-based connectors. “I couldn’t have done it without OpenText experts,” Matt shared. “They helped us stand the system up quickly and go far beyond what we expected.”

Today, UCOR is demonstrating these capabilities across DOE organizations and helping other cleanup and national laboratory sites align with best practices—creating a scalable blueprint for modernization across the federal ecosystem.

Data stream transformation

[OpenText] Knowledge Discovery is how we crawl and walk before we run with AI. It cleans the data, makes it searchable, and prepares us for what’s next.

Matt Forester
Information Architect and Content Management Administrator, UCOR

Results

UCOR improved discovery, compliance, and productivity while preparing for future AI with Aviator, achieving early wins within weeks—and creating a DOE-wide blueprint.

Achieved enterprise‑wide visibility and faster decision-making

With OpenText Documentum CM and OpenText Knowledge Discovery working together, UCOR has transformed how information supports its mission. Significant improvements in information access, compliance, and operational efficiency mean millions of documents—some previously inaccessible—are now searchable across DOE repositories in minutes. OpenText Knowledge Discovery’s connectors allow UCOR to unify content from disparate systems, supporting better decision-making for environmental cleanup, waste processing, and mission‑critical facility operations.

Automated records work to improve quality and compliance

Manual document processing has been significantly reduced. Records specialists now spend less time creating summaries and metadata—and more time validating, improving quality, and supporting the business. By automating metadata generation, document summaries, and classification for more than 800 retention schedules, UCOR dramatically reduces manual work that once required years of training.

Reduced risk, enabled AI, and led DOE modernization

Audio and video recordings are now converted into searchable text, and PII detection tools reduce risk across network locations. These advancements set the foundation for future AI with Aviator, enabling UCOR to explore advanced use cases such as preventative maintenance, contractual compliance checks, and automated record validation—improving readiness for audits and public release.

Just as importantly, UCOR is becoming a leader within DOE’s modernization efforts—sharing its blueprint with other DOE cleanup and national laboratory organizations.

“Our goal is simple,” Forester said. “Shrink the complex. Build a clean, harmonious ecosystem of solutions that supports the mission—and saves taxpayer dollars.”

How can we help?