The First COTS Deliverables Management Software for Aerospace & Defense
Managing deliverables correctly and accurately is key to financial success in this business. So why, then, has the deliverables process been left out in the cold while money is spent on dedicated tools for other disciplines to ensure their processes are being operated and documented properly.
Did you know that CMstat was the first solution provider to bring a Commercial-off-the-Shelf Deliverables Management (DM) product to the market? In 2000, CMstat – well known for its COTS CM software – released EPOCH DM the first COTS Contract Deliverables Management (CDRL) software application for the Aerospace & Defense marketspace.
CMstat recognized a significant gap existed in the way Aerospace and Defense companies managed their data deliveries – especially those required by contracts. This was and remains baffling to us when considering meeting contractual requirements (read: getting paid) includes delivering the required data in the correct format and being able to prove that you have done so.
More than that, failure to follow these requirements while at the same time protecting the data may put the contractor in breach of contract and prevent them from getting paid. Risks also include fines, loss of future work, and even legal battles or jail!
Managing deliverables correctly and accurately is key to financial success in this business. So why, then, has the deliverables process been left out in the cold while all other disciplines (design development, program management, manufacturing, quality, even CM) have dedicated tools to ensure their processes are being operated and documented properly. Why is the one process that can save them in a lawsuit being handled by inadequate tools meant for other purposes?? It only makes sense to drive Contract DM in a modern system capable of taking advantage of today’s computing power.
Deploying EPOCH DM, our customers have been able to improve data delivery management, obtain higher bonuses on performance-based contracts, and even justify and win higher payments for the same deliverables on follow-on contracts due to the type of data granularity they have with EPOCH DM. This is one reason we always say that poor Data Management – in particular, deliverables management, is a prime place where revenue literally leaks out of the process!
Deliverables Management vs Data Management
Deliverables Management is a subset of Data Management whose principles are codified in GEIA-859. Data Management (DM) is a complementary discipline to CM in that the data being ushered through the product lifecycle must be identified, processed, stored, made interoperable, protected, and distributed correctly; and changes to that data must be managed fully. DM works alongside CM to ensure that any gaps in the handling of data which may put our products and their data at risk are filled.
Deliverables Management was a logical next step for CMstat because in the contracting world, much of the data required to be delivered is under CM control. Although most of our customers manage contractually required data transfers, we developed EPOCH DM with the flexibility to handle other types of data transfers as well, making our functionality even more valuable.
In the most common use-cases, CMstat EPOCH DM helps our customers manage and track data, documents, files, software, etc. they are required to deliver to their customers. These deliveries are defined as CDRLs or SDRLs in the contract itself.
On Performance-Based contracts, there are financial incentives tied to delivering data on time or early. Good DM directly affects the bottom line and bonuses.
In order to say contract deliverables are being ‘managed’, they must be Identified, defined, understood, assigned, scheduled, created, approved, marked, secured, delivered, re-delivered, and accepted in a timely manner, and all these process nodes must be recorded in a standardized way. Yet, considering all the moving parts of proper deliverables management, most companies continue to entrust this strategic capability to inappropriate, less capable technology. A huge revenue opportunity – even on non- performance-based contracts – remains hidden in the DM process.
Almost without fail, since the first release of EPOCH DM, customers who come to us are tracking deliverables with Excel, SharePoint, or for the more sophisticated ones, a homegrown system that lacks the relationships needed and, most importantly, the richness of data to truly ‘manage’ the deliverables process and uncover the hidden costs and revenue generation opportunities that Deliverables Management contains. Implementing EPOCH DM’s COTS functionality allows tracking of all back-and-forth transactions that comprise a true history of data deliveries.
In the early days of my career, I was responsible for creating monthly status report CDRLs. Unfortunately, I had on an engineering hat and no idea what a DID was or how contract deliverables worked. Imagine how happy I was to find (after writing status report number 3) all of the content and format details I needed were provided by the customer. Knowing that would have made my life so much easier! People generally want to do a good job, and we believe in enabling them to do just that by making the ALL the information they need available in EPOCH DM according to their role.”
Here are some of the problems with the way 90% of the Aerospace and Defense companies manage their contractually required data deliveries:
Authors of data are working in the dark with regard to content and format desired by the customer,
Lack of automation of tasks assignments and email reminders, and schedule updates,
Disjointed processes with air-gapped systems.
One system for authoring or creating data, another for review and approval,
a separate repository for housing the data,
a delivery system not connected to that which tracks the delivery details, the list goes on……
Systems limited in their ability to handle all of the details related to a delivery each time it is attempted, corrected, resent, rejected,
Inability to store all instances of back-and-forth traffic related to delivery development, review, scope change, rejections, and eventual acceptance and approval,
To/from the customer,
From/to sub-contractors,
From/to Internal Departments responsible for providing timely DM information,
Lack of visibility for Project Management,
Future deliveries,
Past performance,
METRICS – don’t even get me started about the lack of useful, process-changing metrics available in systems consisting of multiple siloed tools.
If Metrics are being reported, they’re not sophisticated and are generally the result of much manual effort and heroics.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Without Metrics there is no continuous improvement.
Lack of Focused Reporting for Department heads,
Storage of sensitive data that has strict distribution limitations in systems not designed to enforce this.
Our Recipe for Success
We began by talking with Data Managers – our customers and others – who were fighting battles with their technology every day. We also called in an industry expert on Data Management to advise us on our chosen product direction and specific elements of our data model. From this foundation, we began defining what the processes needed to look like. Rather than having Software development totally lead product direction, we chose to leverage our activity in the CM and DM standards community to guide our decision making – who does that? CMstat does.
Our standards experts defined the processes that the software would need to fulfill and began with identifying what could and should be automated. As an example, one powerful element that came from this analysis was “Events-based Delivery Scheduling and Update.” Our sophisticated, structured scheduling capability allows the most complex relationships between program milestones and associated deliveries making managing changes to them effortless.
We have always thought that the treatment of Contract Deliverables tracking and management represents a significant hole in the system landscape being used in the vast majority of A&D contractors. At CMstat we are told all the time that ours is the only system that they have seen which is capable of handling the data structures (yes, there should be structure!), ease of usability, and level of automation the deliverables process demands.
When we began this journey, we had a vision of what Contract DM should be. And through collaboration with our A&D customers who provided us with use cases and enhancement suggestions, the result is EPOCH DM, a feature-rich, easy-to-use, state-of-the-art COTS product that continues to grow and improve.
How can you get more information on CMstat Epoch DM? Contact CMstat via our contact form or email us at information@cmstat.com
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For questions and registration, contact CMstat at information@cmstat.com or call at 877-537-1959.
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