Client Overview
Our client was established in 1961 by the Department of Defense to consolidate disparate and redundant service inventory management and distribution operations. They have grown into the largest combat support agency in the Department of Defense by providing worldwide logistics support to the military services. Our client manages nearly 4.6 million items and is committed to establishing itself as the best value provider of logistics products and services to the military and authorized customers.
Project Description Summary
Over time, it became increasingly difficult for our client to remain competitive with the armed services' commercial providers. In order to maintain its relevancy with the services, it was imperative for our client to become more adaptive and responsive to the changing services' environment. To achieve this goal, our client recognized the need to:
Become more proficient at developing successful commercial customer-engagement strategies
Revamp its internal business processes to support the increased performance demands of the services.
As a result, our client has launched the Business Systems Modernization program, one of the most ambitious change management programs in the history of the organization.
The BSM program was designed to replace many of our client's legacy systems with more relevant COTs (Commercial Off The Shelf) tools. The implementation of the COTs tools enabled our client to integrate its internal business processes and reduce organizational "stove-piping." Enterprise wide business processes enabled our client to organize customer oriented resources into "one-customer-face."
The overarching goals of the BSM Program were to:
Create a decision support infrastructure that facilitates timely upgrades of functionality and technology and supports ‘enterprise’ wide visibility of inventories
Standardize decision support systems
Standardize internal business processes
Integrate replenishment capabilities into execution processes
Establish a world-class collaboration to improve customer service and optimize sourcing and procurement processes
Increase inventory turns while reducing obsolete inventory
MEBC Role and Approach
The Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) role of the BSM project was created to ensure that optimal solutions and business processes were implemented and process sustainment was achieved. The IV&V Team continuously monitored each phase of the project and provided recommendations to the implementation team through interactive feedback.
MEB Consulting, partnering with a major systems integrator, was contracted to the BSM project in the IV&V role. MEBC's role was primarily focused on providing expert guidance on supply chain replenishment business processes, in addition to the SAP and Manugistics COTs applications in the Planning and Order Fulfillment areas.
Working interactively with the primary systems integrator, and the client's process owner/lead, MEBC provided the following:
Reviewed the requirements to ensure that the BSM solution is developed in conformance to the Program's Operational Requirements Document (ORD)
Proactively identified issues and made recommendations for action plans
Developed lessons learned from other Manugistics implementations, including commercial and other DoD implementations
Provided guidance to the client's process owners and leads associated with the planning and order fulfillment processes of the BSM implementation
Provided information on industry best practices associated with the Manugistics/SAP modules that pertained to BSM
In its advisory role, the MEBC team provided strategic direction to several layers of our client's management - ranging from the Deputy Director to individual functional team owners in addition to comparable levels of the system integrators management team. Strategic direction included risk/issue identification and recommendations for business process change, organizational re-alignment, and solution architecture modification. MEBC also provided ad-hoc reports on supply processes, in addition to providing focused studies at the client's request.
The MEBC team helped maintain the client's customer focus initiative within the BSM project by continuously monitoring each release of the project, reviewing functional/technical documentation and processes, in addition to providing recommendations via interactive feedback to the BSM team in the areas of: BSM COTs Concept, Requirements, Design, Build, Transition, Testing, and Sustainment.
Results / Accomplishments
Some of the key results of this initiative include:
Interactive identification of risk in the requirements, design, build and test efforts to mitigate the potential of the system integrator or client overlooking functional/technical gaps prior to release
Provided sound strategic guidance to the Program Management Office to recognize optimal solution and business initiatives in the context of a unique DoD environment
Integration and coordination of internal processes to support the client's increased customer-focus
Provided training and knowledge transfer to the client's planning community
