Customer Success Story
Boeing
Boeing leads the way in Integrated Program Management
Deltek enhanced its ability to provide critical earned value management (EVM) offerings to its broad project-focused customer base with the acquisition of Welcom in March 2006.
The Challenge
As the prime contractor on some of the largest defense programs in the world, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) has always been at the leading edge of aerospace and defense technology.
Boeing needed to integrate cost and schedule information across multiple sites and programs in order to implement a common toolset and common process for program management. They also needed the capabilities to practice weekly earned value on a large scale. Boeing standardized on Deltek Open Plan™ and Deltek Cobra™ across all of IDS for program management, cost control, and earned value. Boeing now has truly integrated cost/schedule information and the capabilities to practice weekly earned value on thousands of projects each month.
Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing IDS has over 78,000 employees around the globe. Its capabilities in defense, intelligence, communications, and space make Boeing IDS a recognized leader in providing end-to-end services for large-scale systems. These large-scale systems combine sophisticated communications networks with air, land, sea, and space-based platforms for global military, government, and commercial customers. A few examples of large-scale programs include the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), the Future Combat Systems (FCS), the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), and the International Space Station. Within each program, there are hundreds of contracts. Day-to-day management and cost control on all of these projects is an enormous task.
Driven by a strong customer focus, the Boeing IDS vision incorporates best practices, centralized information, and a common integrated toolset for program management. “Boeing is winning these huge, multi-site contracts and our customers expect us to manage programs as a virtual organization,” says Ken Babin, a manager of Business Operations for Boeing IDS. “This leads us to our vision that somebody in Huntsville and Anaheim should be able to work as part of a virtual team, even when their desks are 2,000 miles away.”
The first big challenge in making this vision a reality is integrating information across multiple sites and programs. “We need a common tool because we want integrated data,” states Babin. “We don't want to build interfaces among multiple legacy systems.”
The second challenge involves the implementation of a common process, including the capability to manage weekly earned value on a very large scale. “Weekly earned value entails much more than producing reports once a week,” says Ken Babin. “It requires the creation of detailed schedules in order to status an activity accurately for each week and analysis of data/trends to facilitate management decisions.” Beyond the cultural change involved with making this process work, it is essential that Boeing find the right tools to bring their initiative to fruition.
The Solution
Boeing and Welcom have many years of history together. The selection of Welcom's project management solution and Boeing's decision to standardize on these tools was not a surprise to anyone who had been involved with the early-on corporate initiatives. Over the years, the Boeing and Welcom relationship has centered on trust along with a lengthy trail of proven results and has evolved into a strong partnership.
Boeing was introduced to Welcom in 1985 when Open Plan was chosen as the project management tool of choice at its Huntsville site. Positive experiences and results led to the use of Open Plan at other Boeing sites and programs during the next decade. “When the decision was made by senior management in 1996 to standardize on a common project management toolset, Open Plan was the natural choice,” says Joe Pratte, IS Product Manager, Boeing. In 1997, Boeing IDS finalized their decision and invested in an Open Plan site license.
The next phase of the standardization initiative required a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) cost management application to be chosen and integrated with Open Plan. Again, Boeing turned to Welcom. “We evaluated Welcom's Cobra as well as several competitive products,” says Pratte. “Cobra was the best fit for us. Its open architecture, cost/schedule integration, and ability to support weekly earned value were big drivers in our decision. Most importantly, Welcom understood our business requirements.” In 2001, Boeing IDS acquired a site license of Cobra.
“Cobra was the best fit for us. Its open architecture, cost/schedule integration, and ability to support weekly earned value were big drivers in our decision,” said Joe Pratte.
Open Plan and Cobra are now widely used across most of Boeing IDS for program management, cost control, and earned value. Approximately 2,000 project managers/financial operations personnel currently use Welcom products to manage thousands of projects. The program data is centralized in an Oracle database and accessed by users through Windows Terminal Server. This ensures data integrity and simplifies reporting. “Because we are a virtual organization - with people all over the country working on the same programs — we have to be able to report on data from a central source,” explains Pratte.
Another component of Boeing's solution is the integration of subcontractor data. Subcontractors on major programs are increasingly required by Boeing to submit data in a common format. On the FCS program, they are going one step further. “With the FCS program, we are going to integrate our contractors' Open Plan schedules directly into our own,” says Walt DeBacker, Business Systems Lead, Boeing IDS.
A second wave of the implementation is underway migrating most remaining programs to Open Plan and Cobra. This will result in approximately 2,500 users of both products combined by 2005.
| The Challange | The Solution | The Deltek Advantage |
| Boeing needed to integrate cost and schedule information across multiple sites and programs in order to implement a common toolset and common process for program management. They also needed the capabilities to practice weekly earned value on a large scale. | Boeing standardized on Deltek Open Plan and Deltek Cobra across all of IDS for program management, cost control, and earned value. |
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The Benefits
Benefits from the first wave of standardization are being seen. The achievement of cost/schedule integration and centralized data has brought many advantages for Boeing IDS's programs. “Now, everyone can see the same data at the same time. Integration of cost and schedule is key,” says Ken Babin.
“We've seen benefits on the multi-site contracts,” adds Walt DeBacker. “Cost/schedule integration, multi-site integration, and the ability to manage virtual, cross-site teams definitely helps program management.”
Cobra also allows Boeing IDS to handle the challenge of practicing weekly earned value on programs - a fundamental component of its common program management process. “We obtain this using an Open Plan resource-loaded schedule tightly integrated with Cobra, which we can status weekly. This lets us quickly determine if we are ahead or behind so that we can take timely corrective action,” commented Joe Pratte.
With the size of Boeing's operations - thousands of projects, billions of dollars, and hundreds of baseline updates each month - reporting earned value on a weekly basis is no small undertaking. This is where Open Plan and Cobra's cost/schedule integration and automation capabilities really come to the forefront. “Automation is key,” says Walt DeBacker. “We use Cobra's batch processing extensively; we have pushed the envelope further than anyone envisioned. We can advance the calendar, load status, and calculate earned value on hundreds and thousands of programs purely in a batch mode.”
“With this level of automation and discipline, our analysts can really spend more time analyzing the data,” says Joe Pratte. “More analysis time means greater program control.”
With a substantial part of the implementation already complete and bringing daily benefits to its programs, Boeing IDS is already leading the way in integrated program management.