Perficient provides performance management solutions for companies providing services to the United States Dept of Defense and FEMA Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). These companies provide contractor support and logistics for service members around the world, encompassing practically all activities required to run a city in any environment – meal service, sanitation, waterworks, fire fighting, security, logistics and more.
Challenge
One such contractor provides the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), coalition countries and FEMA with multi-functional logistical services during contingency operations worldwide. This multi-billion-dollar contract requires transparency and efficiency.
Many LOGCAP contractors are compensated based upon how well they meet or exceed delivery targets set by their government contracts. If they meet or exceed delivery targets across metrics such as generator uptime or meals served by providing superior service, they are awarded additional compensation. As a result, LOGCAP contractors have a great incentive to proactively monitor key delivery metrics and document their performance so that they can take corrective action and ensure that they meet and exceed required targets.
Prior to embarking upon a performance management project, Perficient’s client had people assigned to track work order metrics manually using spreadsheets. This was a very manual process, requiring as many as ten people to consolidate multiple spreadsheets and ultimately to disseminate the consolidated results back out to stakeholders. It took weeks to get information to leadership that needed it to make business decisions. In addition, the process was prone to errors and inconsistencies across spreadsheets, which made it difficult to substantiate claims to review boards about above-standard performance providing core services and resolving critical issues.
Solution Deployed
Perficient provided the client with a review of its current reporting model and delivered an assessment on how it could be improved.
The solution uses the core reporting and metrics capabilities within IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence to allow remote performance monitoring at each location around the world and to report that performance to the Award Fee Evaluation Board (AFEB) and other stakeholders with greater speed, efficiency and fewer errors. Providing a higher degree of transparency and accountability gives LOGCAP contractors a competitive edge when contract renewal talks begin.
A metrics scorecard allows for tracking the current status of delivery metrics, variance of actual values versus targets, and historical trends of each metric. The solution also includes seamless integration from the scorecard directly to more detailed reporting, tracking a particular metric to ever deeper levels of detail. Perhaps most importantly, it is a vehicle for the consistent, rich delivery of performance information to the AFEB.
Ultimately, LOGCAP personnel around the world will be able to access the system via delivery mechanisms that use less of the expensive satellite bandwidth than current local options provide.
Business Value Delivered
As a result of this project, contractors are able to monitor more metrics than ever before, formalize metric definitions and calculations to ensure consistency across globe, and improve the efficiency of this core performance process. Further, the productivity of people involved in this process will be greatly enhanced. With this solution, contractors can expect to be able to monitor service levels more quickly and accurately, enabling them to improve their service delivery, substantiate their performance, and generate greater fee awards. In a contract worth billions, revenue could be increased by millions of dollars.