Description
Organization: NAVSEA, PEO (TSC)
Team Name: PEO(TSC) James Fleet Support Center
Related Acquisition Topic(s): Acquisition Practices Streamlining, Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Cycle Time Reduction (CTR), Financial Management, Integrated Product Teams (IPT), Knowledge Management, Paperless Contracting, Paperless Program Office, Partnering
Description:
The collocation of the Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair, Aegis Destroyer Planning Yard and Bath Iron Work's (BIW) Planning Yard in the same building known as the James Fleet Support Center (JFSC) facilitates a teaming atmosphere between the government and contractor. This unique arrangement provides for open and honest communication, streamlined processes, and team solutions to problems. Each member of the team utilizes his/her resources, personal expertise, IT systems, and capabilities to produce the best product for the Navy. Supporting the fleet is the number one concern of everyone at the JFSC. A few examples of the JFSC are highlighted below.
NAVY REVERSE OSMOSIS DESALINATORS:
The acceleration of the installation of Navy Reverse Osmosis Desalinators from 5 years to a year and a half on all fleet DDG's presented unique challenges to the standard procurement process. To accomplish this goal, ship specific designs normally developed from ship checks were made more general so they would apply to numerous hulls, with ship specific modifications being made on the deck plates. To maximize the benefit of multi-unit buys, financial teaming was brokered between the type commander and NAVSEA by the JFSC. The moderate design risk was acceptable in order to gain the financial savings on multi-unit buys and to meet the accelerated installation timeline.
WORK REQUEST HOTMAIL ACCOUNT:
Additional customers are capable of accessing the technical expertise at the JFSC under a CLIN in the contract. The existing process required the contracting officer's representative (COR) to determine scope of work, request an estimate from the contractor, and track status in a database. These requests were sent to the COR's e-mail address. Often scope determination would take significant amounts of time and these requests were interspersed with all other e-mails. A second bottleneck was the contractor point of contact. All requests for estimates had to be forwarded to and received from a single contractor estimator, along with his other duties.
A determination was made to have the COR review the scope of work to determine if it was within contractual requirements. The contractor would do detailed definition in developing his estimate and would return to the COR for a second look before going to the customer. A stand alone, internet server-based, e-mail address was established exclusively for these requests.
The contractor was able to accept this additional work and provide faster turnaround by establishing an individual whose only responsibility was to manage these requests. The usage of this process has steadily increased as responsiveness and efficiency have improved.
JFSC WEBPAGE:
The nature of the work executed at the JFSC is worldwide and affects many ships and customers at any given time. With such far-reaching work and hundreds of customers with questions, the heavy burden of answering phone calls, e-mails and voice mails resulted in a lot of time being spent responding to these requests. Often this information was available in the Hull Management System that was being used by BIW to track, define, and produce ship alterations and work packages. To minimize this burden, a JFSC webpage was established with links to the Hull Management System making this information available to all authorized users. Putting the capability of accessing this information into the hands of the customer has greatly minimized the administrative burden as acceptance of the webpage has grown.
MATERIAL KITTING:
During availabilities and industrial yard periods, late or unordered material has been a traditional problem. To minimize that problem, all material for alterations and repair work items are purchased by the JFSC. Material for a job is listed by material line item. Each line item is inventoried and then kitted according to the job. Once the contract has been awarded, all material for the availability is shipped to the executing activity where another line item inventory is conducted, with the contractor present, to ensure that all material is transitioned. This inventory is conducted 30 days prior to the start of the availability; any shortcomings are documented and acted upon immediately. By establishing this process the problem of wrong or insufficient material has been eliminated.
JOINT ENGINEERING DESIGN MANAGEMENT INFORMATION CONTROL SYSTEM:
Joint Engineering Design Management Information Control System (JEDMICS) is used to maintain an electronic library of ships' drawings, tech manuals and information bulletins. This is a departure from the traditional method of keeping paper drawings and aperture cards. By doing this electronically, it is possible to maintain a technical library of over 2.5 million drawings and give worldwide, real-time access to the information. Traditional paper drawings are scanned daily into JEDMICS to increase the size of the repository. In 1999 approximately 73,000 additional items were added to the repository. Drawings are updated electronically, vice the traditional paper update, which involved sending new copies to all technical centers. Having this information electronically is especially important when an availability work package is generated and subsequently submitted for contract solicitation. All drawings, tech manuals, and references are copied to a compact disc, which is then used to solicit bids from contractors.
After the availability, the database is updated with the modified drawings and a new ship set of drawings is issued to the ship on a compact disc using the Automated Technical Information System (ATIS). The savings here are obvious: cost of reproduction of drawings, packaging and shipping, and storage space on the ships. The quick availability of information on the ships prevents a sailor from having to spend time looking through drawers of drawings, and ensures the sailor of the latest drawings.
DIGITAL AVAILABILITY SOLICITATION CD-ROM:
JFSC, a proactive partner of the Digital Availability Solicitation Team (PEO TSC-F, both SUPSHIP Bath & Pascagoula, and Ingalls Planning Yard) played an integral part in the streamlining of availability planning. The team's innovative uses of digital technology and substantial effort have helped realize PEO TSC-F's goal of paperless availabilities for surface combatants. The Digital Availability Package established standards for all parts of digital solicitation, from drawing viewers and work specifications to the "Hot Links," which tie together relevant information throughout the solicitation package. In addition, the on-site technical education provided by the team ensured a smooth transition from the paper-based system to the digital process. Through a coordinated effort, the Digital Solicitation CD-ROM team was able to establish an identical look for all Surface Combatant Solicitation Packages, no matter who the bidder, or where the solicitation package was produced. The expected cost avoidance and savings from the production and use of Digital Surface Combatant Availability Solicitations is expected to exceed $500,000 per year, making this program an unqualified success. The savings will increase as the number of availabilities planned by the JFSC increases from 15 in 1999 to 22 in 2000.
