AEgis Technologies is a privately-held small business headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, that provides advanced technology and expert consulting services to industries throughout the world. AEgis specializes in modeling & simulation (M&S) and micro/nanoscale technology development.
Challenge
More of AEgis Technologies government work was requiring an Earned Value Management System (EVMS) in order to be contract compliant. Aegis Technologies requested Ten Six expertise to help in the setting up of an integrated tool demonstration to support a full EVMS. The products supporting the EVMS included Oracle Primavera P6 EPPM, Deltek Cobra, Deltek wInsight and Deltek Costpoint. The goal would be to deploy this integrated tool set to support improved project and Earned Value Management (EVM) capabilities enabling Aegis to maintain contract compliance.
Ten Six Approach
Ten Six developed an implementation plan that outlined what needed to be done to ensure a successful EVM tool demonstration using the above products prior to making a go/no go decision to rollout. This supported estimating for proposals, planning, baselining, tracking and reporting and an EVM system that will ultimately be compliant with the government-mandated ANSI 748 requirements.
The Ten Six plan included the following high-level steps by product set, each of which would play a part in setting up an integrated tool demonstration for senior management:
Oracle Primavera P6 EPPM Steps
- Access sample PrimaveraP6 EPPM project and configure UDFs (User Defined Fields for integration mapping), e.g. CA, OBS, WP values.
- Enter/Validate WBS and activity data and mapping codes.
- Enter/Validate Resource and/or Role assignments.
- Setup Microsoft Project export mapping template and export sample Primavera P6 project to Microsoft Project 2007 XML file.
- Setup one or more statused versions of the sample project to test future statusing integration capabilities directly with Primavera P6.
Microsoft Project Steps
- Import Primavera P6 project XML in Microsoft Project 2007.
- Validate correct data in Microsoft Project.
- Export to native Microsoft Project 2007 XML format (Note: this is necessary because the P6 Microsoft Project XML file isn’t compatible with the Deltek Cobra Integration Wizard).
Deltek Cobra/Costpoint Steps
- Setup WBS, Resource, Rate, Calendar and other required ancillary code files in Deltek Cobra.
- Setup Integration Wizard for loading baseline project plan into a Deltek Cobra project.
- Perform integration to load baseline plan of project into Deltek Cobra.
- Validate project data in Deltek Cobra including Control Accounts, Work Packages, Resource spreads and profiles.
- Setup Integration wizard for direct ODBC access to Primavera P6 EPPM for status data once live.
- Create and run a complete test update cycle including the statused Primavera P6 sample project and supporting Actual Cost data from a Deltek Costpoint extract.
- Produce CPRs and analyze results to verify correct data trace through from Primavera P6 EPPM to Deltek Cobra.
Results
Ten Six was able to prove that the end-to-end tool capabilities would meet Aegis Technologies requirements. After a successful demonstration to senior management, the go ahead was given to proceed with a pilot on one of their programs. In addition, process gaps were identified and training requirements were highlighted together with recommendations on how to address these deficiencies during the next phase.