Introduction
The client relied on individual system Delivery Teams (DT’s) to develop coherent and consistent In-Service Support (ISS) Statement of Requirements (SoRs) with the underpinning support solution evidence. The key aims for the clients’ ISS portfolio approach was to focus on potential savings benefiting from economies of scale across system support solution synergies. Critical to understanding the synergies is the coherent requirements capture.
The request:
- The client needed to understand and capture any support risks that may threaten ISS delivery when merging ten individual support contracts. As this spanned ten different systems, hosted on multiple platforms, a phased approach was decided upon in order to provide an experienced Through Life Support peer review. The aim of the peer review was to evaluate the system support solutions for coherency and to inform the client of any potential support risks prior to going to contract tender.
This required:
- Phase 1 – Review baseline evidence to ensure support coherency:
- Engage with Delivery Teams (DT’s) to confirm evidence baseline of artefacts
- Complete a support evidence baseline coherence review of all systems artefacts and evidence
- Report and brief findings to client and the individual DT’s for each system.
- Phase 2 – Consolidate baseline review findings:
- Provide draft summary report of system support solution coherency findings (including resulting ISS support risks for consideration).
- Phase 3 – Briefing results:
- Brief client on the final observations, recommendations and potential support risks.
- Phase 4 – Recommend priorities:
- Recommend priorities and support artefacts that the client should develop following on from this task.
Critical to Quality:
- The portfolio of support solutions is peer reviewed, with any associated risks quantified, qualified and briefed back as appropriate.
Timeline:
This project took 6 months to complete from Phase 1 (Voice of the Customer) to Phase 5 (Project Acceptance and Closure). 1.5 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) persons worked the project.
Financial Benefits:
Under the traditional hiring model, this task would have required two external ILSM contractors on a 6-month minimum term contract. However, with the ever-decreasing pool of Suitably Qualified and Experienced Integrated Logistic Support Managers (ILSM’s), it would be unlikely to contract two ILSM’s to start the project at the same time. Additionally (and dependent on the ILSM’s level of SQEP), this would have more likely have been two 12-month contracts. This timeline would not have met the clients’ requirements.
A potential saving of 6 months funding for two contractors could have been realised for this project, However we at TBES believe that; at the very minimum, the saving would have been 6 months funding for 0.5 of a contractor (this is because, traditional contractors cannot be sought to accommodate 1.5 FTE).
Non-Financial Benefits:
- Independent viewpoint
- Ability to accommodate 1.5 FTE
- List of ‘Lessons Identified’ provided to client from working within their organisation
- List of risks provided for the project risk register
- List of concerns provided to client (as noted whilst working with the project documentation).