Galorath Federal: Successful Major Systems Acquisition Support

Department of Defense INSTRUCTION NUMBER 5000.02; Operation of the Defense Acquisition System establishes policy for the management of all defense acquisition programs. Milestone Decision Authorities (MDAs) is tailor the regulatory requirements and acquisition procedures in this instruction to more efficiently achieve program objectives, consistent with statutory requirements and Reference.

Galorath is supporting the Acquisition Category (ACAT 1) major systems acquisition of the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A) program. Galorath is supporting the planning and managing the full range of Business/Financial Management, Cost/Schedule Estimating and Analysis, Business Case/Economic Analysis, Acquisition/Contract Management Support, BMD Operations Management Support, Risk Management and Analysis, and BMD Executive Assistance Support.

In the Program Planning and Analysis Area we are:

• Assisting in the development and support of the Cost Analysis Requirement Description (CARD), Program Office Estimate (POE), Cost Risk Analysis (CRA), Cost Analysis, Economic Analysis (EA), Tradeoff Studies, Business Case Analysis (BCA), Schedule Management and Analysis, Acquisition/Financial Management of Acquisition Category Information Automated (ACAT IA) Program, Acquisition Reports for ACAT IA Program, and Risk Management and Analysis.
• Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of all relevant plans and programs and assess how effectively they meet organizational priorities
• Assisting in the development of comprehensive plans, programs, special reports (including acquisition documentation), briefing support studies, analysis, and plans.
• Providing support for studies and analyses related to the ERP system acquisition, business and financial management process, programmatic functions, organizational management and improvement, business financial analysis, cost/schedule analysis and management, and other system acquisition-related functions as required.
• Reviewing and assessing the impact of revised or new policy guidance and regulations for business, schedule, and cost impact on the IPPS-A program.
• Participating in the Integrated Product Team (IPT)
• Providing program scheduling support expertise to monitor and control program activities and to develop the Program Integrated Master Plan (IMP) and Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) to determine program progress, track costs, assess financial risk and to determine the need for management action.
• Developing an analysis schedule to replicate Program IMS and conduct schedule analysis and Schedule Risk Analysis (SRA).

In the area of ACAT I Acquisition Reporting, Galorath is:

• Integrating and correlating program execution data with the program baselines to accurately develop, maintain, and update acquisition reports such as the Monthly Acquisition Report (MAR), Major Automation Information System (MAIS) Acquisition Report, Defense Acquisition Executive Summary (DAES), Acquisition Program Baseline (APB), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Exhibit 300, and supplemental reports as required by DoD policy for MAIS ACAT IAM program IAW DoDI 50002, and additional mandates that arise in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
• Acting as a liaison between auditors and program personnel. The contractor shall coordinate correspondence between external audit agencies and the program office. External audit agencies include the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Army Audit Agency (AAA), the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG), and any other auditing organization.
• Modifying, maintaining, and updating the program office’s IMP and IMS IAW

“DoD Integrated Master Plan and Integrated Master Schedule Preparation and Use Guide”.

In the area of financial management support, Galorath is developing, training, briefing, integrating, correlating, and analyzing various phases of PPBE within the IPPS-A DoD portfolio. These activities include Development of the Program Objective Memorandum (POM), Budget Exhibit Preparation, Staffer Day Briefing preparations, funds receipt, Analysis Reporting, Spring Program Review (SPR), Investment Budget Review, Program Management Reviews (PMRs), Mid-year Execution Reviews (MERs), Baseline Execution Reviews (BER), POM Briefings, Financial Planning Working Group (FPWG), Financial Management Review (FMR), Acquisition Mission Support (AMS), Business Management Reviews (BMR), Budget (OMB) Exhibit 300, and Tri-Annual reviews.

In the area of cost estimating and analysis, Galorath is developing, maintaining and updating the Life Cycle Cost Estimate for the Program Office IAW applicable program CARD, DoD 5000.4-M. For each cost estimate, the contractor shall assess risks and schedule; comply with Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) elements IAW MIL-STD-881C; use Government-approved cost tools/software such as ACE-IT, SEER, and PRICE; apply data from a Government-approved published database. The contractor shall utilize SEER Software Estimating Model (SEER-SEM) and SEER-IT to calibrate against actual performance data from IPPS-A CSDR reporting. The contractor shall develop Program Work Breakdown Structures (PWBS) and ensure compliance with current DCARC OSD/ Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) requirements. The PWBS will be developed for all new programs and, updated and documented at major milestones for existing programs. The contractor shall develop, maintain, and update cost estimates such as POE, Single Best Estimate (SBE), Independent Cost Estimates (ICEs), Independent Cost Analyses (ICAs) (if required), Sufficiency Reviews (SRs), Cost Excursions, Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM), Service Cost Positions (SCPs) or Army Cost Positions (ACPs), Program Executive Officer (PEO) Estimates in support of annual Program Objective Memorandum (POM) submissions, Will-Cost and Should- Cost Estimates, Independent Program Assessments (IPAs), Milestone Reviews, Interim Program Reviews and in response to what-if requests.

Galorath is evaluating program office and Program Contractor EVM related reports such as MAR, DAES, MAIS Acquisition Report, OMB Exhibit 300, and PMR IAW Defense Acquisition Guidebook and Monthly Acquisition Report Guidance in MAR Guidebook, and the best practices and guidelines identified in the EVMIG. Galorath is supporting the IBRs to provide insight into contract cost and schedule performance issues IAW the DoD EVMIG and IBR Process. This support includes: assisting in verifying and validating the Program Contractor’s baseline, identifying risks and analyzing risk mitigation plans, analyzing the resources loaded into the technical baseline, IMP traceability, IMS horizontal and vertical integration, all EVM related information (including Contract Performance Report (CPR), Control Account Plans, etc.) and analysis of actual performance to provide insight into contract technical, cost and schedule performance baseline issues.

Successful Outcome:

The appropriate MDA review the contracts, budget submissions, and life-cycle cost estimate. These products were reviewed and accepted by the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS) and the office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Cost and Economics (DASA-CE). As a result of Galorath’s support, the program successfully moved to the next milestone in the acquisition process.