EPOCH DM
A Case Study for CDRL Management

Fleetway, Inc.
A subsidiary of Irving Shipyards

Schedule a Demo l Product Summary

Fleetway, Inc., with offices in Halifax, NS and Ottawa, ON, Canada, is a provider of a comprehensive array of technical and management services to commercial and government clients in the shipbuilding, oil & gas and other industrial sectors.

In 2001, Fleetway implemented the CMstat Configuration Management system to support the CM needs of its sustainment contract for the Canadian Navy Frigate fleet.

In 2006, after evaluating various software packages to meet their data management needs, Fleetway selected CMstat's EPOCH DM Advanced Data Management System as a result of the system's functionality and flexibility, as well as their extreme satisfaction with CMstat products and support received over the years.

EPOCH DM is a web-based Advanced Contract Deliverables software system developed from the ground up to support the ANSI/EIA-859 Data Management Standard and the highly complex needs of the Aerospace & Defense community.

EPOCH offers a complex rules base and pre-programmed, but flexible, data relationships that provide Data Managers the ability to define, schedule, track, review and process deliverables, as well as ensuring on-time and accurate deliveries and receipts. Additionally, EPOCH's integrated Business Process Management (BPM) module automates and supports any associated complex process.

Fleetway soon realized that the flexibility of EPOCH rendered many legacy contract and deliverables applications obsolete.

During the implementation, Fleetway realized the flexibility of EPOCH rendered many of their contract and deliverables applications obsolete. Eliminating redundant applications, and consolidating functionality in EPOCH DM, Fleetway could optimize its processes, while reducing costs and IT overhead.

Though CDRL/SDRL Management objects are "out of the box" defaults, EPOCH's advanced flexibility allows customers to tailor it to fit their business model hierarchy and process needs. Using this built-in flexibility, Fleetway tailored and greatly expanded the basic traditional CDRL/SDRL Management to fit their "Task Management" requirements, which includes managing internal, as well as external, deliverables.

Utilizing the "User-Defined Deliverables" record type, Fleetway defined a deliverable record as a 'Task' so the system terminology would be more applicable to their processes.

During the implementation, the 'TASK' record was designated as the main vehicle for tracking and scheduling all deliverables, customer requests and engineering responses associated with a contract. Their task delivery requirements, due dates, milestones, responsible personnel and submittal/receipt history are now all managed within EPOCH DM.

Example:

When a task is received from the customer, a TASK record is created in EPOCH. An Engineer is then assigned responsibility for the task. EPOCH sends out automatic notification emails and follow-up reminders to the "Responsible Person" when the task is coming due. The Admin Module allows the frequency of these emails to be selected by the Administrator.

Additionally, Action Items are assigned to track other functions users need to perform to complete or contribute to the overall task. Automatic email notifications and reminders are standard features of the Action Items module. By combining the Task Management features of Epoch DM with its Action Items tracking system, Fleetway is able to ensure all tasks are being completed and delivered on or ahead of schedule.

Upon completion by the Engineer, the task is returned to the Data Manager. The Data Manager's "receipt" of the data is automatically "logged" as a transaction by the system. After the task has been reviewed, a "submittal" is performed via the process wizard and the data is delivered to the customer. All transactions are automatically logged by the system and stored for metrics reporting, audit and traceability.

Through their implementation of EPOCH DM Fleetway was able to streamline its Data and Task Management processes and reduce processing time for submitting, reviewing and completing tasks.

To date, Fleetway has:

• Eliminated a total of ten (10) databases with all information and processes being consolidated into the EPOCH DM system
• Streamlined the volume of task management procedures
• Reduced the time needed to process and deliver a task by 33%
• Reduced the time needed to communicate customer requests and tasks to Engineering by 50%
• Reduced total late deliverables to one half of one percent
• Reduced IT cost and resource load

The Epoch DM implementation at Fleetway has facilitated communication of needs, schedules and contract requirements between Data Managers, Engineering personnel and the Customer resulting in increased performance-based bonuses.

The new EPOCH DM Program Management Dashboard will further facilitate efficiencies within the Contract and Data Management by giving the PM a quick and accurate view of Deliverables performance, Metrics and Trend Analysis.