Equipment Enrollment Application Supports Coast Guard Modernization

Government Industry | United States

The United States Coast Guard faced a challenge. As it strove to modernize and restructure management of its $14B portfolio of shore-based assets, the Coast Guard realized that it did not have a consistent, standardized, fullypopulated inventory of these assets. Without this, decisions about where and how much budget to allocate to specific needs were impossible to make.

The Coast Guard’s Shore Infrastructure Information Management Strategy (IMS), developed by Access Sciences as part of a prior project, provided a fundamental underpinning by defining a strategy to realign informationcentric processes, procedures, and the supporting application portfolio to support the modernized and restructured organization. The IMS identified IBM Maximo as the Coast Guard’s asset and facilities management repository (inventory), and recognized that it was inconsistently populated and, that where it was populated, inconsistent standards were applied to describing the asset inventory and its condition.

To address these issues, the Coast Guard turned to Access Sciences, and our partner Cardno GS, to develop a strategy, standard requirements, and initial enrollment of specific shore facility equipment into Maximo. The outcomes, learnings, and supporting equipment enrollment technology from this project formed the basis for comprehensive equipment (asset) enrollment across all Coast Guard shore-based facilities.

ISSUE

Without a comprehensive inventory of its shorebased assets, Coast Guard modernization efforts could not progress

SOLUTION

Develop and implement the processes and tools needed to consistently and completely populate the Coast Guard’s asset inventory

BENEFITS

Consistent and repeatable equipment enrollment (data entry) by local, on-site personnel
Equipment enrollment application enables asynchronous, off-line data entry while enforcing consistent data standards
Modernization mission-focused budget allocation decisions can now be made on the basis of accurate information

SERVICES DELIVERED

Advisory Services
Data Quality
Master Data Management
Requirements Development
Solution Architecture
System Implementation and Configuration
Systems Integration
Testing

CONSISTENT DATA REQUIRED FOR TOTAL ASSET VISIBILITY

We began by developing configuration standards within Maximo for key classes of equipment, and process guides to support consistent and repeatable data entry by local, on-site personnel. Our goal was to achieve total asset visibility of the Coast Guard’s critical facility equipment inventory and associated preventative maintenance requirements by ensuring that inventory data was captured and recorded consistently across locations. This was accomplished by developing instructions such as a configuration standard for equipment hierarchy and a process guide for equipment enrollment.

A primary objective of this initiative was to enable local personnel (typically a part-time facilities management role) to capture asset inventory and condition data (equipment enrollment in Coast Guard terminology) in a consistent manner without having to be connected to Maximo. To achieve this ambitious objective, our team:

Reviewed existing Maximo records and the Technical Information (Document) Management System (TIMS), along with current equipment data entry/management practices at three designated USCG locations.
Reviewed records and data structures for equipment at the Aviation Logistics Center (ALC) and the Surface Forces Logistics Center (SFLC) to identify asset management best practices within the USCG, and to consider opportunities for standardization across the three communities: Aviation, Surface Forces, and Shore Infrastructure.
Benchmarked the data structures and current practices against industry best practices including consideration of industry classification standards such as UNIFORMAT & OMNICLASS to support enterprise-wide visibility of equipment types.
Developed a standalone, asynchronous application, based on the selected classification standard (UNIFORMAT), to support collection and input of field data with minimal impact on USCG personnel along with import / export protocols for the exchange of asset and equipment data with Maximo.
Developed on-line training for the application.
In addition to strategy and application development, Access Sciences contributed in a tangible way to validate these processes and technologies. Three Access Sciences

Maximo experts were embedded at three pilot enrollment locations (two in Virginia, one in California) to exercise and refine the processes, procedures, and enrollment application.

TOTAL ASSET VISIBILITY ENABLES MISSION-FOCUSED BUDGETING

The Coast Guard now has the processes and tools needed to consistently and completely populate its asset inventory within Maximo. As a result, modernization mission-focused budget allocation decisions can now be made on the basis of accurate information.

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