Modernization… we’re working on it

Today I want to share a few things with the team from the final version of Electronics, Engineering, & Logistics Quarterly that was just released.

Some of the content was written as Modernization 1.0 was being implemented, so it has already been made obsolete by the changes coming in version 2.0.

I want to use the post to draw your attention to a few things that haven’t changed.

Please take the time to read RDML (s) Gromlich’s piece “Mission Support 2.0: Leaning Forward” on pages 32-35 of the magazine.

Here are a few excerpts important enough to read twice… once now and once when you read the article:

“Moving Modernization forward to completion is one of my highest priorities and central to my principle of steadying the service,” said ADM Bob Papp, Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard. “My desired end-state is to put in place an organization that everyone understands. Our people need to know who they work for, what their authorities are, and who to call to get the tools they need to get their job done. These are the basic tenets of a military organization that relate to responsibility, authority, accountability, and unity of command.”

“I want to be clear. This does not represent a return to logistics systems of the past, where ISC commanders provided logistics support in widely divergent ways,” VADM Currier said. “The role of the Base Commander differs in that we now have Logistics and Service Centers that will maintain control of the flow of service and logistics resources and technical authority. Their product and service lines will continue to define standardized support processes. The DOL will ensure compliance with established doctrine.”

The current field structure under the LC/SCs represents a bridging strategy that permits the Coast Guard to standardize processes and identify future improvements. From my perspective, these changes represent the steady progression of increasing authority incrementally granted to today’s Primary Support Officers (PSOs).

We will continue to work with our union partners throughout this implementation and seek to keep you informed through regular SITREPS, blog posts on the Mission Support Blog, and information posted on the CG Portal DCMS page. In June 2010, VADM Currier rolled out the Mission Support Organization 2.0 (MS 2.0) Cornerstone Document containing more detail regarding our way forward for the next 24-36 months. The MS 2.0 Cornerstone Document and frequently asked questions (FAQs) are available on the CG Portal intranet at https://cgportal.uscg.mil/lotus/myquickr/dcms-mission-support-organization/welcome. Questions are always welcome at AskDCMS@uscg.mil.

The Cornerstone doc is also available on the web at http://www.uscg.mil/missionsupport/cornerstone.pdf.

There are also a few sections of Patrick Boquard’s piece “Building the new Mission Support Organization” I want to make sure you see. It’s a long article that starts on page 4. Here are some key points:

The aviation response during this disaster [Hurricane Katrina] demonstrated to Coast Guard leadership the effectiveness of standardization. With 40 percent of the Coast Guard’s helicopter fleet deployed in Katrina operations, it was evident that the configuration management of assets and training of personnel expedited the airborne response to the historic search and rescue efforts. Four thousand Guardians rescued and evacuated nearly 34 thousand survivors.

On June 23, 2005, the LMTO and the IPT presented their findings to the former Chief of Staff and now Commandant Allen. Their solution to the Coast Guard’s multiple and independent asset-based logistics communities with their own respective IT systems was to formulate a common, centrally managed logistics business model with built-in accountability. The key to this common business model would be acquiring or engineering a single IT system for the entire organization to use. ADM Allen and former Commandant ADM Thomas H. Collins supported the team’s findings to utilize the centrally managed aviation business model as a blueprint for logistics transformation across the Coast Guard’s mission support community, adopting its structure to facilitate control and effective planning over its inventory and parts support.

To prepare the Coast Guard to provide mission support under the business model, Modernization plans to realign the current geographically-based mission support services by asset types into product/service lines managed by the newly formed logistics and service centers. These new
centers in the field form the backbone of our “Version 1.0 mission support organization” with responsibility for carrying out the Coast Guard Mission Support Business Model.

“The issues resolved with Modernization are that decisions will be based on better data to make better long-term solutions to problems and greatly assist in justifying our budget,” Roden said. “The cultural change will be significant. Naval Engineering generally had the mindset to do what- ever it takes to get the job done, which often resulted in less than best business practices. There is a focus on the short term problems and a reaction to get the job done, which is less proactive than fixing the root cause of the problems. We’ve done well with the short term solutions, but within our new budget constraints this method is now inadequate.”

Roden explained he didn’t want to reprimand the efforts of the Naval Engineering community. He said the current Naval Engineering community doesn’t have the organizational alignment associated with the accountable and centrally managed Product Line concept. Roden said this caused the community to work as best as it could with the organization it had in place. A second benefit of Modernization, Roden explained, was that Engineering Officers (EOs) and operators will become more like customers under the proposed DCMS.

“EOs and operators will see this importance over time,” he said. “In the future there will be better support systems. The Product Line Manager has control of their own budget to say whether or not they want to spend it on repairing equipment, buying parts or recapitalizing sub-systems. The new model will result in expanding the trade space to make better decisions for each asset.”

“This culture change will require discipline from all of us,” Roden said.

“With Configuration Management, you can’t make changes to assets on your own, because it creates problems in the long-run. If people start working around the new system it will also hurt us, because accurate data collection will be critical to our support system.”

In the near term, the logistics and service centers will use legacy systems such as ALMIS and MAXIMO to provide Total Asset Visibility when standing up product lines for legacy assets.

Eventually, one new system, the Coast Guard Logistics Information Management System (CG-LIMS) will be gradually introduced to all logistics communities, replacing or integrating today’s variety of systems. Not only will DCMS and the Coast Guard Mission Support Business Model cause cultural changes, but this IT system will also have a positive impact across the organization.

“It has to do with evolving our culture so that it’s OK to say, ‘This asset isn’t safe to use right now,’” CG-LIMS Project Manager CDR Dan Taylor said. “CG-LIMS will allow Product Line Managers to see what’s wrong and what’s being ordered to solve it.”

At the initiation of Logistics Transformation, the team concluded that in order to have a common logistics IT system there must be a common business practice for it to support and follow. This altered the focus of the former ICGS project from focusing on Deepwater assets to supporting a Mission Support Business Model founded in the aviation community’s practices.

“In the aviation product lines, the management of parts is centralized,” Taylor explained. “It is relatively simple for a unit to follow scheduled maintenance procedures, send back broken parts to supply centers and using the tool (ALMIS) instead of working around it. With CG-LIMS we want it to be easy to use and carry out a procedure that is supported by an IT process.”

Taylor has written in the CG-LIMS project blog that this developing IT system’s greatest strength is its ability to support the new Mission Support Business Model rather than a process field units and engineers are forced to work around.

If there’s an overwhelming theme in Modernization and the Four Cornerstones of the Coast Guard Mission Support Business Model, it is the desire to give the support personnel and engineers in the field more of the tools they need to keep assets executing the mission. According to CDR Dan Taylor, CG-LIMS Project Manager, there is a desire “To make it easy to do the right thing.” In a post by Taylor on the CG-LIMS blog, www.intelink.gov/blogs/_cg-lims, he recognizes the sense of urgency to deliver a logistics IT system to field units so there can be a more fluid transition into the new organizations under Modernization.

If you really want to exercise your brain, please read Jim Sylvester’s “Business Model as an Asset: A Concept” on page 36 – 39. While you read it, I’d ask each of you on the project to think about what it means in terms of working with prime contractor and legacy sustainment community to make sure the requirements in DOORS and architecture in System Architecture are changed through a managed process to ensure the living model remains accurate:

In fact, a documented business model may be the most valuable outcome of the Modernization and Logistics Transformation efforts.

I won’t make this article a 101 course on DoDAF, but the framework defines very specific products (known as “views”) in very specific formats, which lend themselves quite well to the definition of a CI.

Maintenance? Yes, a completed model requires maintenance in the form of system architects and requirements managers who assure that the technical data rep- resenting the model are as accurate as possible, and that the tools to manage the model are updated per the CIO’s standards. Tools? Who said anything about tools? Yes, like any asset, the model requires tools to perform maintenance on it.

Please, take the time to download the magazine and read through it, especially RDML(s) Gromlich’s article on page 32 and Jim Sylvester’s on page 36.