How U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center Huntsville project managers and contracting officers track project acquisition, contracting and production processes is transitioning to a new system that will ensure the Center’s mission is met more effectively and save resources.
Developed by cross-functional teams at Omaha District, the new Corps Acquisition Management (CAM) system is currently going through accreditation process and is being considered by Headquarters USACE as the Corps' online business oversight tool.
CAM has already been implemented in several USACE districts and was eased into a test-run operation for some personnel at Huntsville Center. Since early summer the Center’s Business Management Office (BMO) facilitated a pilot of CAM in the Installation and Support Programs and Management Directorates’ Facilities Division from June through July. The newer system was well received within the Facilities Division for its intuitive operation.
“CAM provided a significantly more user-friendly system for our Project Development Teams to process pre-award contract actions,” said Gina Elliott, Facilities Division chief. “Unlike other systems previously used, CAM offers a tracking mechanism that provides automatic daily reports to each user's inbox and graphic representation of data for reports,” she said.
“Our pilot effort proved successful with a short learning curve during implementation and a seamless transition from the current system and all users on the pilot program reported that CAM was their system of choice.”
Loren Norgren, BMO project manager for CAM implementation, said his team understands change often comes with uncertainty, and it’s important that he and his team continue to “sales-pitch” CAM benefits while conducting CAM training sessions before the old Huntsville Tracking System - the antiquated, older system previously used to track projects - is turned off at the Center for good Oct. 23.
“CAM really is a better system and it’s so much easier to use,” Norgren said. “Based on the pilot program within the Facilities Division, the user friendliness, processing speed and system responsiveness greatly contributed to mission resource savings and mission efficiencies.”
Norgren explained what makes CAM better is it’s a faster Oracle-based application with a web-based user interface and it houses all contract actions by fiscal year in one consolidated system allowing for real-time analysis of the entire contract workload.
“It tracks the acquisition, contracting and production processes of a project using the hub-and-spoke concept, with the hub being the primary data source from which all other applications (spokes) are driven,” Norgren said.
He explained that when the project manager initiates a project into CAM, that project becomes the hub — the basis for current and projected requirements. The spokes are all the other processes projects require such as contract compliance and post award reviews.
Norgren said the bottom line is that by retaining all contract actions by fiscal year allows for easier communication between contracting, project management and executive management, and that saves time.
“Saving time saves money,” Norgren said. “By using CAM we see significant savings in resources through enabling teams to make focused business decisions.”
Formal work force training will be ongoing through Nov. 20.