Client Engagement Profiles

Our Work

At Robo, we work collaboratively with clients whose business objectives have direct impact in the daily lives of millions of people across the country.  Learn more about how we do what we do by reading some of our client engagement stories.

Client # 1: Large US Federal Government Agency

Industry Sector: Financial Services

Engagement Type: Enterprise Performance Management

Client # 2: Large US Federal Government Agency

Industry Sector: Engineering & Construction

Engagement Type: Program Management / Enterprise Performance Management / Operations

Client # 3: Large US Federal Government Agency

Industry Sector: National Security & Defense

Engagement Type: Cloud Computing / Program Management

Client #1

Robo’s client is a large US Federal Government Agency responsible for the financial consolidation of financial statements for all federal agencies in order to generate and publish the annual Financial Report for the United States Government.  To fulfil the mandate of the agency, the team at the Financial and Budgetary Reports Division must be able to effectively collate audited and consolidated financial statements, notes and other financial information received from all federal government departments and agencies via two customized Oracle-based systems and then, upload the data into two IBM reporting applications for use in the preparation of the United States Government Financial Report (FR) which is due at the desk of the President and Congress at a specified date each year without fail.

Due to the increasing number of federal agencies reporting, the complexities of the reporting requirements and the business processes used in the collation and generation of the financial data, the Agency was experiencing a variety of challenges in the consolidation process as it couldn’t adequately perform the tasks required in the amount of time allocated for the collation, generation and publication of the Financial Report without placing a lot of strain on its staff each year.  Robo was hired to provide Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) consulting expertise that would generate comprehensive and leading practice solutions to enhance the current processes and systems for collating the financial data received from all agencies for the generation and publishing of the Financial Report (FR) thus, addressing all gaps the Agency was experiencing.  The stakeholders that our team worked closely with were distributed across three cities in three different states.

To start, we conducted a current state assessment to understand and define the current processes (using process flows), systems and pain-points and then, using our findings from the current state assessment, we worked collaboratively with the client stakeholders to define a future state and identify the gaps.  Finally, we implemented the agreed future state changes and executed the change management plans.

The project involved the analysis of business processes to streamline and eliminate redundant or inefficient points in the process, implementation of design changes to two existing mission-critical reporting applications to optimize their architecture and configuration in order to exponentially reduce runtime for business scripts from hours to minutes.  Tactical execution of an effective program management methodology was applied to ensure that the technical and functional objectives of the project were accomplished on time and to stakeholders' satisfaction.  Steadfast execution and delivery were essential because the Financial Report (FR) was a high visibility document that ends up on the desk of the President, Treasury Secretary, members of Congress and other key government personnel hence, the timeline for the completion and submission of the report was unwavering.  Working with key stakeholders located across three cities and states was an added complexity factor as effective coordination and collaboration with these individuals was critical to completion of the daily tasks required at the various phases of the project.

At conclusion of the project, the client was able to realize the following benefits:

  • Exponential reduction in the cycle time required for the entire process allowing for added analysis of the data by stakeholders prior to submission
  • Simplification of the FR generation process and the introduction of continuous improvement techniques
  • Decrease in manual activities, increase in automation and reduction in user-defined workarounds
  • Ability to respond to Auditor’s request in a timely and acceptable manner
  • Reporting application security model and administration meet all compliance requirements from oversight agencies
  • Agency personnel skills were leveraged on more value-added activities
  • Enabled flexibility for changing environment and propensity to respond quickly future requests from oversight and/or customer agencies

 

Entire duration including the transition period was 14 months.  With all the challenges experienced, the project was still completed on time, on budget and to the satisfaction of the client.  Throughout the course of this project, the two most important success factors were the amount of vested interest the client personnel  had in the success of the project coupled with the extent to which the agency collaborated with our firm and supported our staff. 

Client #2

Robo’s client is a large US Federal Government Agency responsible for providing financial and transportation engineering expertise for the development and maintenance of public roads and infrastructure within all federal government owned lands.  To fulfil the agency’s objectives, our team provides expert project management and project controls functional and technical support services for all their design, engineering, construction and studies projects across all three regional offices in three states; support of the agency’s critical project management technology infrastructure and processes utilized daily in the administration of over 1,000 active projects.

Over the years, the Agency had independent implementations of Oracle Primavera P6 as its Project Management Information System (PMIS) at its Headquarters and each of its three regional offices.  Each region operated independently of each other thus, possessed varying project management and project controls processes and procedures, different implementations and versions of the Oracle Primavera P6 which included different technical and design architecture with separate set of system administrators and users.  The current structure posed a lot of organizational challenges that included lack of standardized project controls processes across regions, agency leadership possessed reduced real time insights into key regional operating metrics due to the absence of a consolidated system to generate consolidated reporting, cost of system administration, user licensing, etc.  Robo was hired to provide the Agency with comprehensive project management and scheduling support services, administration of its Project Management Information System (PMIS) and premium technical support services for its 1,000 users across 50 states.

Our solution strategy for managing the Project Controls Program for the Agency involved a three-phase approach as shown below:

DELIVERY APPROACH PHASES:
Stabilize > Maintain > Enhance

Program Management & Change Management

Stabilize

  • Fill all required Project Controls Specialists and System Administrator positions across the regions with experienced professionals
  • Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
  • Define process flow for tasks execution
  • Analyze and define level of priority all project control tasks
  • Define methodology for capturing and executing tasks
  • Assign SLAs to each task based on priority
  • Create list of process and system improvement opportunities

 

Maintain

  • Obtain consensus from client stakeholders on SLAs assigned to tasks
  • Implement SLAs for project control tasks
  • Implement process and system improvement “quick wins”
  • Manage all project control tasks as required

 

Enhance

  • Perform detailed analysis of all current processes and system design for a consolidated Oracle PMIS for all three regions
  • Define future state of processes and design for consolidated system
  • Perform Gap Analysis
  • Provide recommendations
  • Define implementation roadmap for the consolidated system and change management strategy
  • Implement new project control processes and consolidated system design changes

The client currently realizes the following benefits:

  • Delivery of comprehensive project controls support services across all regions by experienced group of Robo Project Controls personnel
  • Increased quality of service and integrity of project schedules across all regions
  • Improved standardization of project controls procedures across regions with use of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
  • Decommission of all three instances of regional Project Management Information Systems
  • Implementation of a consolidated enterprise-wide Project Management Information System which increases the accuracy and quality of reporting while providing access to consolidated reporting across regions and more insights for Agency leadership
  • Reduced Total Cost of Ownership for the Agency’s Project Management Information System due to lower user licensing fees and number of IT support personnel across regions

Client #3

Robo’s client is a large US Federal Government Agency responsible for ensuring that  our nation’s military possess the cyber capabilities required to defend our nation’s military assets against cyber attacks and/or launch counteroffensive actions against our enemies.  To minimize logistical impacts that arise when attempting to train an audience of dispersedly located  military cybersecurity personnel, the Unit has established a Cloud-based training environment that provides the capability for their cybersecurity personnel from any location on the globe to attend interactive on-demand and live instructor-led training classes from course instructors at a location in the US.

The Cloud technology infrastructure is run on a cluster of virtual supercomputers and storage devices and was currently managed by a staff of military personnel.  The chosen Cloud supercomputing technology is a very fast-paced and niche resulting in a limited supply of individuals with solid knowledge of their applicability in a live environment and stunted knowledge growth with the in-house support staff due to their inability to constantly keep up with the rapidly changing landscape.  Robo was hired to work collaboratively with the US military and their partners to provide top quality and highly responsive services in the administration of the Cloud platforms ensuring the high availability of the applications, enhancement of the environment and protection against cyber threats which in turn, protects the integrity of the environment while helping stakeholders achieve their objectives.

Our main goal was to recruit and deploy a four-person team of highly qualified Cloud Engineers with classified security clearances to the client location (which isn’t a major US city) within four weeks without allowing the global Covid-19 pandemic to impact our timelines.  This team will be responsible for the administration of high-availability applications in a highly controlled environment to provide the military unit with comprehensive application support services and administration of its training platform.

Our joint team conducted a current state assessment to understand the current environment, pain-points etc. and then, using our findings from the current state assessment, our team worked collaboratively with the client stakeholders to define a comprehensive environment administration approach and execution plan.  Once approval for our program management plan was received, our service delivery plan that incorporated the use of industry level SLAs and leading practice DevOps strategies was implemented.

The client currently realizes the following benefits:

  • Virtual training environment is managed by individuals with superb experiences managing similar sized environments for clients demanding high availability and security
  • Optimized environment better addresses the current needs of the stakeholders while positioning for future opportunities to scale
  • Timely upgrades to the Cloud application platforms thus, minimizing vulnerabilities

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