Case Studies

TECHFLOW HELPS NIWC PACIFIC
ELIMINATE REDUNDANT SYSTEMS

Fast Facts

  • Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC Pacific) provides the US Navy with research, development, delivery and support of integrated command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR), cyber and space systems and capabilities across all warfighting domains.
  • As the only Naval technical center headquartered in a major fleet concentration area, NIWC Pacific manages strategic locations both in the Pacific theater and around the world.
  • When NWIC Pacific needed engineering, software development, and support expertise for its BMC Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) Software as a Service (SaaS) implementation, it called upon TechFlow.

The Problem

A few years ago, the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC Pacific), then known as the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific (SPAWAR or SSC Pacific), identified a need to consolidate redundant help desk systems deployed throughout the U.S. Navy. Maintaining multiple help desk systems led to unnecessary and redundant costs. It also created interoperability challenges; for instance, one help desk could not share information with another help desk. This often led to delays in resolving user issues and confusion between the different help desk locations.

NIWC Pacific sought to leverage addressing its problem to create lasting, positive change across the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps commands. Instead of working only with help desks, NIWC Pacific decided to launch a bigger project: embracing IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices for all the Navy’s IT systems. Adopting ITIL best practices, it was hoped, would lead to significant cost savings for the Navy, both in the short term and over the long haul.

NIWC Pacific recognized it needed a strong, adept partner to provide the engineering and project management expertise required to design robust and scalable solutions supporting mission-critical service desk capabilities throughout the Navy. Together with NIWC Pacific, the partner had to be able to:

  • Design and build new software to meet the unique needs of the U.S. Navy.
  • Uniquely configure sophisticated modules within the BMC Remedy IT SM Suite.
  • Quickly support onboarding of new IT SM service customers.
  • Provide training for a mobile and changing user community.

These requirements demanded a partner with extensive engineering expertise and thought leadership. NIWC Pacific’s partner would map existing and evolving capabilities to the ITSM suite, re-engineer business processes, translate and migrate large amounts of data, build custom software, and provide comprehensive and ongoing training to NIWC Pacific’s user base.

The Solution

In 2013, TechFlow was selected to address this monumental challenge and has partnered with and provided thought leadership for NIWC Pacific and this project ever since. During that time, TechFlow has significantly enhanced NIWC Pacific’s effectiveness at delivering ITSM services that meet the requirements of its customers. With TechFlow’s help, NIWC Pacific can rapidly implement changes and provide support for its entire user community.

The scope of the project is breathtaking. In FY15, SSC Pacific and TechFlow implemented 339 customer change requests and resolved 3,342 Remedy-related requests. To date, TechFlow has delivered seven Requirements, Analysis, and Design (RAD) blueprints, including incorporating or providing responses to 302 RAD feedback items from one large customer. This resulted in four large-scale customization option workshops, which allowed the customer to select the most appropriate options to meet their needs.

Further, TechFlow completed the RAD for the Office of Naval Research (ONR), a new ITSM service-offering customer, designing and implementing the proposed solution in less than six months, including data migration. This drew the praise of Naval brass.

Read More: Office of Naval Research Heeds Lessons Learned in Latest Move to Cloud

TechFlow’s solution included automated discovery of over 8,000 configuration items or IT assets using the BMC Atrium Discovery and Dependency Mapping (ADDM) appliance, which seamlessly loads into the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). TechFlow’s Agile-based approach, coupled with implementing ITIL best practices, has yielded outstanding results for NIWC Pacific, which continues to on-boarded new customers as testament to the success of this project and the speed with which it can be implemented under TechFlow’s leadership.

Impacts

  • TechFlow has supported scores of task orders since its contract was awarded. For each order, TechFlow has operated within budget and on schedule, even when the company was managing more than 20+ simultaneous tasks.
  • TechFlow’s solution for NIWC Pacific now has over 300,000 users, tracks over 500,000 assets, and has fielded over 1,000,000 service requests.
  • Most importantly, the TechFlow team has helped NIWC Pacific eliminate redundant systems, coordinate between service desks, improve productivity through implementing ITIL best practices, and provide significant cost savings to NIWC Pacific’s ITSM customer base.