Clients
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Financial and Business Management System (FBMS)


Business Issue
 
In 2004 the Department of the Interior (DOI) began work on the Financial and Business Management System (FBMS) program intended to modernize and consolidate the disparate financial, acquisitions, financial assistance, and travel systems being used across DOI’s eight (8) bureaus and departmental offices. The FBMS solution, based primarily on SAP R/3 system and Compusearch PRISM, would be deployed to the bureaus through a series of deployments that would go live at the start of each government fiscal year until all of DOI’s business entities were using FBMS as their core business system.
 
Early in program life-cycle, DOI realized the complexity of implementing R/3 and PRISM was more than their existing staff could do without outside support. While DOI had hired a system integrator to lead the implementation effort, there was still quite a bit of work for which DOI was responsible for which they did not have the product expertise required.
 
Solution
 
In 2005, before the start of FBMS deployment 2, DOI contracted Delta Solutions to augment their team and provide the product-specific knowledge not currently in place. Our expertise with SAP and PRISM, coupled with our deep expertise with the legacy systems being replaced and knowledge of how DOI’s bureaus do business, made Delta Solutions the partner DOI needed to increase the likelihood of success of the FBMS program. As part of the government team, Delta Solutions’ resources would be responsible for:
  • Assisting DOI in making system configuration decisions based on the system integrator’s recommendations ensuring business requirements were being met sufficiently and that the configuration was extensible for future deployments;
  • Performing data conversions, using our expertise with the legacy systems being replaced to write the extracts needed, while using our expertise with the SAP and PRISM systems to write the load programs needed to post the data;
  • Working with the hosting provider to ensure the system was sized appropriately to meet performance requirements as the user population grows each deployment; and
  • Providing security expertise to ensure DOI’s certification and accreditation needs are met and that all system vulnerabilities are identified and mitigated  
Outcome
 
Now in the seventh of eight deployments, DOI’s FBMS program continues to thrive and Delta Solutions has been a key contributor to that success. Working as part of the government team has allowed Delta Solutions to use and share, our experience to help the government team work successfully with the system integrator to keep each FBMS deployment on time and within budget. Delta Solutions continues to augment the government team with SAP, PRISM, and federal financial expertise. Delta Solutions has also become the operations and maintenance provider for FBMS, which has enabled DOI to ensure continuity between deployment efforts and FBMS production operations. This has allowed DOI to successfully manage the risk of having live production operations while continually expanding functionality and the user community.