U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Acquisition and Logistics, Enterprise Acquisition Systems Service (EAS)

Our Challenge

EAS is dedicated to providing acquisition and program management expertise and support for life cycle management of enterprise-wide VA acquisition solutions. Within the Department of Veterans Affairs Central Office (VACO), EAS provides expert guidance to other VA offices about how to manage the acquisition process, including how to manage the life cycle of goods and services once they have been purchased. It uses a suite of procurement tools, including an electronic contract management system, a vendor portal, and two centers of excellence dedicated to improving VA’s acquisition process. Since 2010, DFC assists EAS with project management, strategic communications, maintaining the program operations system, reporting, and analysis.

Our Strategy

Duty First set up the EAS project management office initially and continues to assist in a variety of areas:

• organizational change management
• strategic communication
• customer care
• IT lifecycle planning and support

DFC has years of experience with both custom and commercially available project management solutions, which we implement in accordance with the best practices advocated by the Project Management Institute. In support of EAS communications and outreach efforts, our team developed and currently maintains a full suite of program documentation, such as organizational charters and communication plans for EAS programs and projects.

We also provide in-house SharePoint development services, such as information architecture planning, governance plan development, site permission management and auditing, reporting automation, and customized workflows to automate business processes.

Our Results

Using our communications expertise, DFC has helped EAS to maintain its hard-earned reputation as one of the most responsive and professional within VACO.

We created an integrated master schedule for a program within OAL, the EAS parent organization, that contained many levels of projects, tasks, and sub-tasks that all had to work together seamlessly. Using this schedule, our team helped OAL to complete its 5-year program ahead of schedule and under budget.

DFC helped EAS successfully develop its first disaster recovery plan ahead of schedule and before peer organizations had completed theirs. Our plan is now used as a model for other organizations to follow.

When EAS needed a better way to manage its information, DFC created a robust library structure to house all program documentation. It includes custom reporting services, automated report delivery, and logical and easy-to-use filters, with the result that EAS employees spend less time searching for information for their projects.

The DFC team also created a new logo for the EAS electronic contract management system (eCMS) and new branding for both EAS and eCMS. We made a two-page “What is eCMS?” infographic explaining how eCMS supports VA acquisitions and stakeholders. This piece was awarded a Hermes Gold Award in 2016.