One Year Later at Deltek: More of the Same

To be fair, estimating is another key program management disciplne, which Deltek does via third-party solutions. Regarding estimating partners for EPM, Deltek works with several vendors, including Galorath, ProPricer, and PRICE Systems. Users can basically import comma-separated values (CSV) files from those estimating systems into Deltek Cobra. While Deltek works with all of the above-mentioned estimating vendors, it doesn’t yet have formalized partnerships with any of them, and doesn’t turn to one more than any other.

The “See Problems Before They Do,” “Share Program Information,” and “Trust the Data” Themes

As Deltek has built its EPM business and listened to its customers’ top priorities, it has focused its attention on building a technology roadmap that delivers features such as early warning indicators, automated reporting, “anywhere, anytime” access via the Web, and process controls to build consistency within the organization. The vendor continues to invest in EPM, and one recent highlight would be Deltek wInsight 6.4, the tool for EVM reporting and collaboration, which was released in late May, 2008.

The release included enhancements such as early warning indicators that provide a proactive view of project performance to avoid costly budget and schedule overruns. In addition, wInsight 6.4 added two new “trip wire” metrics for the United States (US) Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD): the Baseline Execution Index (BEI) and the Critical Path Length Index (CPLI). These indices are used to measure and forecast programs’ progress and are utilized by the US Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) for compliance audits.

The product also included faster US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Part 300 reporting capabilities and simplified data integration. The latter was enabled via a United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) Extensible Markup Language (XML) data interchange to communicate EVM data to clients more easily.

Acquisition Further Bolsters EVM Leadership

As the second major move in the EPM space, in September 2008 Deltek announced the acquisition of MPM, Planview’s former EVM solution. Deltek received both software and key employees with this acquisition.

Prior to this acquisition, the two dominant EVM applications in the market were Planview MPM and Deltek Cobra. Now, Deltek becomes the industry-standard solution in the marketplace for EVM, since acquiring MPM effectively allowed the vendor to corner this market niche. This acquisition indeed extends Deltek’s leadership position as the largest and most comprehensive EVM provider.

Deltek MPM is an EVM application widely used by government contractors and agencies, including 8 of the top 10 aerospace and defense (A&D) contractors, to meet the complex compliance requirements of the US Federal Government. The solution competes directly with Artemis CostView and Dekker, and is used primarily by government contractors to comply with the ANSI 748-98A standards for earned value reporting.

Managing Trees versus Managing Grass

created for retail, footwear, and apparel; TradeStone Software names its solution Merchandise Lifecycle Management (MLM) (instead of PLM) and focuses on helping retailers to design and develop private label merchandise. No matter how vendors describe their solutions, it seems certain that now PLM manages not only “trees” but also “grass.”

Here’s what I mean: A tree is much more complicated than a blade of grass in terms of its physical structure. Not only that, but a certain size of land surface accommodating ten trees is able to grow a thousand times the amount (if not more) of grass. This situation is similar to the difference between the industries (such as aerospace and automotive) in which the PLM methodology originated, and the industries (such as fashion and retail) in which the PLM methodology has received increasing attention during the past few years.

Product Structure: Complicated versus Simple

A tree has numerous branches and leaves. So do products such as airplanes, automobiles, and industrial equipment; its branches and leaves are called components and parts. Actually, managing a complicated product structure is one of the major reasons why people started to adopt product data management (PDM) systems—the predecessor of PLM. On the contrary, within the fashion and retail sectors, products are more like grass. Their structure is usually flat and simple.

Product Variety: Small versus Large

A tree requires many more resources (quantities of soil, space, sunlight, water, etc.) than a blade of grass does. It is also true that a complicated product requires more resources than a simple product. As a result, companies that produce “trees,”such as General Motors, may develop and manage only a handful of different products. But companies that produce “grass,” such as Spain-based apparel company Zara, may introduce up to 11,000 different styles in a single season.