PANAMA CITY, Fla. –
The Information Management and Customer Support Branch (Code 1042) from Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) is a 46-person team that resiliently provides full-range information technology (IT) support. This team demonstrated flexibility, teamwork, and proficiency as they collaborated to complete the monumental task of providing a technology refresh to more than 2,300 seats. They were recognized during a presentation receiving a corporate operations business excellence service star award and a special challenge coin on February 9.
“We had gone about four years without having new machines but the [tech refresh] customer service feedback we’ve received has been tremendous. It goes to show how their ability throughout the development process helped put our customers at ease during the stress and worry that comes from switching from one computer to another,” said David Hawes, acting division head and command information officer. “Savings and customer service was delivered. We are grateful for their proficiency and expertise because it allowed us to be successful and we wanted to let them know we feel their hard work.”
Prior to this technology refresh, productivity loss was at a minimum loss of 2,000 personnel-hours per day. This left NSWC PCD with two options—pay $342 per seat to perform an exchange, or have Code 1042 perform the transition in house. Code 1042 accepted the challenge and not only completed this project one year before the former would have begun—saving more than $500k—but also provided a successful blue print for other tech refreshes.
“We are extremely proud of our team and the efficacy of their entire process,” said NSWC PCD Technical Director Dr. Peter Adair. “As other warfare centers across the enterprise have struggled with tech refreshes, I shared Code 1042’s results with warfare center command leadership. They echoed my sentiment that these are impressive results and will look to share the best practices across the One Team enterprise.”
In addition, the team continued their dependable daily command support, which included resolving 11,000 Alloy tickets ranging from different IT issues such as account creation, software installation, network integration, telecom support, and scheduled network maintenance in 2021.
“Covering the variety of departments, personnel and their specific IT needs at NSWC PCD, provides plenty of potential challenges to overcome while also considering they really are on the front line of support as they physically interact to help their customers. But they did it,” said Jaimie Brock, Corporate Operations deputy department head. “Even in the few times we received constructive feedback, the team quickly folded that into the process and everything our IT professionals did went above and beyond expectations. I’ve never seen a team do this well and have so much positive feedback and excitement around what they were doing.”
The Information Management and Customer Support team’s talent, critical thinking proficiency, problem solving ability, and commitment to service directly impacted NSWC PCD resulting in an estimated savings of more than $800k and 2,500 personnel-hours through the tech refresh and daily support activities.
“It feels great to be recognized especially when I didn’t realize the scope of the work and support the team was providing at first,” said Anthony Johnson Sr., Naval Support Activity Research Development Testing and Evaluation network administrator. “I believe, especially since many of us are prior service military members and led by Air Force Maj. Lisa Trawick, NSWC PCD IT project manager, that duty and quality were placed in high regard. I immensely appreciate the people I worked with, and couldn’t have asked for a better team.”
Awardees:
Code 1042-
Greg Brakey
Denise Lassiter
Heather Deich
Shelby Lium
Philippe Whitted
Marcus Maddison
Steven A Hunt
Jeremy Coleman
John Lurry
Code 1041-
Anthony Johnson
Jordan Moody
CLIN 54-
Steven Elliott
Justin Horn
Facilities (102) - Chris Owens
Gloss