NASA looks to improve asset management

The Reston, Va., company credited with giving NASA its financial information backbone is turning its attention to another part of the space agency's anatomy -- integrated asset management.

Last June, Accenture implemented software for the core financial module of NASA's Integrated Financial Management Program, which connected 10 field offices to a single accounting system. Tuesday, NASA announced the global management consulting and technical services company has won a five-year, firm-fixed price contract to carry out the final three stages of NASA's $861 million financial systems overhaul.

"The focus is on helping NASA to better manage its fixed assets, which it has a lot of," said Stanley J. Gutkowski, managing partner of Accenture's USA Government practice. NASA lists 5,400 buildings and structures, 73 aircraft, 4,000 motor vehicles and 30,000 controlled chemicals among almost $35 billion worth of real property.

The contract is worth between $12 million and $200 million, with the agency's needs determining the actual value. Additional tasks under the contract will include support in contract administration and human resources management.

Accenture employs about 86,000 people in 48 countries. The company had $3.26 billion in revenues in the first quarter of fiscal 2004 and $11.8 billion in revenues in 2003.

Through the Integrated Financial Management Program, NASA aims to improve financial, physical and human resources management processes throughout the agency. NASA is overhauling its management systems in nine stages, or modules. It adopted the first four management systems for resumes, job descriptions, program and project performance and employee travel between 2001 and 2003. When the overhaul is done, Accenture will have put five of the nine modules into operation.

The fifth module, known as "core financial," is what NASA and the company describe as the "backbone" of the IFMP effort. It took three years to implement. Accenture consolidated 145 separate and duplicative financial management systems into a single standard based on a software solution from SAP Public Services. The system is designed to support full cost management by providing agency-wide standards for accounting, budgeting and financial reporting.

Although NASA regards implementation of the core financial module as complete, the General Accounting Office has taken issue with it -- most recently in November. GAO reported that in the rush to roll it out, NASA deferred testing on some key capabilities. The report said two-thirds of the financial events or transaction types needed to carry out day-to-day operations and produce external financial reports were not implemented in the module.

"Any time you are deploying a large technology solution across a complex organization, you have challenges," Gutkowski said. "I think the focus [of the GAO report] was on IFMP in its entirety, and the fact that the core financial component was not the complete answer, not the complete solution. NASA agreed with that."

Accenture will introduce the sixth module, which will link bottom-up budget development with top-down decision-making, in May.

The seventh module, integrated asset management, is due for rollout beginning in 2005. It is designed to allow NASA to better control and manage assets and programs in financial reporting, project management and physical inventory. NASA owns and manages a wide range of assets such as land, buildings, aircraft, spacecraft, computers, equipment, chemicals and supplies.

NASA is working to roll out the last two modules, for contract administration and human resources management, by 2006.