Dated: May 1995
by: Denise Desmeules
In 1992 two Canadian system integrator "giants" were battling head-to-head over the
award of one of the largest and most complicated I/S projects in the country. At stake:
$100million in a Canadian Government contract to update the aged Canada Pension
Plan and Old Age Security systems. The competitors were SHL Systemhouse and EDS
Canada. Both companies had been awarded a one-year "definition phase". The firm with
the best proposal would be awarded the $100m prize project: "Income Security Program
Redefined" (ISPR).
A key component of the proposal was the project management section. Here the bidders
had to outline what systems they would use to control the large project. As a major
crown project, the Canadian government had also decreed that the proposals would have
to comply with the new C/SPMS (Cost/Schedule Performance Measurement Standard).
The C/SPMS is a set of performance measurement criteria similar to C/SCSC in the US.
The ISPR would ultimately become one of the first two projects in Canada to have to
meet these criteria. In producing what would ultimately be the winning proposal, EDS
turned to WST's Canadian distributor HMS Software for the project management section.
"EDS considered many systems and evaluated more than one" says Alan Boyce, a
Systems Engineering Manager for EDS. "They had less power and flexibility tradeoff than
Open Plan and Cobra. I was first exposed to Open Plan a few years ago. It was
recommended by people in our office in Washington, DC."
The resulting project is complex. "There are something like 200 Cost Accounts and 1000
Work Packages" says Boyce. "Then the Work Packages are broken up by Cost Account
Manager into schedules like mini-projects of 30 - 300 activities each."
When the project is completed, Canadian Ministry of Human Resources staff "will be
using their time more productively" says Boyce. "[The system] will reduce what was a
15 or 20 step handling of paper to 3. It will reduce error and reduce cost. What used to
take 2 - 4 months to process a claim could take 20 minutes."
When the project was awarded to EDS in 1993 the managers had the opportunity to
make sure they were on the right track. "We did a step back and confirmed this was the
correct solution after the award" says Alan. Now he says the choice of Open Plan and
Cobra are paying off. "It's given us a tool to standardize the communication method
between the managers and the project office."
With the project now in progress, EDS is taking advantage of HMS Software's training
and support services. "Our technical team has been working closely with the EDS
Ottawa group" says Chris Vandersluis, president of HMS. "As one of the first projects to
be validated under the C/SPMS standards we know that a lot of people are looking at the
project control area in particular."
Alan agrees, "The technical support for this project is important", he says "and I want to
state that working with guys like Brian and Steve (of HMS) is good because they really
do stick to it."
The future use for these products looks bright at EDS according to Boyce. "I see Cobra
being used a lot more extensively" he says. "We hope to highly automate the
communication process, the communication of management information and performance
information."
go to HMS Corporate 
