Contractor |
DOE Office |
|
|
Date of last assessment: October 2000
The telecommunications functional area received the
following ratings in the FY 2000 Annual Appraisal:
1.1.a.5 Emergency communications system as defined on 4/3/96 is operating as specified and meeting customer's needs (CSS and content analysis) - Outstanding
1.1.b.4 Phone orders are processed in a timely fashion and meeting customer needs (CSS and order analysis) - Outstanding
1.1.b.5 Phone repairs are completed in a timely fashion and meeting customer needs (CSS and order analysis) - Excellent
Our
self-assessment team identified areas of opportunity for enhanced performance
and will address those areas in the following report.
There were no
open items from the 2000 review.
Identification of Self-Assessment Report Staff
Status of Systems
This report
represents the results of the telecommunications functional area
self-assessment, an ongoing process begun as part of the Business Management
Oversight pilot established by DOE in March 1995 and continued by executive
order as part of DOE performance-based management. Assessment material was collected over the past year,
followed by a process of validation of findings, analysis and report writing.
The telecommunications functional area self-assessment is based on and
measured against performance activities currently agreed to between SLAC and
DOE/OAK in order to address customer satisfaction, cost efficiency, and contract
compliance.
SLAC has a
multi-year service subcontract with Nextira to provide the majority of
telecommunications services including video conferencing and voice mail services
currently in use. The subcontract
period began in July 1988 and will end in June 2002.
This service includes Nextira owned switching equipment, the telephone
cable plant and a dedicated technician. SLAC
has month-to-month agreements with other telecommunications service providers
for traffic carrier services, radio and paging services, and cellular phone
service, which are renewed on a fiscal year basis.
These vendors include Pacific Bell, for local calling and network access,
ISDN and measured business lines; PowerNet Global, AT&T
and FTS2001, for long distance calling; Verizon, for wide area paging
service; Motorola and GE Erickson, for mobile radio services; and AT&T
Wireless and Cingular Wireless, for cellular phone service.
The Nextira-supplied telephone system includes a
4,150-port digital electronic switching system and a cable plant that is
adequate to the system but is stretched and old. The cable plant is based on
twisted pair copper technology with surge protectors, both within and between
buildings. The switch is capable of
supporting more advanced and expensive digital technologies such as Integrated
Services Digital Network (ISDN). The system includes direct inward dial service,
voice mail, government and public network access, paging access and video
conferencing. The system supports a
majority of mass-market, single-line instruments (3500 ports) and some
proprietary multi-line instruments (300 ports) to provide secretarial type
functions. The remaining 350 ports
are used for trunks. The system
provides alarm circuits, emergency communications, and back up power capability.
In October 2001, we completed a PBX upgrade that brought
our switch hardware and software to current levels. The upgrade included hardware to support ISDN PRI's for our
local and FTS2001 traffic, improvements to our system management tools, and
support for additional digital telephones and analog message waiting lamp
telephones. The upgrade was planned
to minimize the impact on our user community.
It was negotiated and completed at no additional cost to the contract.
SLAC pays for
a majority of the Nextira-provided phone service on a guaranteed fixed price per
line per month basis for the life of the contract, with the exceptions of the
voice mail and video conferencing systems that SLAC owns.
Carrier services are based on current CPUC tariff and federal government
rates and paging and radio services using a negotiated rate structure.
During the past year, we have negotiated with Nextira to
clarify the status of the PBX at the end of the lease in June 2002.
Nextira has agreed that SLAC will own the switch, with no additional
charge or buy out. We have
developed a procurement schedule, completed the second draft of specifications
and RFP, and prepared a comprehensive list of vendors for cable and telephone
services required to maintain the SLAC-owned system at the end of the lease.
During the past year we have completed the conversion of
our paper cable records to an electronic spreadsheet. Incomplete and inaccurate information in the records is
gradually being corrected as errors are found.
We estimate that we have improved the accuracy of the records by ten
percent over the past six months.
The system is managed in partnership with
Telecommunications Staff and user representatives called Area Telecommunications
Office Motivators (ATOMs). ATOMs
were appointed by group leaders in 1987 to represent a group or geographical
area of from 15-200 phones and/or users. They interface with the Telecommunications staff using
user-driven on-line tools developed by Telecommunications to activate services
and identify order status. Lead-times
to complete requests for changes are from one to four weeks, depending on type
of request.
The activities
of the Telecommunications functional area include, but are not limited to,
providing wired and wireless telephone, radio, paging, and video conferencing
services. This year the areas of telephone services and emergency communications
were assessed.
Discussion of Individual Performance Objectives
2000 Telephone Services Self-Assessment
Services: We obtained traffic studies through Williams
Communications (now Nextira) to review our trunk requirements, before and after
the PBX upgrade in October 2000. In
November 2000, we replaced our DID trunks and local outgoing trunks with four
ISDN PRI's. This provides us with
some additional economy of scale with respect to the total number of trunks
needed to support our traffic. In
addition, we are able to provide our users calling party identification on
digital display phones. At the time
of the upgrade, we conducted a complete review of our PBX routing information.
This included the elimination of routes that were no longer needed and
verification that all calls are routed as intended.
We also recovered facilities and deleted definitions for trunks that were
disconnected following the upgrade.
Our transition of FTS2000 voice services to FTS2001 was
completed in November 2000, about a week after our PBX upgrade.
Bringing these services directly into the PBX, rather than through the
Teleos hub, significantly improves the reliability and serviceability of the
connections. Our transition of
FTS2000 videoconference services to FTS2001 was completed in May 2001.
The FTS2000 ISDN PRIs for voice and videoconference services were
disconnected following the transition of each service to FTS2001.
We have recently developed a program to analyze our
usage of Intra-LATA telephone services, based on CDR data. We expect that this will allow us to better evaluate our use
of local telephone services and the available alternatives.
Telephone Orders Meet Customer Needs: During the 1998 fiscal year,
we replaced our previous telephone order system that ran on VM with the new SLAC
Phone Request System (SPRS), based on the commercial Remedy application, with
Web interfaces for users. During
the past year we have continued to make improvements to the system as needed.
We have transitioned to a largely paperless workflow for tracking orders
within the Telecommunications group. The
new system was well received by the ATOMs (Area Telecommunications Office
Motivators), who submit orders for their departments.
And the ATOMs have reported that the system continues to become easier to
use as they gain more experience with it.
In addition to the objective
data collected from the SLAC Phone Request System, we used the services of a
consultant from outside our department to request anonymous feedback from the
ATOMs through a short survey. We
requested responses to five questions, which were the same as questions used in
our fiscal year 2000 survey. Twenty
out of sixty ATOMs chose to participate in the survey.
For analysis purposes, we divide the orders into two types: software and hardware.
Our goal is to complete most
software orders in one week or less.
The following table shows
selected measurements for software orders.
# of Days |
Percent Completed |
0 |
35.4% |
1 |
59% |
2 |
73.6% |
3 |
82.9% |
4 |
87.5% |
5 |
90% |
6 |
91.5% |
7 |
93% |
The following graph shows the
number of software orders completed in a specific number of days with the green
bars and labels on the left axis. The
cumulative percentage of orders completed within a time period are shown by the
blue line and labels on the right axis.
Ninety-three percent of software
orders are completed within one week. In
2000, eighty-six percent of orders were completed within one week.
There has been a small improvement in processing times for most software
orders. This is most clear when
comparing the times required to complete eighty or ninety percent of the orders.
For example, the time required to complete ninety percent of orders
dropped from nine days, in 2000, to five days, in 2001.
This was accomplished in spite of the need to find and train a new system
administrator in March 2001.
|
Our goal is to complete most hardware orders within one month. Some orders can stay in the system for much longer for reasons that are largely beyond our control. Examples include waiting for access to tunnels and waiting for users to complete construction or install conduit. In addition, we have a single technician available to handle both hardware orders and repairs. Because repairs generally receive higher priority than new orders, work on hardware orders can be delayed for several days while other problems are resolved. For these reasons, we believe it is realistic to expect hardware orders to take somewhat longer than other types.
The following table shows
selected measurements for hardware orders.
# of Days |
Percent |
1 |
10.8% |
7 |
36.9% |
12 |
51% |
14 |
55.4% |
21 |
77.3% |
28 |
86.4% |
The following graph shows the
number of hardware orders completed in a specific number of days, charted with
bars, using the right axis. The
blue line shows the cumulative percentage of orders completed, with percentages
on the left axis.
|
Eighty-six percent of hardware
orders are completed within four weeks. This
represents a significant improvement over 2000, when sixty-one percent of
hardware orders were completed within thirty days.
The median time to complete hardware orders has dropped from 21 days in
2000 to 12 days in 2001.
ATOMs were asked to indicate
whether they agreed with the statement "Software orders are completed in a
reasonable length of time." They
were given a five-point scale (strongly disagree, disagree, acceptable, agree,
and strongly agree). Ninety percent
of ATOMs rated performance as acceptable or better.
ATOMs were also asked to
indicate whether they agreed with the statement "Hardware orders are
completed in a reasonable length of time."
Sixty-five percent of ATOMs rated performance as acceptable or better.
We have continued to focus on improving our hardware
order completion times. We
performed weekly order analysis, prioritization for hardware orders that are
open in excess of fourteen days, and escalation of issues causing delays in
order completion.
Telephone Repairs Meet Customer Needs:
Any person at SLAC can request a telephone repair either by using a
Web-based form in the SLAC Phone Request System (SPRS) described above, or by
leaving a voice message on the phone repair line. In 2000, we collected data only from SPRS.
We have seen a gradual increase in the number of requests received
through SPRS, but this is still less than half our total number of repair
requests. This year we experimented
with using a spreadsheet to collect information on voice requests.
Currently, the system administrator and technician are entering all such
requests into SPRS for tracking purposes. Although
this requires additional administrative overhead, we believe that it will
provide more reliable information on repair completion times as well as the
causes and resolutions of telephone problems.
Due to the difficulties involved
in obtaining a representative sample of all telephone users at SLAC, we relied
upon the ATOMs to provide subjective feedback on behalf of all their users
through the survey described above.
Our goal is to complete most
repairs in one business day or less.
The table below shows selected measurements for repair
requests.
# of Days |
Percent Completed |
1 |
85.3% |
2 |
90.4% |
6 |
95.3% |
The chart below shows the number
of repairs completed in a given number of days, using the green bars and right
axis. The blue line, with labels
along the left axis, shows the cumulative percent of orders completed.
|
The data collected indicate that
over eighty-five percent of repairs are completed in one day or less.
This is a significant improvement from 2000, when forty-six percent of
repairs were completed in a comparable time.
ATOMs were asked to indicate whether they agreed with the statement "Repairs are completed in a timely fashion." They were given a five-point scale (strongly disagree, disagree, acceptable, agree, and strongly agree). Eighty-five percent of the ATOMs rated performance as acceptable or better.
2001 Emergency Communications Self-Assessment
It is the responsibility of
each person in the emergency organization to determine what communications
resources they need to fulfill their responsibilities.
Beyond the role of the Emergency Communications Manager in restoring
telecommunications services and allocating alternate resources in an actual
emergency, we provide services to the emergency organization in the same manner
as we do to other users. That is we
help users to clarify their actual communications needs, provide information
about available alternatives, provide services where appropriate, and refer
users to other resources for products and services we do not provide.
During the past
year, tests of the emergency communications systems were conducted eight times.
SLACs Emergency Coordinator indicated that his primary concern in
regards to the emergency communications tests is to test the wireless systems on
a regular basis. The responsibility
for running these tests has been taken over by SLACs SCS Helpdesk personnel. Following each test, users verbally communicate the quality
of the tests results to the wireless analyst.
If there were any portable/base station/mobile unit problems, the
Helpdesk personnel would have gotten the necessary repairs done.
No problems with emergency wireless equipment were reported.
In addition, during
the past year, preventive maintenance was done by SLAC's wireless communications
analyst on all emergency wireless equipment.
The wireless analyst conducted tests to ensure each emergency wireless
portable/base station/mobile transmit frequency, output power level, and
receiver sensitivity were within specification. During this past year, no emergency wireless equipment had to
be repaired.
The Emergency
Coordinator indicated the current emergency communications system continues to
meet the user's needs. There is
also support for continuing the wireless tests and preventative maintenance.
We plan to continue support for the wireless tests and preventative
maintenance for this area.
Contract compliance:
Our assessment team found the telecommunications functional area to be in compliance with laws, regulations and, terms and conditions of the current DOE contract. The telecommunications functional area assessment team found no fraud, waste, or abuse issues.
Objectives/Goals
for FY 2002
Implement
a PBX software patch required to utilize the Meridian Administration Tools.
Send the new System Administrator to training. Implement new procedures to take advantage of new administrative
capabilities.
Implement
a new call data buffer to replace the no-longer-maintained VAX system.
Issue
the RFP, select a vendor, and finalize the contract for cable and telephone
services.
Support
the opening of the new Research Office building with new telephones and
cabling.
Continue to increase the number of telephones and PBX ports with message waiting lamp support and slowly phase out equipment that does not support this function.
For Questions or comments, Please contact Ziba Mahdavi, Last Updated 10/24/00