By Jennifer A Young, ISI
NAVAIR ESPO

With all the changes taking place at the Naval Air Systems Command, it sure would be great to have someone at your site to guide you through the quagmire. Well, if you’re looking for information on Sigma, NAVAIR’s Enterprise Resource Planning initiative, stop into your Sigma War room and visit your Site Implementation Team (SIT). With less than five months to go until the first deployment of Sigma NAVAIR has established SITs to address site-specific issues and concerns and to provide overall coordination as deployment nears.

Each NAVAIR site has a unique focus on the common implementation of Sigma. To ensure that site concerns are addressed, the SITs function as a conduit to the program office. Sigma will eliminate many of the information systems currently in use today, but those systems are used differently at every site. The SITs are assisting the Enterprise Solutions Program Office (ESPO) with legacy application sunset planning, site training coordination, software installation, data conversion, help desk operations, and much more.

“Without these teams, successfully implementing across the sites would be nearly impossible,” said Mike Hennessy, Sigma Deployment Team lead. “We just don’t have enough people or travel money to work the issues that these teams can.”

The SIT structure includes a team lead, a site training coordinator, a change management representative, subject matter experts (SME), legacy system experts, functional consultants, and integrator personnel. The SME and functional consultants are divided among the Sigma modules that will be rolled out at each site. Based on the specific sites, the teams may have a slightly different structure to address specific needs. The sites are provided latitude to adjust the structure based on specific needs or changes in the deployment schedule.

The SITs will provide local support for the National Help Desk once Sigma is deployed. The functional consultants and SMEs will assist users with business process questions for the first eight weeks after Sigma deployment.

Communication is also a key role for the SITs. They are the experts at each site on the deployment schedule, end-user training information, and legacy application sunset plans. The SITs attend a weekly meeting with the ESPO deployment team, National Implementation Team and the other SITs from around NAVAIR to address issues, risks, concerns, schedules and all other tasks relative to go-live and long term support.

To find out who the Site Implementation Teams are at your site go to the Sigma website at https://sigma.navair.navy.mil under the Points of Contact section.