The Program Executive Office (PEO) for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) team successfully implemented a cost-effective project management tool that has inspired members of the Marine Corps to implement their own version.

Scott Gegenworth, PEO C4I CPI director, described the command's Microsoft Sharepoint-based CPI project tracker tool as an alternate to the current program used to track CPI data to attendees of a CPI executive committee (EXCOM) meeting in February.

"We kept the best and left the rest," Gegenworth explained of the tool's development.

"We migrated from CPIMS [CPI Management System] to our CPI project tracker tool as a way to avoid incurring $70,000 in annual CPIMS fees. It has been very successful," he said.

By keeping the tool's design simple, the CPI team has saved the Navy about $210,000 in costs since fiscal year 2014. The cost savings and effectiveness of the tracker tool caught the attention of two Lean Six Sigma (LSS) black belts from the Marine Corps.

Susan Stuffle and Kimberly Reath, Marine Corps Installations Command LSS black belts, attended the EXCOM and wanted to learn more about PEO C4I's CPI project tracking tool.

"They were interested in learning how the Marines could create their own CPI project tracker tool to eliminate annual CPIMS costs; they asked for a demonstration," Emily Corcoran, PEO C4I financial representative and independent reviewer, said.

When the Marine Corps black belt duo visited PEO C4I to take a closer look, Mike Dettman, PEO C4I CPI analyst and LSS Black Belt, discussed the entire design-to-implementation process, displayed the capabilities of the tool, and shared documents critical to the tool's development and stand-up.

"Utilizing a tool that our workforce was already familiar with was critical," Dettman explained. "We were able to deploy a new capability with next to zero training required."

Stuffle and Reath received permission from the U.S. Marine Corps Logistics Command to move forward with replicating and implementing the CPI project tracker tool, which is designed to keep core functionality of the CPIMS full project workflow without the cost.

Training to use the tool is minimal and maximizes standardization and transparency for CPI. PEO C4I's CPI team uses the Navy's Systems Engineering Resource Center portal and SharePoint to host and manage the tool.

The Navy and Marine Corps CPI teams will continue to work together in an effort to continually improve and streamline processes.