RPCuk: Helping our Armed Forces to Maximise Value in Procurement

RPCuk is proud to announce that we have been selected by the Ministry of Defence to work with DE&S, enabling them to take their project controls to the next level with Oracle Primavera P6 and Unifier. RPCuk is a leading and innovative supplier of integrated, project controls solutions using the Oracle Primavera toolset, and has a rich history of working with clients in the Aerospace and Defence sector. 

DE&S is the MoD Defence Equipment and Support procurement organisation, based in Bristol, responsible for the acquisition and support of Defence Equipment on behalf of the UK Armed Forces. DE&S manages a vast range of complex projects to buy, support and supply vital equipment and services that the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force need to operate effectively. The programme of work ranges from jets and warships through to armoured vehicles and field kitchens, with an annual spend in the order of £13Bn.

DE&S has already acquired and deployed a Primavera based tool suite to enhance its delivery performance and is now looking to expand on the functionality currently deployed. RPCuk has developed a family of pre-built Oracle Primavera Unifier-based Solution Sets, which enable clients to expedite deployment of previously complex project controls solutions in a number of common business areas, including Earned Value Management, Strategic Risk Management, Project Controls, Cost Management, Asset Care and NEC4 Contract Management. We will be working with DE&S to configure their Oracle Primavera toolset for Cost Management, Earned Value Management and other areas.

The project kicked off at the beginning of December, commencing the Discovery phase of our RPCuk Rapid Application Development approach, a unique and agile approach to Oracle Primavera deployment demonstrated by RPCuk Chairman, Peter Gable, at this year’s Project Controls Expo Virtual, in November. With the commencement of Release 4 of the project controls functionality, this Discovery phase is critical in order to assess what has been deployed in earlier releases and to understand which elements of past releases will need to be reconfigured in order to support the roll-out of R4.

The aim of the project is to provide an integrated P6 and Unifier solution to DE&S, delivering appropriate business process integrations to enable the client to achieve ‘enter data once, use many’ status and to develop integrations and interfaces with other DE&S/MoD systems, as required. This will allow DE&S to fully realise the planned benefits of an integrated project/portfolio management and control system.

RPCuk Projects Director, John Lister, said, "This is a significant contract award for RPCuk. Having already implemented similar solutions for clients within the A&D space, we are delighted to be able to bring our expertise to the heart of the MoD by collaborating with DE&S on this major project as we go into 2021."