IEMA: Remote Monitoring System

The primary responsibility of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) is to better prepare the State of Illinois for natural, manmade or technological disasters, hazards, or acts of terrorism. IEMA assists local governments with multi-hazard emergency operations and plans and maintains the Illinois Emergency Operations Plan. IEMA is also responsible for protecting Illinois residents from the potentially harmful effects of ionizing radiation, monitors 11 nuclear power reactors at six nuclear stations licensed to generate electricity in Illinois, and inspects and escorts spent nuclear fuel shipments.

Challenge

IEMA remotely monitors six nuclear power plants in Illinois by continually collecting and monitoring thousands of data points every minute via communications from each nuclear plant. IEMA's current remote monitoring system is comprised of decades-old hardware and software, much of which is no longer supported by vendors. IEMA needed to modernize its remote monitoring system, but perform this modernization in such a way that continuous data feeds from each site were uninterrupted.

Solution

IEMA purchased third-party software specific to data collecting for the energy industry. MSF&W was selected to manage all aspects of this multi-year project, including budget, scheduling and system installation, and verification. Project activities included software and hardware installation at each nuclear plant, configuration of new software and data collection points, design and development of user interfaces, Site Acceptance Testing for each nuclear reactor, IEMA personnel training, parallel operation of the new and legacy systems, and seamless decommissioning of the legacy monitoring system.

 

ISBE: ILDS Project Manager

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) serves as the policy-making body for public education within the State of Illinois. The agency is responsible for statewide curriculum standards, high school graduation requirements, and standards for teaching professionals. ISBE also maintains multiple data systems that track various aspects of the performance and competitiveness of public education.

Challenge

When ISBE created the Student Information System (SIS), they started laying the groundwork for a longitudinal data system to link student test scores, length of enrollment, and graduation records over time. The Illinois Longitudinal Data System (ILDS) expansion project then began to collect, integrate, analyze, and report enterprise-wide data. In an effort to manage the extensive repository of data, ISBE also began developing an education enterprise-wide data warehouse to facilitate the accessibility of the collected data to multiple entities. In order to coordinate and manage this significant undertaking, ISBE released an RFP for a project manager with prior ISBE experience, extensive large complex project experience, knowledge of data management, data conversion and data warehouse concepts, and excellent team leadership skills.

Solution

MSF&W was selected to provide the project manager for this multi-year initiative. Our senior consultant managed a multimillion dollar ILDS ARRA grant, which involved general grant management, regular federal reporting, and budget maintenance, along with project management of several ISBE projects. He assumed the management of an additional ILDS grant, which included the design, development, and implementation of the ISBE data warehouse.

Management activities included annual and monthly status and budget reports, overseeing several data collections and reporting projects, and leading the warehouse development team on the expansion of the warehouse, which included bringing in new source data and expanding the use of the warehouse.

 

CQuest: Early Intervention Case Management System

CQuest’s primary focus is to support the delivery of quality health care to the medically underserved through technology and management services. CQuest provides information technology solutions and services focusing on developing and supporting Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program activities at both the state and local levels. CQuest also subcontracts with the State of Illinois to manage billing for all Early Intervention program services.

Challenge

CQuest has a customized case management and billing system for Early Intervention program services for the State of Illinois. Its system and hardware was outdated, required a lot of manual data entry for service providers, and was in need of an upgrade. CQuest was in negotiations with a third party vendor that offered a customized turnkey solution. CQuest needed a strong project manager to work with the third party vendor to integrate the software with the existing case management system, manage the offsite sponsor and software vendor, and coordinate the activities of the development team.

Solution

MSF&W was selected to manage the negotiation with the third party vendor. Responsibilities included the management and coordination of the off-site development team, the client, and multiple external stakeholders.

Project activities included creating a project charter, project plan, communications plans, change management plans, and test plans, as well as documenting functional requirements and designing business requirements.