Case in Point: Wide Area Workflow (WAWF)

Two of DoD’s strategic objectives for business transformation include reducing the cost of business operations and improving financial stewardship. WAWF supports these objectives by helping to mitigate interest penalty payments due to lost or misplaced documents and highlights vendor offered discounts, thereby enabling DoD to reduce the cost of paying vendors. The WAWF application matches electronically submitted invoices, inspection, and acceptance documents to enable prompt, accurate payments and supports DoD’s goal of moving to a paperless acquisition process. In addition to streamlining the whole receipt and acceptance process from weeks to days or minutes, WAWF reduces the cost associated with reconciliation through online access and full spectrum view of document status, minimizes re-keying and improves data accuracy, eliminates unmatched disbursements and makes all documentation required for payment easily accessible.

As a result of WAWF, DoD has significantly improved the receipt, acceptance, and payment process, resulting in:

• 95% reduction in Prompt Payment Act interest penalties when WAWF is used ($7M for the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) alone)
• Elimination of 50,000 lost documents per year
• 60% reduction in progress payment rejects
• 50-80% reduction in invoice cycle time
• Elimination of the manual entry of one million documents per year
• 70% reduction in cost for DFAS Contract Pay to process invoices

WAWF provides the capability for government contractors and authorized DoD personnel to generate, capture, and process receipt and payment-related documentation, via interactive web-based applications that utilize email notifications and secure, digital signature.

WAWF has improved the receipt and acceptance process and reduced complexity for DoD contractors, both small businesses and large corporations alike. The Honeycomb Company of America—a small Florida business that manufactures panels for a variety of aircraft - began using WAWF in August 2004. Prior to that time, they experienced significant delays in payment, which led them to borrow money against the invoices due from the Government. Since adopting WAWF, the Honeycomb Company of America has experienced perfect payment from their DoD customers. This improvement has enabled them to cancel their arrangement with their lender, and saves Honeycomb Company of America over a quarter million dollars in interest payments a year. Similarly, Parker Hannifin Corporation—a large manufacturer of motion and control technologies—has seen great improvements in their receivables since they began utilizing WAWF. On average, Parker is receiving payment within 10-15 days of invoice submission. Invoice rejections have been reduced and resolution of errors is now achieved in a more efficient manner. In addition, WAWF has enabled Parker to streamline their process by eliminating the need for DD250 (Material Inspection and Receiving Report) distribution.

This undertaking is part of the Department’s drive to fulfill the promise in the August 2001 President’s Management Agenda to “secure greater services at lower cost through electronic government (E-government), and can meet high public demand for E-government services. This administration’s goal is to champion citizen-centered electronic government that will result in a major improvement in the federal government’s value to the citizen.”

While WAWF’s progress to date is a major accomplishment, there is still more work to do, including assessing the feasibility of addressing impediments identified during a Spring 2006 analysis. Other next steps include continuing deployment of the existing functionality across the Department and integrating WAWF with the target Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Item Unique Identification (IUID), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Personal and Real Property Accountability; Telecommunications processing; and the Standard Financial Information Structure (SFIS).