Volume 1, Issue 4 January 2016 Message from the CEO Happy New Year! I want to thank you all for helping to make our progress possible this past year. 2015 ended with a series of holiday parties. Charleston, Huntsville, Maryland and our northern VA offices had wonderful holiday get togethers. In Virginia, we had a delicious luncheon at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington. Our PAX River, Dahlgreen, Ft. Belvoir, Sterling, Chantilly and Arlington offices participated in this holiday occasion. Huntsville planned a holiday dinner at The Cliffs at Redstone, while Charleston celebrated at the Muse restaurant. Our staff in France went to Le Petit Louragais in Manosque, France for dinner. Barcelona had a holiday get together at La Tagliatella. Employees were recognized for their contribution to BCF and customer goals. Their names are listed on page 5. I enjoyed each of the stateside events and there were some great door prizes for those that attended! As we turn the corner into a new year, I’d like to highlight the success BCF found in 2015. This was the year of new customers and successfully leveraging our stellar past performance to compete as a large business. We won our first task order at SPAWAR Charleston on our prime contract for Information Dominance Program Management/Financial Management. We made a great leap forward in diversifying our capability into system engineering and integration in the security and surveillance arena. In this regard, BCF won a large business prime contract to support the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center/ PEO Battle Management at Hanscom AFB outside Boston, and The BCF Beacon 1 THE BCF BEACON Employee Contest Have you received some positive customer feedback? We want to hear it! Send it to [email protected] to be eligible to win a $100 dollar gift card! Ask Ross Nole about his winning last quarter! Suggestion Box The virtual suggestion box on the employee page is a great channel for your workplace feedback! Employee Corner Check out the employee section of the BCF website to see what’s available in the employee store! Suggestions for the newsletter? Email your comments, thoughts or suggestions to Kelly at [email protected]Get BCF Updates Check our Facebook and LinkedIn updates throughout the week!
Transcript
Volume 1, Issue 4 January 2016
Message from the CEO Happy New Year! I want to thank you all for helping to make our progress possible this past year. 2015 ended with a series of holiday parties. Charleston, Huntsville, Maryland and our northern VA offices had wonderful holiday get togethers. In Virginia, we had a delicious luncheon at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington. Our PAX River, Dahlgreen, Ft. Belvoir, Sterling, Chantilly and Arlington offices participated in this holiday occasion. Huntsville planned a holiday dinner at The Cliffs at Redstone, while Charleston celebrated at the Muse restaurant. Our staff in France went to Le Petit Louragais in Manosque, France for dinner. Barcelona had a holiday get together at La Tagliatella. Employees were recognized for their contribution to BCF and customer goals. Their names are listed on page 5. I enjoyed each of the stateside events and there were some great door prizes for those that attended!
As we turn the corner into a new year, I’d like to highlight the success BCF found in 2015. This was the year of new customers and successfully leveraging our stellar past performance to compete as a large business. We won our first task order at SPAWAR Charleston on our prime contract for Information Dominance Program Management/Financial Management. We made a great leap forward in diversifying our capability into system engineering and integration in the security and surveillance arena. In this regard, BCF won a large business prime contract to support the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center/PEO Battle Management at Hanscom AFB outside Boston, and
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THE BCF BEACONEmployee Contest
Have you received some positive customer feedback? We want to hear it! Send it to [email protected] to be eligible to win a $100 dollar gift card! Ask Ross Nole about his winning last quarter!
Suggestion Box
The virtual suggestion box on the employee page is a great channel for your workplace feedback!
Employee Corner
Check out the employee section of the BCF website to see what’s available in the employee store!
Suggestions for the newsletter?
Email your comments, thoughts or suggestions to Kelly at [email protected]
Get BCF Updates
Check our Facebook and LinkedIn updates throughout the week!
the first three task orders worth more than $6,000,000. And we won a task order supporting a strategic small business partner for the Submarine Program in Philadelphia.
Our strategy and goals for 2016 capitalizes on this upward momentum. As a company, we want to exceed our 10% growth goal. We are focusing on prime small business engineering and/or integration contracts, specific to command & control and force protection, and prime full and open program management contracts. Our plan is to grow at each of our primary locations and expand our capabilities in those locations. As we get more entrenched in current market areas, we will begin developing new markets over the next three years.
I want to thank each of you for our current and upcoming successes.
Brady C. Foster
Sole Provider for ITER Machine BCF continues to incrementally grow our business in Europe, and with the new 2016 brought a new win for the team! BCF is now the sole provider for schedule development and maintenance for the ITER Nuclear Fusion reactor assembly & installation. This is a huge responsibility, with over 1,000,000 components being installed over the next 8 years. This is – without a doubt – the most complex project in the world as measured by number of independent systems required to make this nuclear reactor operational. And BCF is at the middle of it with significant responsibilities and playing a critical role in enabling the customer to achieve their goals! BCF is providing support for six (6) different areas of the ITER machine:
1. Construction Preparatory Planning and Scheduling
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HR Bulletin
Tax Reminder:
BCF is required to annually report to the IRS on the health insurance coverage offered to full-time employees and their dependent children.
You will receive Form 1095-C for the first time no later than March 31, 2016. If you consented to receive electronic communications, our third party vendor, TASC, will email the form to you.
Be on the lookout for the form in the mail if you did not consent to receive the form electronically.
Paystubs:Please review your paystub dated 01/22/2016 for accuracy of salary and benefit deductions for 2016. This paystub is the first paystub in 2016 with the new benefit deductions. If there is a discrepancy, please notify Human Resources as soon as possible.
Employee Spotlight
Eric Hawkes, Huntsville employee, ran his first half marathon.On 14 November, the Huntsville Track Club organized the 28th annual Huntsville Half Marathon. In keeping with the timing of the event, the Saturday closest to Veteran's Day and to show the
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In this area, we are primarily responsible for four schedules: Contract Preparation & Management Phase I, Pre-site Construction Management Phase I, Pre-site Construction Tooling Design & Procurement, Engineering to Construction Interfaces
2. Machine Assembly Planning and Scheduling
BCF has been actively developing and maintaining the Machine Assembly Schedules for several years, and as such has a strong grasp on the logic and alternatives associated with this complex area. To date this has received positive feedback from external reviewers. There are 8 primary areas for the Machine Assembly Planning & Scheduling: Lower Cryostat, Sector Sub-Assembly, Sector Assembly, Tokamak Datum, Ex-Vessel Side, Ex-Vessel Upper, Ex-Vessel Lower, and In-Vessel.
3. Plant Installation Planning and Scheduling
Plant Installation represents a very significant part of the Construction Budget, concerning the majority of Systems and Buildings on the ITER Site.
4. Start-up and Testing, Commissioning and Operations Planning and Scheduling
The Start-up & Testing and Integrated Commissioning is a very crucial phase of the project since it validates the turnover of the ITER Structures, Systems and Components (SSC’s) after the Site Construction phase prior to Functioning testing and subsequent Commissioning Phase. This is a prerequisite for the installed SSC’s, to be accepted by the Nuclear Operator before proceeding with the Integrated Commissioning Phase.
5. Site Materials Planning and Scheduling
The Site Materials schedule identifies more than 2000 component deliveries including the storages & Receiving inspection activities for them. One of the key activities in 2016 is analyzing the traffic flow of materials on the worksite. Due to physical and logistic constraints associated with the ITER site, this analysis may materially impact the schedules.
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communities support to veterans, a portion of the race proceeds went to Team Red, White and Blue (RWB). Team RWB's mission is to enrich the lives of American's Veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity.
They are active at the national level and have a growing local chapter in Huntsville AL. At this years half marathon, our very own Eric Hawkes successfully completed his first half marathon. Eric, who is an Air Force veteran and who deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom back in 2002, finished the race with a time of 2:06. When asked what motivated the 38-year old to run a half marathon, he pointed to a routine doctor visit that went bad over the summer. The doctor told him that he was very overweight and that needed to take cholesterol medicine to lower his risk of a heart attack. This poor check-out motivated him to sign up for a half-marathon and he spent the next four months eating right and getting in shape. He lost fifteen pounds of weight in the process and is happily looking forward to his next doctor's appointment. He reportedly might even wear the medal he earned for finishing the half marathon to the check-up.
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Extensive work has been done working with the ROs on planning material movement to and from Warehouse, Worksites, open storage areas, Pre Assembly areas, Fabrication shops & chemical storage areas.
6. Construction Master Schedule
The CMS is where the other schedules all come together, and in many ways is the most visible aspect of this entire Task Order (including at the ITER Council, which is made of diplomats from 7 different government organizations including US, European Union, India, China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia).
BCF Granted VA DMEP In the era of one-year budgets and the ever-looming shadow of sequestration in the Government, BCF decided last year, we need to diversify our revenue stream. A primary component of any company’s concern is health and profitability. To that end, a major undertaking for Strategic Planning Group in 2016 will involve an attempt to build a sales pipeline in the private sector. We are currently in the midst of developing a road map to help balance BCF’s sources of income to better weather the potential budget battles and future threats from sequestration.
BCF recently received a grant from the State of Virginia designed to support Virginia companies negatively impacted by defense cuts. The program is known as the Virginia Domestic Markets Expansion Program (VA DMEP). Nearly $2 million in grant funding has been allocated to assist Virginia small and mid-sized companies that have been adversely affected by defense budget cuts. The infrastructure and culture change we implement in the coming months are intended to help a mid-size company like BCF in the DoD supply chain expand beyond the Federal Sector into new domestic, industrial and commercial markets, thereby preserving jobs and replacing declining state tax revenues while diversifying the economy.
Since the 2014 launch of DMEP, 62 companies have participated
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Blogging Risks
Like email and instant messaging, employee blogging poses risks of disclosure (inadvertent or otherwise) of sensitive information. The blogging world is, virtually by definition, difficult to define and describe. An employee may blog about his pet hamster – or he may write detailed technical papers that could potentially expose valuable data to competitors, or even hostile nations. Experts say people don’t realize that they can be socially engineered in a blog just as they can in any other scenario. For example, suppose you are an IT engineer working for a Web-based firm and having trouble with the security of your company’s network. In an effort to improve matters, you may be tempted to use a blog to seek opinions on how to help you. However, a blogger offering help could very well be a hacker tricking you into divulging proprietary information about your company’s IT security architecture. You never know who is reading or responding to your blog message, so play it safe and think real hard about what you’ve written before hitting the enter key.
Identity theft, corporate espionage even National Security is at risk.
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in the program, 34 applied for full assistance, and 22 ultimately received a variety of services to develop strategic growth plans, create innovative, new products, services and markets, and commercialize these opportunities to diversify their businesses.
Our entry into the program began this past December and will guide us through the next 9 months, with the hope that by that time BCF will be working with a new commercial customer(s). BCF decided to focus on our capabilities in Communications & Electronics Engineering as well as Security & Surveillance Engineering. These capabilities seem to have the most applicability to the commercial markets that are adjacent to our Government work. By focusing on strategic growth that builds business value, we will continue to create new opportunities for BCF to grow profitably and create and retain high quality jobs.
Coming Together Hollywood Style The employees at our Hollywood, MD Integration Facility, near Pax River, possess diverse skill sets and perform a variety of operational roles. Leveraging the teams vast abilities to provide knowledge and training, “Lunch and Learns” take place on the first Friday of each month. What makes these different from other similar events is the level of camaraderie. These are voluntary events but always draw heavy participation from division employees. The team enjoys learning from each other, and it helps develops a new level of appreciation for their peers’ roles, responsibilities and skill sets. This has resulted in team building and value to overall operations.
Everyone is given a chance to present at the event. They are afforded the opportunity to develop their briefing and presentation skills in a friendly environment of peers who offer constructive, and often witty, feedback. The entire team receives organic professional development at these light-hearted events, generating a venue for communication, collaboration and learning, which raises morale. These sociable events provide motivation for teammates to step outside of their current capabilities, grow their technical skills, and support their coworkers by using their newly acquired skills. This “Lunch and Learn” cross training creates more effective personnel, educating
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How To Make A Clamp
Recently the S4 Division partnered with the Red Black Division to produce parts that hadn’t been built in 15 years. As part of the FPS3 Contract with S4, the Air Force ordered some special clamps for sensors. These clamps were not readily available on the open market so they had to be built from scratch. Teaming with the Red-Black manufacturing team, the S4 Division was able to source parts and manufacture these specialized parts in less time and at a lower cost than otherwise available. This project was a complete success thanks to Red-Black and their professional staff.
Corporate Development AwardsWe want to recognize those employees who received awards for their efforts to go above and beyond in supporting BCF and the customers. Thank you!
Business Development Recognition
Adam Mungo, Bill Smart, Diane Daly, Dina Johns, Ellen Loney, Franco DeAngelis, Marc DeLavergne, Mike Cooper, Nick Morazes, Steven Cetodal
Defense and Space - Facilities
Spencer Altom, Heather Eubanks, and Ryan Wellman
TRIAD
Tanya Lansley
Team recognition was made for D&S-Estimating, D&S-EVM, S4 Division, and RedBlack Division.
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them in areas that allow them to expand their support capability, but in the end is an enjoyable lunch with peers.
Competing for Space As part of our support to MDA, BCF has people on temporary assignment to Vandenberg Air Force Base. We now look to combine our corporate experience supporting missile programs since our inception with our capability in force protection. The next new opportunity that our Security & Surveillance group will be working on is to design and install a security system for Vandenberg AFB in Lompoc California. At the end of January, the Air Force will issue a Request For Quote for design and installation of a security system for Vandenberg under the FPS3 contract. BCF is one of five holders of this blanket contract for the Air Force. This RFQ will be the eighth issued so far of which BCF has won three. Due to the wide scope of work at Vandenberg, it is expected that this will be the largest award yet on the FPS3 contract.
So where is Vandenberg and what goes on there? Vandenberg is located on the coast of California about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. Nestled in the coastal mountains of California it occupies a unique location and carries a long tradition of aerospace advances. During WWII Vandenberg was a training base for Army forces. While you may have heard of White Sands and certainly of Cape Canaveral in the context of space exploration, maybe not Vandenberg. After WWII Vandenberg became the key space launch facility on the west coast of the United States. Vandenberg was and is critical in that it is the only location where ballistic nuclear missiles are tested and launch crews are trained. In addition to operational nuclear missile launches, Vandenberg regularly launched military satellites of all descriptions. Today many facilities are being modified to support the move to commercial space exploration by companies such as Space X. It will be an honor for BCF to hopefully play a key role in securing Vandenberg for years to come.
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Employee Spotlight
One of our cost analysts, Dr. Cole Kupec, has had two articles published this year.
"Addressing STEM Education: The U.S. Defense Industry and Legitimate Peripheral Participation” highlights examples of how partnerships with the U.S. defense industry are addressing STEM education and offering valuable learning experience for preparing the U.S. defense workforce. This was published in the Journal of Economics, Business and Management, Vol. 4, No. 3, March 2016.
"Earned Value Management: Contemporary Trends in Research Approaches" is a research aid piece about contemporary research trends in Earned Value Management. The article provides a very cursory review of the top 10 academic research articles that Cole believes represent the trend in academic EVM research over the past 5-10 years. It was published in the most recent American Society for the Advancement of Project Management newsletter.
