Dell Helps Enhance Pacific Air Force Technology Support and Network Operations; PACAF Expects to Improve Technical Problem Resolution by 20 Percent.

ROUND ROCK, Texas -- Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) has completed a six-month business transformation with the United States Pacific Air Force (PACAF) Directorate of Communications and Information (SC) to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its technology service desk. As a result, PACAF has seen immediate improvements in incident management and expects to spend 20 percent less time resolving technical issues within a year.

PACAF/SC's network must be available to the warfighter upon demand 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The PACAF Network Operations and Security Center (NOSC) is the SC's execution arm for providing the highest level of operational availability, enterprise management and information assurance for the PACAF enterprise. The NOSC supports Network Control Center (NCC) personnel and operations at 10 locations throughout the Pacific Rim.

Dell Services, with support from Microsoft(R), assessed PACAF's current operations, including people, processes, tools and technologies, before developing a three-pronged improvement plan, which included:

1. Consistent processes -- Dell worked with PACAF to re-write its
   operating instruction manuals, creating best-in-class industry
   processes across all support centers. These processes support
   Microsoft(R) Operation Framework and are compatible with the
   Information Technology International Library (ITIL), a widely
   accepted approach to IT service management built on best practice
   from the public and private sectors.

2. Personnel training -- Dell assessed PACAF's support personnel skill
   levels, recommended and defined job descriptions and trained the
   workforce on new processes and procedures.

3. Service measurement tools -- Dell implemented service-level metrics
   along with trend and root-cause analyses to help PACAF
   continuously improve and sustain its processes going forward.

Over the next year PACAF expects these improvements will reduce technical support incidents by 30 percent, increase services availability by 10 percent and enable the staff to spend 20 percent less time resolving technical issues.

"The service desk work we did with Dell was a critical first step in taking the quality and effectiveness of our network services to the next level," said Colonel Gregory Brundidge, who managed IT for PACAF when the organization began the improvement efforts. "We've done a lot in the Air Force, in the past seven years to 'operationalize and professionalize' our network processes and people. However, because our priorities had been on network services administration and infrastructure management, we needed special focus on help/service desk processes and procedures to bring them up to speed.

"Through our initiative with Dell, we used the experience of an industry leader in customer support to completely overhaul the service desk function. From development and documentation of detailed service desk procedures to implementing measures of effectiveness, the Dell team was fully engaged in transforming our NCC and NOSC help desks," he said.

Col. Brundidge said he learned that effective handling of trouble calls and customer needs has a direct impact on how effectively his team can manage the rest of the enterprise network.

"Training to process your first trouble call is just as important as training to properly reconfigure a router or rebuild a server," he said.

"In a very short time, we've gained a better grasp on what our real problems are in the enterprise verses focusing on symptoms," said Lieutenant Colonel Karlton D. Johnson, Commander of the PACAF Computer Systems Squadron. "Today, everyone on my team can tell me which issues should take priority for our limited resources, which projects we should adopt based on our Problem Management assessments, and where we can apply the maximum level of effort for the maximum level of gain."

Troy West, vice president of Dell Federal, said that all areas of the federal government are undergoing an exercise in efficiency right now and making significant changes that require more than just putting the right technology in place.

"Dell Services help organizations such as PACAF to plan, implement and maintain their IT infrastructures. PACAF's Support Center transformation serves as a great example of efficiency at work," he said.

PACAF, headquartered at Hickam AFB in Honolulu, Hawaii, is one of nine major U.S. Air Force commands and one of two located outside the continental United States. It is the Air Force component of U.S. Pacific Command, and its area of responsibility extends from the west coast of the United States to the east coast of Africa, and from the Arctic to the Antarctic, more than 100 million square miles.

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