Bowhead Case Study

The Bowhead family of companies offers a wide range of services encompassing information technology, advanced engineering, manufacturing and program management. Bowhead’s 3,000+ employees deliver exceptional support to defense and civilian government agencies across the United States and worldwide.

Bowhead holds more than 300 contracts and undergoes continuous audits by the Defense Contracting Audit Agency (DCAA) and the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). Notably, Bowhead holds several government contracts mandating them to manage and report government property to comply with FAR 52.245-1. However, the number of government owned assets for each of these contracts has typically been relatively small. This changed with a new contract award in 2022.

The Challenge

In 2022, Bowhead secured a new contract necessitating the tracking and management of a large amount of government property, comprising over 3,500 assets valued at over $10 million dollars, spread across seven main locations (and over 100 sublocations) nationwide. It became clear that Bowhead needed to update their property management system.

To address this challenge, Stacy McLamb was hired as a Government Property Manager with Bowhead. She was immediately tasked with managing the government property for this new contract in 2022. Stacy holds a Certified Professional Property Associate certificate with the National Property Management Association and has over 15 years of experience as a property management professional.

Stacy immediately recognized that Bowhead needed a modern government property management system capable of utilizing IUID and barcode tracking to digitize their assets and streamline their inventory processes. The sheer scale of managing over 3,500 government-furnished assets highlighted the necessity for leveraging automation in a modern asset management system.

Stacy also recognized the need for a comprehensive audit trail to record all asset lifecycle events, from acquisition to disposal, and the capability to attach supporting documents, including warranty information, purchase orders, shipping records, maintenance support and other relevant collateral.

The Solution

Bowhead selected A2B Tracking’s secure, cloud-based Government Property Management solution, UC! Web, to provide a comprehensive system of record.

This choice enabled Bowhead to leverage IUID and advanced barcode technology to automate their inventory management process. A2B provided the Bowhead team with Zebra XPAD L10 tablets as a data collection device to perform inventories and edit asset details in the warehouse. More importantly, the A2B Tracking platform created robust audit trails, capturing all asset lifecycle events and served as the system of record for asset line item details, pedigree information, contract data and other additional data stored in custom fields, ensuring compliance to FAR 52.245-1.

UC! Web also provides Bowhead with a direct data exchange to government systems (PIEE, WAWF, IUID Registry and GFP Module). Automated reporting streamlined their operations, saving both time and labor, while improving report accuracy with builtin compliance checks to ensure that only accurate information is submitted to government systems.

The Results

Implementation of the A2B Tracking solution began at the end of 2022 and proved to be relatively smooth with minor issues easily resolved. The A2B Tracking solution has significantly improved Bowheads’ audit readiness and enhanced their ability to meet obligations and pass DCMA audits. Stacy McLamb expressed her confidence in the system by saying:

“A year ago when I reviewed their GFE data, I was concerned it would not pass a DCMA audit. Now with the A2B Tracking system, I have 100% more confidence than last year in our ability to pass an audit.”

Bowhead can now efficiently scan IUID, 1-D and 2-D barcodes, resulting in a substantial improvement in their inventory accuracy and operational efficiency. However, not all assets have been tagged. Stacy’s current program goals focus on labeling the remaining assets with compliant IUIDs, a complex task given their dispersed locations across the country and assignments to individual custodians in remote locations.

Deltek Marketplace Partner

In a recent Deltek interview, Bowhead’s CFO, Roy Joun, discussed their Costpoint ERP and mentioned A2B Tracking’s positive impact on their property compliance objectives. Roy explained by saying,

“Having the functions and support of A2B Tracking has allowed us to remain compliant with the FAR, DFARS, Mil-Standards, and contract requirements.”