Government Leader home > August 2005 issue
August 2005; Vol. 1 No. 3
Dashboard keeps Coast Guard execs on right tack
By Edmund X. DeJesus
Executive dashboards are helping Coast Guard executives stay on top of the Integrated Deepwater System program, the largest acquisition in Coast Guard history.
An electronic dashboard is a visual representation of critical data, usually in the form of a gauge, meter or graph, similar to an automobile’s dashboard.
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| | MONITORING METRICS: SAS’ dashboard provides vital metrics for the Coast Guard’s Deepwater program. | |
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The Coast Guard’s Web dashboard, from SAS Institute Inc. of Cary, N.C., lets executives and managers at locations around the country monitor the performance metrics of the Deepwater program, which will add and modernize hundreds of cutters, patrol boats and aircraft over the next 25 years.
“The dashboard must bring the information to wherever the user is,” said Greg Cohen, performance measurement lead in the Resources and Metrics Office for the Deepwater Program.
Coast Guard managers don’t just passively view the information on the dashboard. They interact with the data, slicing it to expose points of interest, performing analysis and creating reports.
“This isn’t simply a display,” Cohen said. “It also provides business-intelligence functions we need, such as analysis, forecasting, graphing and reporting.”
Before the Coast Guard rolled out the dashboard, managers collected and processed performance metrics by hand.
“We were creating a hundred PowerPoint slides a month to keep everyone informed,” Cohen said.
The dashboard system can access and read all data types, including text, database and spreadsheet files.
Some managers use the dashboard on a daily basis to monitor Deepwater progress. Others need less frequent access, depending on their responsibilities. All users can enter comments about what they observe on the dashboard, letting managers raise and settle issues as they occur and keeping everybody on the same page and focused.
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