How AVT Simulation Turned EVM Into a Business Advantage

The Challenge: Spreadsheets Running a Growing Business

As AVT expanded from services into manufacturing, CFO Kimberly Sheldon steadily built out the company's Deltek Costpoint environment to keep pace, adding Manufacturing modules as operations grew more complex. But one area remained stubbornly manual: program finance.

Staffing plans, Estimates at Complete (EACs), and forecasts all lived in spreadsheets. And because those spreadsheets had no built-in structure or cadence, programs were managed inconsistently. Large contracts had more rigor. Smaller ones ran on instinct. Project managers created Integrated Master Schedules (IMS) at the start of a contract and rarely touched them again.

The result was limited visibility for leadership. By the time issues surfaced, a schedule slipping or a staffing gap widening, the window for early corrective action had often already closed. "Most of our program finance was spreadsheets. Everything was in those spreadsheets — the staffing, the EACs," explained Sheldon.

The Decision: Why AVT Implemented EVM Before It Was Required

Here is what makes AVT's story different: they did not have to implement Deltek Cobra.

Earned value management (EVM) had been a pre-solicitation requirement on AVT's largest awarded contract. For government contractors, EVM is a rigorous project management technique for measuring project performance by integrating scope, schedule, and cost, and it's often mandated on larger federal contracts precisely because it works. By the time the final solicitation was issued, the EVM requirement had been removed. Most companies would have stopped there. Sheldon did not.

"We decided to push forward with the implementation of Cobra even though it wasn't a contractual requirement," she says. The business case was clear enough on its own. The operational problems of the spreadsheets, the inconsistency, and the reactive decision-making were not going to fix themselves.

It was a deliberate move toward proactive program control, and it set the tone for everything that followed.

The Implementation: Building New Habits Across the Organization

AVT engaged Interim Management Solutions, referred by PCI, a firm Sheldon had worked with previously, to guide the implementation. Interim Management Solutions did not just configure the software. They helped the entire program team understand why the change mattered.

The engagement included best practices training, a full-staff boot camp for the program organization, and hands-on onsite support through the first month-end close. That first close was the real test: the moment when the new cadence of updating schedules, staffing plans, and EACs had to move from concept to habit.

One of the most significant changes was structural. The Control Account Manager (CAM) role was entirely new to AVT. CAMs are responsible for managing cost and schedule performance within a defined segment of work. Introducing that accountability, explaining the role, setting expectations, and getting people to own it, required real change management effort.

Sheldon is candid about what made adoption stick: "Getting buy-in from leadership was key. But what we experienced through the implementation process was that everybody's busy. You can get buy-in, but it's not always made a priority. Making time and making the implementation a priority was something that needs to be established at the get-go."

The Results: Standardization, Earlier Insight, and Room to Scale

Standardization across the portfolio. Before Cobra, program management quality varied by contract size and the habits of individual project managers. Now every program follows the same financial reporting and execution framework. EACs are updated on a consistent monthly cadence. IMSs are actively maintained, not just created at kickoff and filed away. "What Cobra has helped us to do is standardize how we report financially and manage execution with the cadence it has brought monthly to updating the IMSs as well as the staffing, program finance, and EACs across the board," said Sheldon.

Earlier visibility, better decisions. Leadership now sees performance issues before they become crises. Schedule slippage and staffing gaps surface while there is still room to course correct. Sheldon explained, "we have better insight earlier when things are getting off schedule."

Infrastructure for growth. AVT nearly doubled in size over the past year. Cobra provides the program finance infrastructure to scale alongside that growth, with standardized processes that do not depend on institutional knowledge walking out the door. "With the growth we've experienced, we've almost doubled in size, and it's helping us with scalability moving forward," said Sheldon.

Looking Ahead: Automation as a Strategic Enabler

Cobra is one part of a broader automation strategy at AVT. The company is continuing to build out its Deltek platform, including the Costpoint Planning module, with the goal of freeing the team from manual processes so they can focus on strategic growth.

Sheldon is closely watching AI capabilities on the horizon. "As a company, our goal is to automate so that we have time to spend on that strategic growth." From planning improvements to proposal writing, she sees meaningful efficiency gains coming across the platform.

AVT anticipates continued expansion over the next several years. The operational foundation, standardization, cadence, and visibility are now in place to support it.