Northrop Grumman to continue Army records management

Northrop Grumman Corp. won a $101 million follow-on contract to provide information systems integration for the Army's Personnel Electronic Records Management System program, the company said.

The contract was competitively bid under the Millennia contract vehicle, and represents a five-year follow-on task order.

Northrop Grumman's Information Technology sector in Herndon, Va., will handle all IT and management services, including program management, customer support, enterprise architecture and planning, information systems security and information assurance and application development.

San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. is Northrop Grumman's teammate on the program. SAIC developed the Army National Guard State Perms system, which supports soldiers and records managers in 54 states and territories and is integrated into the overall Perms program.

The Perms program uses Web-based technologies, document management and storage solutions to manage records more efficiently. The system automates data exchanges and streamlines administrative procedures, making it cost efficient. It holds about 140 million pages, following a soldier's progress from recruitment through retirement.

More than 600,000 Army personnel worldwide interact with Perms from a standard Web browser interface.

"Due to our knowledge of the current system, any risk in migrating from a legacy system to a new modernized electronic records management system is reduced," said Kent Schneider, president of Northrop Grumman IT's Defense Enterprise Solutions unit.

With 2003 sales of $26.2 billion, Northrop Grumman ranked No. 2 on Washington Technology's 2003 Top 100 list, which measures federal contracting revenue. SAIC ranked No. 3.