Army systems' decisions to be made in next six months

The Army will have a better idea of which of its 60-some legacy human resources systems will be discontinued and which will be integrated with the Defense Department's Integrated Military Human Resources System sometime in the next six months.

DIMHRS is one of a handful of systems the Army's Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems is focusing on over the next year in terms of how the service is modernizing its applications.

Kevin Carroll, head of the PEO EIS, yesterday said his office would finish a plan by spring and then, over the next year, whittle down the multiple, duplicative HR systems.

DIMHRS will consolidate pay and personnel systems for 3.1 million active-duty, Reserve and National Guard military personnel. DOD expects the Army and Air Force to fully migrate to the new system by May 2008. The DIMHRS Web site does not give a specific schedule for the Navy and other DOD agencies to migrate.

In addition to DIMHRS, PEO EIS is supporting the Pentagon's move to a consolidated data center in Radford, Va. Lee Harvey, deputy program executive officer for PEO EIS, said the data center will run several applications for the Pentagon. He said it "probably" would become a hosting center for most PEO EIS programs, including the Virtual InSight System. The Virtual InSight application enables program managers to do program milestone reviews online.

The Reserve Component Automation System is another that is making progress, Harvey said. The Army has pushed it out to 54,000 users at 4,200 locations to help reserve commanders collect information electronically when their units are mobilized.

Harvey also said he hopes to receive approval to move to the next milestone by the end of December under the Future Business Systems project, which lets acquisition people collaborate and exchange information online.

Carroll said two other programs ? the General Fund Enterprise Business System and the Single Army Logistics Enterprise system ? are moving in the right direction but face some funding issues.

He said GFEBS, which will let nearly 79,000 Army users share financial and accounting data across the service, is running a pilot to track real property inventory and associated financial processes for Fort Jackson, S.C.

The Army logistics system will have critical milestones in January or February, Carroll said.

"We need to close out our books and get certification by the Office of Management and Budget that we are financially compliant," Carroll said. "If we can get the green light, then we can get the go-ahead from DOD."

Carroll said the many PEO EIS programs face funding shortages because money is being diverted to the war on terror.

"I'm not sure there is much we can do about it," Carroll said. "The money will go to the warfighter and improving IT security on legacy systems."

Jason Miller is assistant managing editor of Washington Technology's affiliate publication, Government Computer News.