The Navy's Advanced Information System

In recent years, the Navy's management of its personnel resources has been too decentralized to be effective or efficient. To improve the management of these essential resources, the Navy plans to centralize the management of personnel resources under a "Total Force Management" concept. The Advanced Information System (AIS) is intended to support the "Total Force Management" concept by: providing accurate, timely, and appropriate information; achieving the most effective use of scarce computer system resources through the central control of resource allocation; and providing a worldwide reporting and flow-back capability to electronically interconnect all activities where manpower and personnel actions occur.

The Navy has not clearly defined the relationships involved in achieving a successful development of AIS. Although the Navy has developed a MANTRAPERS (Manpower, Training, and Personnel) plan, no formal set of relationships has been established between the Navy's mission and objectives; policies, regulations, and directives; programs and activities; and AIS program management, development, and user needs. As a result, AIS has fragmented management and planning and limited user involvement. The original course of action for the proposed computer procurement was questionable, and additional computer equipment is needed to support AIS. Until recently, the Navy was proceeding with an independent AIS procurement without considering the economic and operational benefits that could accrue from a joint procurement with a similar activity. System specifications are unnecessarily restrictive, and computer workload estimates contained in the specifications do not accurately reflect anticipated workload requirements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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