USTRANSCOM J6 develops local area network enhancement initiatives
"Through the power of the Internet we intend to bring together our customers, business partners, suppliers and employees to meet the transportation needs of the Department of Defense," says Brig. Gen. Gilbert R. Hawk, director of Command, Control, Communications, and Computer Systems, J6. "Our ability to access and use information makes USTRANSCOM the best in the business."
At this time J6 is shifting away from an application-centric approach to providing capabilities-centric information tools. The information management team is developing processes, standards and tools to manage data as a corporate asset. J6's goal is to improve the quality of DTS data by eliminating data redundancy and providing access to the originating source--the data truth. To reach this goal it must be provided accurately, consistently, completely and in a timely manner. To help visualize information, J6 is also building standard tool sets that allows the user to bring together fused information to facilitate quality decision-making.
"Our target with the use of Internet technology is to provide the right information to the right users at the right time," Hawk points out. "To meet our needs for fused information to facilitate decision making, we must be able to access information anywhere in world from the foxhole to the safety of our own homes. The tools we are developing will someday allow the user to access the DTS data warehouse through a single entry point called a 'portal.' Based on a user's role in the transportation community, he or she will be able to access a portal, ask a question, and receive the information in a form that will facilitate making good decisions."
Several customizable portals will be available based on the user's role. Our Business to Employees (B2E) portal will be used to manage our transportation resources and personnel assets in addition to providing Information Technology (IT) tools for our people. The Business to Customers (B2C) portal will provide the "how and when" of our customers' transportation needs. A Business to Business (B2B) portal will allow understanding and analyzing transportation requirements, scheduling and controlling transportation assets (trucks, planes, trains, and ships) and electronic commerce with suppliers
The J6's Programs Division has embarked on their first efforts toward these initiatives--the Local Area Network (LAN) Enhancement Initiative.
"This initiative is a two phase effort," says Col (Sel) Stephen James, chief of the division. "We are making improvements to our current network, and setting a foundation that we think will be an important step to eventually get the headquarters into what people in industry are calling e-commerce or electronic business, which will take some time. The funding for the 'e-biz' phase will not be available until FY02."
According to Gail Van Winkle, chief of the division's Business Systems Branch, "A big part of the LAN Enhancement Initiative is the public web page and the business page. We're trying to make them more logical and expand their capabilities--to have more tools and useful items out there for the general USTRANSCOM population and customers of the command."
"A lot of people will give you the wrong definition of electronic business," James says. "In our view electronic business is more than just transforming our requirements for IT and putting them onto the web. We must allow users access to DTS data, both structured and unstructured, from a corporate view while capitalizing on the Internet technology. Today you may have to log onto 3 or 4 systems to find information--this will eliminate that level of complexity. This will not be an easy task but we've already made incremental progress. With some continued success, I think everyone will soon have a better understanding of electronic business.
"I think there's another idea that helps to understand all this," the colonel went on. "You could consider where we are right now with our office automation systems at USTRANSCOM. Having workstations on every action officer's desk brought us to the end of the first generation where we are all connected together and can exchange certain information in the form of email and files. But most people today, when they come into their office and turn their computer on, the first thing they see is a whole bunch of icons scattered all over their display. When you select one of these icons, it starts an application such as Outlook email. We've gotten to that point in an unstructured way. It's not been integrated in any shape or form."
"If we continue down the path of not trying to organize the growth on the network," the colonel continues. "You can envision a time in the future when we come in to work and find 50 or more application icons on our display that require a different password and log on name for the user to remember. The biggest thing we are trying to do under the LAN Enhancement Initiative is to establish a system with a single sign on that requires you to sign-in only once each day. Then as you go from one application to another, there won't be a need to sign out from one, and sign into another. The sign -in will be done in the background without you having to do anything. This means a user will not have to remember up to six or more passwords to do their work. As we develop these tools, we will be working with security to make sure we do not compromise security in any way."
"We are also working on another capability for when you are on temporary duty or at home," Van Winkle adds. "There will be more activities that you will be able to do away from your desk than you can do now. Currently, there are a limited number of activities available to the user when dialing in from either a laptop computer or another military computer at another base."
"Right now if you have dialed into the USTRANSCOM remote access server, you can access your email and personal drive files," she continues. "One of the LAN Enhancement Initiatives is to set up, via the portal, a way for you and your co-workers to be able to access a common group storage area. For example, your colleagues can prepare a PowerPoint briefing that you need to review. Through a portal, you can easily review the slides from an off-site location, make changes if necessary and coordinate on the briefing so it's ready for the next level of review without slowing down the process. This is a way of sharing information even though you are not physically present."
Another area that J6 is working on under the LAN enhancement initiatives is to improve workflow management or electronic staff actions.
"Today, when you receive a tasker in hard copy, it says you have a suspense to meet by a certain date," the colonel says. "We probably spend from three to five days getting that paper copy around the headquarters."
Van Winkle points out, "When you travel, you won't know about a tasker until you get back to your office. However, if while on the road, you could access your taskers and working files, you could take action before you return to your desk."
"At the present time, DoD is using numerous workflow applications, but each has some technical bugs to be worked out before we can implement them" James says. "We are watching the implementation of an application by Air Force Space Command now, and when they get the application working effectively, we will recommend it to our leadership for use in USTRANSCOM. In the mean time, we are going to take the Suspense Tracking Application for the Command Staff System, known as STACS, as it exists today, make some minor modifications, and build electronic templates to improve our exchange of taskers electronically. I would say that sometime next calendar year, we should be in position with at least one electronic workflow tool at USTRANSCOM."
"Harnessing the power of the Internet will extend the availability and accessibility of transportation information ," Hawk points out. "We are building on the successes and lessons learned of industry to create a robust DTS. Only when we have the ability to move information seamlessly can we expect operators to efficiently evaluate our ability to supply deployed forces in a cost effective and timely manner. Seamless information will enable us to globally schedule, track assets and provide accurate intransit visibility to decision-makers We need to know exactly where our people and cargo reside 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
Hawk concludes, "There is no medal for second best in this business."
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