AT21 Enterprise Architecture design team wins national award

USTRANSCOM’s Command, Control, Communication and Cyber directorate, recently received the “Leadership in Government Transformation Using Enterprise Architecture Award" on Oct. 30 at the annual Enterprise Architecture conference held in Washington, D.C.  D. R.  Kenerley, accepted the award, on behalf of the USTCJ6 and USTCAQ teams..

The award recognizes the impacts of enterprise architecture (EA) best practices on achieving efficiencies, greater effectiveness, transparency, increased collaboration or innovation in solutions to government missions' outcomes. The award is open to all levels of government.

The AT21 architectural design team created a foundational architecture that allowed USTRANSCOM to link systems and pull data from systems that already exist across the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise (JDDE). The EA design enabled business process improvement and enhanced data integration across multiple organizations, optimizing requirement throughput to combatant commanders for delivery of forces and sustainment. 

"EA is making the systems cooperate with one another and serve a holistic goal, weaving individual patches into a patchwork quilt.” said Don Runnels, AT21 lead architect.   "Previously individual systems did not talk to one another, this created gaps and seams in the system. The AT21 Architecture closes those gaps and seams.”

“AT21 is USTRANSCOM’s number one initiative and optimizes end-to-end delivery of passengers and cargo-Time-definite delivery from point of delivery to point of need across the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise," said Tim Childress, AT21 program manager.

The EA helped improve time-definite delivery and best-value transportation solutions.  Operational benefits include a 75 percent decrease in planning required for global ocean and land transportation movements, increased force projection flow into theaters, and increased aerial and seaport throughput and efficiency.

AT21 has been a transformational journey for USTRANSCOM - the architectural design helped deliver initial operational capabilities for the program, with other initiatives planned or already underway.

The warfighter is the primary beneficiary of the improved distribution processes and support enabled by the architecture solution; however, multiple stakeholders across the JDDE are directly impacted, including geographic combatant commands, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the General Services Administration.