Air Force Takes First Step Toward Unified Pay and Personnel Records
Maksim Kabakou/Shutterstock.com
By
Bob Brewin
Service awards IBM an $11.9 million deal to develop a blueprint for an integrated system.
The Air Force awarded IBM an $11.9 million contract to develop a blueprint for unifying 31 legacy pay and personnel systems.
The Integrated Personnel and Pay System will eventually bring together records for 507,000 active duty and reserve personnel. Data will only need to be entered once to result in the proper pay calculation and disbursement, according to a January 2013 report by Mitre Corp., a federally funded research center. The current Air Force systems require technicians to manually resolve 85,000 pay problems a year.
The new pay and personnel system will require interfaces to approximately 115 distinct subsystems and feeds currently used to handle all aspects of military personnel and compensation. The Government Accountability Office has estimated the overall project will cost $1.7 billion.
IBM, which competed with five other vendors for the blueprint contract, has until December 2014 to complete its design work. After that the Air Force plans to run four competitive procurements for various modules to manage cadet, enlisted and officer pay and personnel matters, and continued sustainment.
(Image via Maksim Kabakou/Shutterstock.com)