FAA awards invoicing automation pact

The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded a contract, valued at $79.6 million over 15 years, to Northrop Grumman Corp. to automate the FAA's telecommunications invoice process.

The pact comes seven months after the FAA tapped Harris Corp. for its FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure program, known as FTI, which will integrate the management of multiple telecom networks, including satellite and phone services, for air traffic operations and administrative systems.

Under the invoice and financial management services system deal, Northrop will build and maintain a secure data center to support the FTI program office. A Web portal will enable agency employees to check the accounts' status.

Northrop plans to mix the company's existing software packages for telecom invoicing with IBM Corp.'s WebSphere environment. The combined system eventually will process statements for 34,000 to 36,000 services per month.

Northrop's team members include BearingPoint Inc., Computer Intelligence2 Aviation Inc., Government Works Inc., IBM, Prescient LLC and TSR Inc.