Five firms to compete for DOD HR

DOD has select five companies to compete for its massive initiative to create a single pay and personnel system

The Defense Department last week selected five companies to compete for its massive initiative to create a single pay and personnel system for military personnel.

The Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which is leading the project, issued five $1 million firm fixed-price contracts to five vendors in the first phase of the contract award.

As part of that phase, companies must formulate system plans and submit them in December. DOD officials said they will choose one vendor based on those proposals.

The Defense Integrated Military Human Resource System (DIMHRS) is expected to cost at least $500 million to build and deploy, according to Federal Sources Inc., a market research firm. It has received a great deal of attention from lawmakers and service members.

Navy Capt. Valerie Carpenter, DIMHRS program manager, said that the system will require the services to change how they handle pay and personnel processes, rather than requiring them to learn new software. DIMHRS will use PeopleSoft Inc. software under a contract that was awarded last year.

DOD officials originally planned to select three vendors that would compete for the final award, but because of the amount of interest in the project, they decided to increase the pool to five.

The vendors are Computer Sciences Corp., Falls Church, Va.; IBM Corp., Bethesda, Md.; Northrop Grumman Information Technology, McLean, Va.; Lockheed Martin Systems Integration, Owego, N.Y.; and PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, Fairfax, Va.

Officials hope to have the system fully operational by the end of fiscal 2006.

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