Army delays launch of military personnel system

The Army has postponed for two months the fielding a new electronic military personnel office system because of technical problems that surfaced during final testing. The Web-enabled system, dubbed eMILPO, is supposed to give Army workers access to personal data stowed in the service’s multiple accounting, promotion and reassignment databases. The system’s project began in 2000 to replace the Army’s aging Standard Installation Division Personnel System.In a message to personnel chiefs about the delay, Col. Gina Farrisee, adjutant general of the Army, said, “Our promise is that you will not need to re-enter data that was already resident and that all soldiers currently slotted against a position will be slotted in eMILPO.” During recent testing, however, eMILPO suffered high numbers of failures for some transactions, Army public affairs officials said. Service officials suspect that faulty migration of 43 databases to the eMILPO test database is the source of the transaction failures, Army officials said.The system is an interim effort as the Army participates in the joint development and transition in late 2004 to the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System.