BearingPoint wins EMERGE2

Homeland Security Department officials picked BearingPoint Inc. as the prime contractor for a system that will allow faster and more precise decision-making by keeping agency officials informed about the agency's finances and assets.

The contract for Electronically Managing Enterprise Resources for Government Efficiency and Effectiveness, or EMERGE2, has a maximum value of $229 million. Officials said earlier this year that they requested a fiscal 2005 budget of $56 million for EMERGE2, whose award was originally expected in July.

"We all know the hard work is all in the development, the execution and the delivery, so we have a lot of work to do," said Andrew Maner, DHS's chief financial officer.

The project's genesis came last year when DHS officials said the department needed to follow a 21st-century business model. DHS was created in 2002 through the combining of 22 agencies and 180,000 employees from other parts of the federal government.