Munns sees NMCI improvements

Rear Adm. Charles Munns said this week that he believes the Navy Marine Corps Intranet program, which he has led for the past two and half years and views as the most challenging assignment of his Navy career, has finally turned the corner and remains a good idea.

In his final NMCI press briefing, Munns added that the program is now operational, but it clearly has a long way to go. He said that user satisfaction continues to improve, and Department of the Navy officials cannot move to network-centric warfare without the $8 billion EDS program.

Navy officials nominated Munns for promotion in June to vice admiral and a new job as commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet of submarines and commander of Submarine Allied Command, Atlantic, based in Norfolk, Va. Navy officials selected Rear Adm. James Godwin III in August to replace Munns as the new NMCI director. Godwin is the program executive officer for tactical aircraft programs at the Patient River Naval Air Station in Maryland

Munns said NMCI still has cultural problems with users, but he added that the Navy is getting fewer complaints and more suggestions for improvements.

More commands have started to move applications to NMCI, including the Naval Supply Systems Command in Mechanicsburg, Pa., which will "go live with its first set of applications [on NMCI] in just four months." This will result in bottom line savings for both the command and the Navy as a whole, Munns added. He said the Navy has already recaptured savings from the move of command applications to NMCI in its 2005 budget.

NMCI officials also have started to address complaints from remote users about slow dial-up connections and have started to test broadband remote access, Munns said. He did not provide any details.