NARA’s e-records project on track for August award, GAO says

Everything is falling into place as the time nears for the National Archives and Records Administration to decide whether Harris Corp. or Lockheed Martin Corp. will run the next-generation Electronic Records Archive system, according to the Government Accountability Office.NARA will one of the two vendors’ prototype systems in August to build the $500 million governmentwide system. In their most recent of the project’s progress, the audit agency found NARA is meeting its cost, schedule and performance goals, and has identified the risks the bureau may face.“[T]o date NARA has reviewed three major deliverables: the systems requirements and specifications from Lockheed Martin and system architecture and design documents from Lockheed and Harris,” auditors said. “According to NARA, these met the program’s performance standards and were accepted.”GAO said NARA also is addressing specific weaknesses, including:This was the GAO review of the ERA project. The first, released in September 2004, found NARA needed acquisition help. It addressed that by hiring a quality assurance and security officer, GAO said.