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| New pay, personnel system dumped as a 'disaster' |
| 2010-02-23 |
| After spending $1 billion and 12 years of effort, Defense officials have pulled the plug on a hapless plan to bring the four military branches under a single, modern payroll and personnel records system. "This program has been a disaster," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month. He said he applauded the deciÂsion to kill what proponents said would be the largest, fully-integrated human resource sysÂtem in the world. "Many of the programs that I have made decisions to cut have been controversial within the Department of Defense," Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained to senators. "I will tell you this one was not." The object of so much disaffection is the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources Sys tem (DIMHRS), known as "Dime-ers." Secretary Gates clearly wasn't a fan of the title or program, which at its peak employed 600 military, federal civilians and private contractors who tried to use off-the-shelf technology to meld up to 90 automated systems that continue to run across DoD. "I would say that what we've gotten for a half billion dollars is an unpronounceable acronym," Gates quipped, though his cost estimate was short by half. The Government Accountability Of fice says a billion dollars had been spent on DIMHRS through 2009. Its demise leaves the Army, Navy and Air Force still reliant on archaic, problem-plagued payroll and personnel systems. Required upgrades had been postponed again and again over the years, always in anticipation that all services would be moving to, and satisfied with, DIMHRS. It was to start in the Army in April 2006. But this and four other initial deployments dates were set and canceled. Last spring Defense officials finally and quietly advised the Army, Navy and Air Force they could pursue their own personnel and payroll system upgrades. More than time and money had been lost, however. Military personnel, particularly Guard and Reserve members, increasingly have been frustrated by pay and personnel record erÂrors. The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves urged two years ago that a sinÂgle, integrated pay and personnel system was needed "as soon as possible" to rectify inadequacies in fragile legacy sys tems. More than 90 percent of Army Reserve and Guard soldiers activated to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq through 2003 reported significant pay errors. Aggressive actions were taken to lower that rate but without the benefit of what was needed -- a modern integrated payroll system that no longer treated active and reserve component members differently. The current systems use programming language from the late 1960s that are unable to handle complex changes. When newpays are adopted, it was taking the Army on average 12 to 18 months to automate. Some pays, like medical bonuses, can't be programmed and must be calculated manually. DIMHRS was to relieve all of that. It would track assignments, process orders and show immediate changes to members' duty status to ensure timely, accurate pay, benefits and service credit. Members would be able to monitor a single comprehensive record online including any health or safety incidents which would bear on future benefits. The goals were good, Mullen told Sen. Roland W. Burris (D-Ill.), when the senator heatedly challenged the decision to shelve DIMHRS after so much time and expense. "It's just we're not getting there with DIMHRS," Mullen said. "We are wasting our money." The Marine Corps alone began a decade ago to move to a combined personnel and payroll system, the Marine Corps Total Force System (MCTFS). The Navy as far back as 2006 wanted to adopt MCTFS but Congress balked, with GAO noting that $668 million already had been invested in DIMHRS. Six years ago, after multiple pay problems surfaced again for mobilized personnel, the DeÂfense Finance and Accounting Service stopped waiting for DIMHRS and announced it would phase in a more reliable, effective interim pay system, the Forward Compatible Payroll. FCP promised far fewer errors, an easy-to-read Leave and Earnings Statement and instanÂtaneous adjustments to pay records. But the FCP never started. Again the rationale seemed to be: Why spend millions more on an interim payroll fix when DIMHRS was so near. Thus an aging, problem-plagued military pay system went uncorÂrected. No Army, Navy or Defense official was made available to comment on plans post-DIMHRS to modernize pay and personnel systems. But Jeff Farrand, functionality manager for Air Force Personnel and Pay In tegration, said his service was "moving forward" with an inteÂgrated personnel and pay system that will leverage "capabilities developed under DIMHRS." Neither Mullen nor Gates spoke of the services salvaging parts of DIMHRS to use for their own system upgrades, though that seems to be the intent. Burris had pressed Mullen to exÂplain why the Office of Personnel Management can operate one pay and personnel system for all federal civilians yet DoD can't do that for its military population. Burris suggested the reason boils down to "turf fights" which shouldn't be allowed. Mullen referred to "making a program too perfect and you just can't get there. It's was proven DIMHRS couldn't get there, time and time again." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #11 Frank, no problem at all. The biggest problem with SAP (outside of some managers ;^) has always been with the implementation. I can give you long lists of partial successes and failures of all types. They had one thing in common...bad implementation management. Everything from one manager trying to drive his vision over other managers to greedy consulting houses trying to build the never ending project to managers who wanted to implement the latest thing just because. It all came down to one thing, lack of a clear vision of the goal coupled with a lack of clear leadership. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2010-02-24 00:01 |
| #10 Glenmore and AlanC. I don't mean to disparage SAP, nor it's need. We had vintage Auditing programs that couldn't communicate to funding software, nor labor charges, nor hard costs. Something was needed! SAP was the choice and my only knowledgeable complaints are that it was forced prematurely, did not address Dept-specific needs and was inflexible. That doesn't mean it wasn't needed. Just inflicted poorly |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-02-23 23:09 |
| #9 Glenmore has it right. It does work but its "niche" is rather overwhelming since it tries to enable the centralization and standardization of virtually all of the IS concerns of a business. The underlying software is really impressive. BTW anyone in the market for a semi-voluntarily retired IS type with 30 years in the business from software engineering through project mgmt? I accepted an early retirement last year as the alternative was an 18 month 5 day a week committment in Mexico City. After 15 years on the road and no kids left at home I wanted to stay local and the crash killed virtually all business east of Nevada. Unfortunately it also took a real chunk out of the retirement fund so I've got a couple of years to fill in. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2010-02-23 23:09 |
| #8 SAP is a cumbersome and demanding beast, but it does work. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-02-23 22:59 |
| #7 AlanC - my employer - a large So Cal local gubbamint, has implemented SAP this last year (you prolly know which one). Our timecard inputs are a disaster. Implementation was done prematurely, at best. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-02-23 20:18 |
| #6 Fascinating insider look, AlanC. Thank you! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-02-23 19:23 |
| #5 RJ try VMware... |
| Posted by: abu do you love 2010-02-23 18:32 |
| #4 We have enough joy and happiness with every Microborgsoft update that creeps into our O/S without knowing its impact on third party software. Tell me about it, NONE of my library of games will play on 64 bit systems (Win7) and the only "Fix is to eliminate Win 7 and reinstall Win XP 32bit. YUK I'm currently debating refurbishing my old box (Crashed hard drive) Just for gaming. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2010-02-23 13:01 |
| #3 About 5 years ago I was the tech lead on a team which sought to incoporate a number of disparate military systems starting with NAVAIR in Pawtunxent, MD. In that role, which started with a systems audit, I got to see the kinds of issues that exist. I worked for a private software house, SAP, that has the ability, product and resources to have pulled this off. What SAP, or anyone else, does not have is the ability to fight through the millions of turf wars that are in play within and amongst the various commands. Technically it's a challenge but eminently doable...politically? not so much. For those of you not attuned to the wonders of IS let me use one, somewhat, related example. Again as the tech lead for an SAP project; this time at a Fortune 500 manufacturer with military ties. We had to, among other things, combine 6 existing accounts receivable systems into 1. Unfortunately there were also 6 different and incompatible parts systems. Marketing had one name for a widget, engineering had another, sales another and the various manufacturing operations had their own. I went back to that company 4 times over the subsequent years and it took them 7 years to get through this particular issue. Imagine what the military could do. As a line in the magazine Fortune put it in 1993..."The best thing about SAP is that it's an integrated system; the worst thing about SAP is that it's an integrated system." |
| Posted by: AlanC 2010-02-23 08:52 |
| #2 Could one design, build, test, and field a global satellite GPS system for spring loaded mouse traps? Yes of course, but why would you? For the same reason Snake oil Federal Contract automators and empire building DoD acquisition contract managers pursue other meaningless, parasitic projects. Millions frivolously pissed away by DoD on combat modeling and simulations (M&S) is only one example. Sounds all technical, difficult to understand, but probably very necessary. Sorry, it's just another costly digital disaster like the one listed herein, too big and too invested to fail. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-02-23 08:50 |
| #1 Secretary Gates clearly wasn't a fan of the title or program, which at its peak employed 600 military, federal civilians and private contractors who tried to use off-the-shelf technology to meld up to 90 automated systems that continue to run across DoD. Design a system to meld '90' separate systems would be a nightmare of configuration management. Given that control over the 90 would not be in the integrators hands, that means they would have to constantly alter and change their system at the whim of 90 other owners. We have enough joy and happiness with every Micro |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-02-23 07:49 |