Update on First Live DPS Shipment

21. Aug, 2008 Comments Off

The offering of a “real” DPS shipment has certainly garnered lots of attention and many questions. Here are some things we have learned about this shipment that may answer some of the questions.

The shipment offering was done apparently at the request of a representative on the General Officers Steering Committee (GOSC). The GOSC will hold a meeting in early September, in which they will be asked to concur with the decision to move forward with the DPS launch on September 10th. This shipment is being moved to help the GOSC evaluate the readiness of DPS.
The TSP selected was the first TSP that came up in the shipment award screen of DPS for the channel in question. In short, there was no “cherry-picking” of the TSP.
Failure to notify industry of this plan seems to have been an oversight. A message has been sent out (or will be sent out soon) via PPQWEB informing TSPs of the move.
There have been some rumors of another “live” DPS shipment, but that has not been confirmed. All of the discussion from the government representatives seem to indicate there will only be one shipment offered.
During our invoicing test team call, I asked whether part of the plan was to invoice this shipment as soon as it delivered to allow the GOSC to evaluate the invoicing portion of DPS. The response was that we would be unable to invoice this shipment until after the September 10th implementation of DPS.

To update the status of the shipment itself, the pre-move survey has been completed, the GBL has been printed from DPS, the shipment will pick-up next week. As we learn more information about this shipment, we will post updates.