DPS Updates from NDTA Conference

At the NDTA Forum held earlier this week in Nashville, Lt Col Dan Bradley of SDDC and Col Mike Miller of JPMO-HHGS conducted a session on the DP3 program. The following are some notes from that meeting:

• Col Miller, the new Program Manager for JPMO-HHGS, emphasized that his desire was to be milestone driven when it comes to DPS implementation, instead of schedule driven. He stated that meant to implement parts of DPS as they were ready, as opposed to implementing them because of a deadline that was scheduled. The one date he said he could not change was the start of peak season next year, so he was committed to making a better system before that date.
• Col Miller stated that TRANSCOM had allocated additional money for FY10 that would allow them to upgrade DPS server hardware to increase capacity, perform software tuning to improve performance, clean up the back log of SPRs (software problem reports), and implement some SCRs (software change requests).
• Lt Col Bradley discussed efforts to increase CSS survey response rates in DPS. He stated the low response rate continues to receive a lot of attention from SDDC, and that “we need to give it our best college try before we throw out the CSS,” which would lead to a return to a rate-driven program.
• SDDC is considering moving some of the business rules out of the DTR into the solicitation so that they can be more easily modified. The example Lt Col Bradley used was being able to change the number of performance periods in a year.
• Lt Col Bradley said no decision had been made on a possible open season, but that a decision would have to be made very soon. He stated he hoped to announce a decision within a couple of weeks.
• It appears there are no immediate plans to shut down TOPS. Lt Col Bradley stated that he had no plans to end TOPS rate filing, and Col Miller stated he had no intention to shut down TOPS until DPS is ready. He also commented that he thought it was an advantage to have an existing system in place as a backup to DPS.
• Col Miller stated that he did not view web-bots as a bad thing, and that he didn’t anticipate any further restrictions on them. However, he did state that there might be some business rules implemented to minimize their impact on the system. He also announced that they are currently planning to start work on the two-way data exchange interface in FY10, although they were not sure when that additional feature would be completed.
• In response to a question about the possibility of outsourcing the HHG program, as TRANSCOM has done with some of its freight shipments, Col Miller stated that he was not focused on that, but that in his opinion he doesn’t see a lot of synergies in the HHG program to warrant that approach.
• Keith Tounget from JPMO-HHGS stated that they were expecting to roll out a large update to DPS in the November time frame that would allow shipments with a PPM component to be offered in DPS. This would vastly increase the number of shipments that would be eligible to be booked in DPS, as it is estimated that half of all shipments have a PPM component. Also in that update will be the ability for PPSOs to edit more data in DPS, which should clear some of the backlog of help desk tickets requiring data updates. Currently, many edits need to be performed by SRA, the DPS developer, and that has proven to be a slow process.

Related Posts

1. SDDC, JPMO-HHGS Give Updates at NDTA - September 27th, 2010
2. TSP Conference Call Hosted by SDDC – 5.23.06 - May 30th, 2006
3. TSP Conference Call Hosted by SDDC – June 6, 2006 - June 19th, 2006