PEO Perspective: January 2022

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a healthy, meaningful and rewarding 2022. As in past years, I’d like to reflect on some of our achievements from 2021 and take a look at what’s ahead this year for PEO EIS.

2021 YEAR IN REVIEW

Without a doubt, 2021 was another challenging year. We continued to face a persistent pandemic, yet our committed workforce and external partners delivered uninterrupted capability to Soldiers and civilians. I am grateful to all of you for your dedication and hard work in helping carry out our vital mission. Thanks to you, we accomplished a great deal in 2021. I’d like to share just a few highlights with you from our two mission areas.

Business Mission Area:

Late last year, our Business Mission Area (BMA) wrapped up its organizational transformation, which was designed to better align its capabilities and assets with Army priorities and EIS’s data-driven focus. BMA also led the charge in finalizing our Operational Plan (OPLAN) in support of the Army Data Plan. The OPLAN is designed to guide our six EIS-wide project management offices (PMOs) in organizing the vast amounts of data generated across their portfolios, and ensuring the data is visible, accessible, understandable, linked, trusted, interoperable and secure. 

• Within BMA’s Defense Integrated Business Systems (DIBS) portfolio, our Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) became the third Army enterprise resource planning (ERP) program to complete its data and operations migration to cARMY, the Army's cloud services provider. LMP is the Army Materiel Command’s number-one, mission-critical system that delivers parts and equipment readiness to the Army at the national level, where and when it's needed. DIBS also successfully transitioned its General Fund Enterprise Business System – Sensitive Activities to the Army Communications-Electronics Command’s Army Shared Services Center in 2021 and began managing the Global Combat Support System – Army product office, which migrated to DIBS from BMA’s Army Data and Analytics Platforms (ARDAP) portfolio in October.


• ARDAP expanded last year with the establishment of the Enterprise Business Systems – Convergence (EBS-C) product office last February and the addition of the Army Training Information System (ATIS) product office, which moved from the DIBS portfolio last July. As part of the Army’s broader Enterprise Business Systems – Multi-Functional Capabilities Team, our EBS-C product office is helping plan and implement the Army’s ERP modernization effort by 2027.


• Also within ARDAP, our Army Vantage product office continued to develop and implement data-driven solutions to some of the Army’s most pressing needs. This included working with the Army Medical Command on a dashboard to view timely and accurate information on Soldiers’ COVID-19 immunization status and the Army’s worldwide inventory of vaccines; collaborating with the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command to support a high-profile readiness exercise; and developing a dashboard to gain better visibility into Army weapons accountability. Army Vantage made truly valuable and enduring contributions to the Army’s people, readiness and modernization priorities, and we look forward to building on them in 2022!

Enterprise Information Environment Mission Area:

If there was one common theme underpinning our Enterprise Information Environment Mission Area in 2021, it was cross-portfolio collaboration in support of the Army’s unified network. All three Networks, Cyber and Services PMOs have been deeply involved in setting the conditions for the unified network, so they have been working closely together — as well as with external partners — to support network modernization. The PMOs achieved other significant milestones and successes last year as well.

• Within our Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems portfolio, we stood up our rebranded Global Enterprise Network Modernization – Americas (GENM-A) product office last September. GENM-A brings together the network modernization activities of our Enterprise IT as a Service (EITaaS) and Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program, enabling the organization to integrate and field novel capabilities at the speed of relevance. EITaaS — which involves the commercial delivery and management of protected IT services from the enterprise to the point of need on the Department of Defense Information Network-Army — kicked off its pilot program in 2021.


• Defensive Cyber Operations’ Applied Cyber Technologies (ACT) product office continued to rack up awards for developing outstanding and innovative technologies for our nation’s cyber defenders. ACT recently won the DOD’s coveted 2021 David Packard Award for Acquisition Excellence for developing the Defense Cyber Operations Resource for Updates, Innovation and Development (DRUID), which significantly shortens the time it takes to develop and deliver advanced cyber technologies and greatly reduces the cost that the government pays for them. Instead of waiting a year or more for capabilities, Soldiers get what they need in a few months — a critical differentiator for winning battles in the ever-evolving cyber landscape.


• Finally, within our Enterprise Services (ES) portfolio, our Enterprise Content Collaboration and Messaging product office officially brought the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) program to a close last July. Originally founded as a general officer email system back in 1998, the platform evolved over the years into a portal providing personnel emergency and status messages, file storage, document collaboration, directory services, instant messaging, training and email. Bringing programs to closure is a key part of program management. The AKO team and ES leadership deserve kudos for their work in keeping the Army’s first true portal up and running for nearly a quarter century.

LOOKING AHEAD

While it’s hard to predict what the year ahead has in store, one thing is certain: EIS will continue to show resilience, grit and commitment — working closely with industry and other external stakeholders to help our Soldiers become the multi-domain operations-ready force of tomorrow.

—    We will press forward with the Army’s acquisition strategy for modernizing and converging its enterprise business systems.

—    We will continue anticipating and addressing the Army’s needs for data-driven platforms and dashboards that help Soldiers and civilians at all levels to make informed decisions.

—    We will keep rapidly developing innovative technologies and tools that help cyber mission forces prepare for the battles ahead.

—    We will pursue important next steps in building the unified network in conjunction with our many Army partners.

—    We will recommit ourselves to finalizing and delivering top-of-the-line solutions for Soldiers and civilians, including the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army, the Army Contract Writing System and the Accessions Information Environment.

I look forward to working with all of you this year in pursuit of these and other important goals, and I hope to see you at our first major engagement of the year — the annual AFCEA NOVA Army IT Day, Jan. 13, where I will join Mr. Dovarius Peoples, director of corporate information for the Army Corps of Engineers, and Mr. Kenneth McNeill, chief information officer (CIO) for the National Guard Bureau, on a CIO panel.

Thank you for all you do; it’s an honor and blessing to work with you.

Ross R. Guckert, Program Executive Officer, PEO EIS

Connecting the Army. Working for Soldiers.