Facilitating Decision-Making, Re-Use and Collaboration: A Knowledge Management Approach to Acquisition Program Self-Awareness

Abstract

Currently, the Navy stores and retains data in multiple data warehouses, in various formats, in numerous legacy systems. The Navy's Bureau of Personnel is responsible for four distinct data stores that house unique data for: Active Duty Officers, Active Duty Enlisted, Drilling Reserve Officers and Enlisted, and all Inactive Service members. Decision-makers within the Navy have proposed combining the data into one cleansed, metadata-tagged, indexable and searchable enterprise data environment. This environment will resolve redundant storage issues, as well as eliminate outdated, end-of-lifecycle equipment and legacy infrastructure. This research will focus on the following: first, this research will focus on the current state of IT systems from the Department of Defense (DoD) level through the Department of the Navy (DoN) level to the focal system the Reserve Headquarters Support (RHS) system. Second, the researcher will conduct and summarize research of current departmental guidance as to the desired state of these systems. Third, economic, technical, and strategic management theories will be studied and applied in order to conduct an economic analysis of the possibility of migrating the RHS application to a more modern IT solution. In the final chapter, conclusions and recommendations are provided concerning the most attractive way to proceed with the RHS application. Finally, possibilities for follow-on work are discussed.