San Diego Learning Center Recognized for Information Management, Technology Excellence

By Steve Vanderwerff, Naval Education and Training Command Public Affairs

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- The Center for Sea, Air, Land and Special Warfare Combatant Craft Crewman (CENSEALSWCC) was presented the Navy Information Management/Information Technology (IM/IT) Award at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Conference at the San Diego Convention Center Jan. 24.

In his commendation the Department of the Navy's Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen wrote, "Your team's foresight and innovative use of the Navy Standard Integrated Personnel System (NSIPS) database has resulted in system-wide enhancements and increased functionality. Now operational commanders Navy-wide can quickly and accurately extract detailed capabilities of their units and individuals within their units."

CENSEALSWCC changed the Navy's E-7 advancement process for Special Warfare Operators and Special Warfare Boat Operators, which increased the commanders' knowledge management, improving how commanders can employ their personnel.

"Information that previously took days or weeks to compile is now available to decision makers in minutes," said Gerald Moy, director, Knowledge Management Department. "Operational commanders can now easily and quickly determine how many Joint Terminal Attack Controller qualified personnel are assigned to a specific SEAL team, and which SEALs assigned have a language capability. This enhanced functionality is not limited to Naval Special Warfare (NSW), but can be used by all Navy commands."

The effort is the result of four years of identifying requirements and enhancing NSIPS to accommodate a Chief of Naval Personnel (CNP) approved NSW Alternative Final Multiple Score (AFMS) project. NSW AFMS determines NSW Selection Board Eligibility (SBE) by adding five variables - Leadership, Deployments, Qualifications, Awards and Ethos to the Navy's existing two variables - Performance Mark Average (PMA) and Standard Score. The goal of modifying the system was to enable war-fighting commanders and the Navy enterprises to use additional selection criteria to shape their forces to meet their communities' unique needs and values. CNP directed that any enhancements created for NSW AFMS must be exportable to other Navy communities as well.

"The challenge for the CENSEALSWCC team was to meet the requirement that all information used for advancement purposes is authoritative and legally defensible if challenged," said Harold Farley, Knowledge Management Process manager. "The information needed to be collected and extracted from an enterprise system that would capture and combine the NSW factors with current exam scores and PMA of any given advancement cycle."

Enhancements were made to the Electronic Service Record (ESR) and NSIPS Analytics. The ESR modification enabled the capture of NSW relevant skills such as medic, sniper, range safety officer, or other specialties. Information entered such as deployments, leadership and ethos count for points to determine E-7 Selection Board eligibility.

Within NSIPS, an electronic worksheet was developed to display the NSW AFMS factors to the individuals. The worksheet is used by leaders and mentors to provide individuals with a snapshot of their career achievements and how they relate to NSW community values.

One example of the enhancements and improvements that were made to NSIPS included language, an item of critical importance to NSW. Previously, it was necessary to use six different objects when forming an NSIPS query, to find out whether an individual had a particular language skill, which was complex and time consuming. These were combined into one language object, and a single language query filter was added. The result was a substantial improvement to the existing language reporting capability.

Individual Personnel Tempo (ITEMPO) panels were developed to track an individual's time served on deployments, including Individual Augmentee (IA) deployments, in leadership positions, and while on temporary assigned duty, in country and out of country. This provides NSW commanders the capability to track and report on individuals who are away from their assigned units at any given time. he report automatically calculates personnel in violation of the Navy ITEMPO and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) dwell time policies.

"Leveraging an existing enterprise IM/IT system saved time and money, improved the knowledge management of NSW commanders, increased effectiveness and vastly improved electronics records management," said Moy.

For more information about the Center for SEAL and SWCC visit https://www.netc.navy.mil/centers/censealswcc/.