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STANDARD PROCUREMENT SYSTEM (SPS)

The Standard Procurement System (SPS) is designed to improve the speed and effectiveness of contract placement and contract administration functions. It will interact more effectively with other DoD activities and with industry, and improve visibility of contract deliverables while maintaining DoD readiness with reduced resources. SPS will comprise components at multiple levels, including mainframe processing at Defense Information Systems Agency MegaCenters, minicomputers at the intermediate level, and Local Area Network-based workstations at the user level. Software will consist of selected operating systems, network operating systems, client-server software, distributed systems software, and American Management Systems' commercial derivative software.

The SPS acquisition strategy is based on procuring and enhancing American Management Systems' "Procurement Desktop-Defense (PD²)" software. To be delivered in four increments, SPS Increments 1 and 2 were operationally tested in 1997 and fielded to limited Defense Logistics Agency and Navy sites.

During the summer of 1998, Joint Interoperability Test Command (the designated OTA), conducted tests at two Army sites and two Navy sites on a portion of the Increment 3 software functionality. Based on the user-validated requirements in the ORD, JITC found that Increment 3 software was operationally effective and suitable for only a small number of contracting offices that had no or minimal prior automated procurement support. Due to the significant number of system deficiencies and inaccuracies, DOT&E determined that Increment 3 software was neither operationally effective nor operationally suitable for administering large procurement contracts. DOT&E recommended that the PMO take immediate actions to correct these deficiencies prior to full fielding.

Since the completion of Increment 3 OT&E, testing activities have been focused on conducting OAs on Increment 3 follow-on releases to verify correction of deficiencies and to assess enhanced capabilities. In March 1999, JITC conducted an OA at the Defense Information Technology Contracting Office (DITCO), Scott AFB, IL, on an Increment 3 follow-on release (Version 4.1) to verify correction of known system deficiencies and identify any improvements or degradation of system capabilities relative to earlier versions. Results of the OA were mixed: while there were still many unresolved system deficiencies of major operational impact, users noted that system functionality had improved in comparison with the previous versions. Improvements were also noted in the user manuals, user interfaces, and system response times.

Throughout FY00 and FY01, JITC has continued to conduct OAs for the SPS Increment 3 follow-on releases to provide feedback to the PMO to improve SPS performance. JITC uses sites that had already converted over to SPS from their legacy systems. To date, JITC has conducted OAs at 28 sites of all military Services, with the participation of over 300 users. Software acceptance testing of Version 4.2 is currently planned to complete prior to the end of 2001. Prior to fielding, Defense Contract Management Agency will conduct pilot tests with concurrent OAs conducted by JITC in the January-March 2002 timeframe.

A full OT&E is planned for SPS Increment 4 (Version 5.0)―the full operational capability system―in late FY02. This increment is intended to provide full functionality to support major weapons system contracts, including all external system interfaces and Internet-based electronic commerce/electronic data interchange capabilities.

As knowledge and experience with the SPS application software increase, users believe that they will be better able to use SPS to support their contracting activities. They also stated that SPS holds much potential in their operational environments as the system matures. However, based on OA findings, a variety of issues remain; some span many sites and some are site-unique. In general, users expressed a desire for longstanding deficiencies to be corrected as soon as possible. The SPS PMO must continue to focus on correcting deficiencies identified during the previous tests. To ensure that the full OT&E of Increment 4 truly tests the capability of SPS in supporting the operational missions of DoD procurement offices, robust developmental testing and system acceptance testing must be completed first. Furthermore, the user communities and SPS PMO must support JITC's efforts fully in developing a sound and comprehensive operational test plan for SPS Increment 4.