Military

ATG Self-Training Software Soon to Hit Navywide

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS060124-05
1/24/2006

By Journalist 3rd Class S. C. Irwin, Fleet Public Affairs Center Pacific

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- A software program that allows ships' crews to self-evaluate their progress in meeting training requirements is expanding from the testing stage to being implemented aboard 50 ships in January.

TORIS-TFOM (Training and Operational Readiness Information Services - Training Figure of Merit) tracks inputs into the TORIS database and alerts users to which training evolutions need to be met, and measures a ship’s completed evolutions on a point average system. Training evolutions are evaluated in four main categories: proficiency, personnel, management and material.

USS McCampbell (DDG 85) was one of the first ships to test TORIS-TFOM and offer feedback to ATG. Crew members say they have already seen positive differences between using TORIS-TFOM and the standard training process they previously used.

“With TFOM, we can log in and pick what mission area we want to look at. Then it tells us every exercise that ATG (Afloat Training Group) can grade us for and gives us the step-by-step criteria ATG uses to grade us with,” said Operations Specialist 1st Class Vincent Pendleton, of McCampbell. “It’s all on the computer. We can see what we need to finish. There are no surprises, because we’re (ATG and McCampbell) going by the same standards.”

After data is collected using the TORIS-Afloat application, the TFOM application is designed to allow a ship’s commanding officer to better pinpoint training requirements by having data readily available and organized.

The overall goal of the program is to ensure the same standards in training are being met fleetwide.

“It is like having the ship’s report card to give to ATG,” said Information Systems Technician 1st Class Tina Garvin, also aboard McCampbell. “It allows me to keep better track of the training that we do.”

ATG used feedback from Sailors on the test ships and at the ATGs to improve TFOM, as well as to provide the necessary tools to make the program more user-friendly. McCampbell was given two portable and sturdy tablet computers to record data from their training evolutions as they were conducted. The recorded data could then be transferred to the ship’s computer to update TFOM information/scores and was also sent back to an ATG data warehouse. All ships using the TORIS-TFOM program will either transfer their data via compact disk or automatically by using the Distance Support capability.

“We collected feedback from E-3s to O-6s on how to make this program better,” said Capt. Faris Farwell, commander of Afloat Training Group, Pacific. "TFOM is a Sailor developed tool. This is a much more state-of-the-art way ships can organize their training.”

USS Boxer (LHD 4), USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) and USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) are a few of the ships scheduled to start using TORIS-TFOM by the end of January.

ATG plans to install the program on 100 ships by September 2006 and all surface force ships by the end of the fiscal year 2007.