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Army Unit Status Reports move online

By Sgt. Ken Hall
March 6, 2006

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 6, 2006) -- The Army’s Unit Status Report procedures have begun to move online with a new Web-based report and management tool.

The USR move is part of the Army’s modernization of its readiness reporting and will now be officially referred to as the Defense Readiness Reporting System.

“This new readiness system has two significant improvements over the one that’s been in place for several decades, said Col. Barry N. Tyree, chief of the Army Readiness Division, G3.

Designed for high Optempo

“First, it gives us a better idea of readiness reporting under high operational tempo conditions that are inherent with the Global War on Terror,” Tyree said. “And as we move forward in the way the Army plans to sustain its operational commitments, DRRS-Army will assist us with reporting that particular progress.

“It also improves our ability to access readiness in near-real-time in terms of the Army being able to execute its part of the joint and combatant plans.”

The key element of process is designed to reveal whether American forces can perform their assigned missions, said Laura Junor, DRRS Interagency director, Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“Were moving to a system that gives us a ‘flat grade,’ asking specifically what capabilities units have now in a real-time recording sense,” Junor said. “This is a major change in how the department thinks about and manages its readiness.

Measures various capabilities

“For example, a surface combatant that doesn’t have a full load of precision-guided munitions may not be suitable to be deployed into a combat environment; however, it may have relevant capabilities to do humanitarian-type missions and therefore would still be a viable asset during hurricane seasons and tsunami-type relief.”

The DRRS was created to track detailed information on what U.S. forces and individual troops do, providing both the Army and Office of the Secretary of Defense the most current capabilities-based, adaptive readiness information.

“We’re going to the DRRS-Army system because OSD has mandated that all services move toward a single readiness reporting system to replace the current legacy systems," said Tyree. “Now we can focus on providing the best capabilities to the combatant commanders so that they can execute their particular missions.”

Plans were announced for the creation of DRRS by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the spring of 2002. But the concept can trace its beginnings to the mid 1950s when readiness reports were submitted bi-annually to the adjutant general of the Army, officials sad.

Since that time, the U.S. military’s involvement in Vietnam, the Gulf War of the early 1990s, and more recently Bosnia and Kosovo, showed the Department of Defense the need for a readiness reporting system that reflected a wide array of possible operational capabilities.

Provides flexible access

Tyree said unit status reporting is a commanders' report and DRRS will remain a commanders' report and assessment of their capability to execute missions, but more troops will have access to the system.

“The chain of command will also have visibility," he said. "Sometimes your higher headquarters can help you with a problem if they know what your issue is and what’s causing you to not necessarily be ‘quite so ready.’ The higher HQs are able to shift them those resources – wheather that’s people, equipment, training time or training events that allow everyone to be better focused on the missions for which they've been designated to execute,” he said. “It definately transforms our business processes and mindset and the way we look at readiness.

DRRS-Army will provide linkages to Army authoritative databases in areas such as personnel, logistics, and equipment readiness, Tyree said, allowing commanders time to assess and validate accurate information.

“The Department of the Army will actually see the resources of units, no matter where they are in the world,” said Tyree. “For example, when units redeploy out of theater, we will have better visibility on how to reset those units and get them quickly prepared to start retraining and be available for commitment as required.

”We’re doing this in a classified way that is not going to be an undue burden on units, especially for those that will not have immediate access to our classified networks," he said. "They'll be able to do this on a ‘stand alone’ system which allows the leadership from the lowest level of command all the way up to the Department of the Army to make better, more informed decisions about how we’re going to insure the force maintains a high level of readiness.”

The DRRS-Army is slated to be online in October, 2006, linking databases that support the Army’s service specific requirements for organizing, supplying, equipping, training, mobilizing, administering, and maintaining forces. Total integration of DRRS-Army for all Army reporting units will be no later than June 2007.