RESTON, Va., May 27, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Defense Travel System (DTS), designed and developed by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC), has been enhanced with two new tools to make implementing the system easier and quicker for travel administrators at hundreds of military sites.
DTS, recently designated as the Department of Defense's official travel system, is expected to be fully operational across the Department in 2006.
Northrop Grumman's Mission Systems sector released the Site Set-Up Tool and Self-Registration Tool in a recent software upgrade.
When DTS is set up for use at a specific site, information is exchanged about the organizational structure, financial accounts and systems, and personnel.
The Site Set-Up Tool provides site administrators an easy, step-by-step approach for creating the necessary software infrastructure that will allow users at the site to book travel on DTS. Once a site begins using DTS, this Web-based tool will be accessible to site administrators through the DTS website, www.defensetravel.osd.mil.
"This tool allows interactive site set-up to occur through a question and answer process, similar to commercial tax-preparation programs," Rich Fabbre, Northrop Grumman DTS program manager said. "Gather your information, sit down, and enter it into the system. It's that easy."
Individual travelers will use the Self Registration Tool to load personal data into the system after their site's travel administrator has completed setup. Under the current implementation process, units at each military site must create a record for each of their members. Without the tool, units and travel administrators spend a considerable amount of time preparing, entering and checking the large volume of data, especially at large military installations.
"The Self-Registration tool allows travelers to input their own addresses, social security and government credit card numbers, frequent flier account information, and personal preferences such as aisle or window seats -- all behind the encrypted security wall of DTS," said Randy Butler, Northrop Grumman's DTS Deployment Tools product manager. "This not only relieves the data burden for the site travel administrator but also helps keep personal information out of third-party hands."
DTS provides Defense Department travelers an efficient and flexible mechanism for electronically arranging travel from the Web browser on the traveler's desktop computer. By providing a paperless, end-to-end travel system that encompasses authorization, arrangements, payment, execution, reconciliation and accountability, DTS speeds up travel processing, reduces costs to the government and provides superior customer service.
Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, based in Reston, Va., is a global integrator of complex, mission-enabling systems and services for defense, intelligence and civil government markets. The sector's technology leadership and expertise spans areas such as strategic systems, including ICBMs; missile defense; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; command and control; and technical services and training.
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