HERNDON, VA--(Marketwire - June 21, 2010) - EM&I today announced the Business Transformation Agency (BTA), Enterprise Planning and Investment (EP&I) Directorate, has awarded a multi-year contract to EM&I to license the patented, Web-based ACART™ Accelerator for Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA) compliance throughout the entire Department of Defense (DoD). In addition to the enterprise license, EM&I will provide the EP&I Directorate with services to provide requirements upgrades and issue response as well as database modifications and ACART user administration. The multi-year contract consists of a one year base, with two one-year options.

ACART provides DoD military service and component IT program managers with an automated tool for assessing systems compliance against the applicable data standards, business rules, and laws, regulations and policies (LRP) defined in the BEA. Since 2006, ACART™ has been the premier tool used by DoD to assert compliance to the BEA.

ACART enables users to assess, filter and federate a vast number of enterprise requirements and LRP. The requirements might include overarching architectures, acquisition regulations, internal checklists, and performance requirements, depending upon the application. The LRP include all of the major regulatory hot buttons such as: OMB 300, Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA), Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA), Inspector General (IG) Act, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), Government Performance Results Act (GPRA), Clinger-Cohen, OMB Circular A-123, Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 5000, Improper Payments Information Act (IPIA) and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act.

"Complying with a constellation of regulations and requirements mandated by government agencies can be a daunting challenge. It can be time consuming and expensive," stated Malcolm Slovin, vice president for EM&I. "ACART will support the BTA to make the compliance process as efficient and thorough as possible. With ACART, programs can have a clearer understanding of what regulations impact them which helps them ensure they're in agreement with all current laws, regulations and policies."

The use of ACART provides multiple benefits for programs, including: helping them determine their compliance status; providing guidance to achieve compliance; and helping evaluate potential systems under consideration to ensure they comply with applicable regulations.

ACART™ helps users perform the following functions:

• Requirements Filtering and Scoping: ACART automatically filters thousands of requirements. Programs can determine which specific requirements impact their scope of work.
• Compliance Alignment: Programs can link and align multi-level enterprise architectures within a federated environment to meet compliance objectives.
• In/Out-Scope Activity Lists: For systems found to be out of compliance, users can develop tactical actions to achieve systems compliance.
• Compliance Assertion: ACART documents a program's state of compliance so that users can outline a program's compliance plans. ACART enables users to assert compliance of lower-level programs and systems to domain-level architectures as well as assert compliance of domain- and component-level systems to enterprise-level architectures.
• Integrated Compliance Reports: Integral ACART compliance reports can be used by Pre-Certification Authorities (PCA), Institutional Review Boards (IRB) and other auditing/review committees for informed decision making.
• Plug-n-Play Requirements Modules: ACART can quickly and easily be configured with additional requirement sets to extend compliance analysis.
• Compare Systems: ACART can be used to compare vendor proposals against solicitation requirements. This makes it possible to make more effective IT investment decisions and develop an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) for proposed systems or programs.

About EM&I

Engineering, Management and Integration, Inc. (EM&I) is a Small Business that combines the discipline of engineering standards with the expertise of management consulting. This unique combination allows EM&I to help clients create realistic project roadmaps -- plans that can be executed within projected time schedules and budgets.

The EM&I team comprises senior industry professionals who average more than 20 years experience in project management and technology consulting. Employees are drawn from a broad base of industry, government, academia and consulting, and many employees have served as executives in industry. Most EM&I employees maintain active security clearances.

"Engineering, Management, & Integration" is a registered service mark of Engineering, Management, & Integration Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact Information:

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(540) 373-2963