The Global Transportation Network (GTN) program was today honored with the 2001 Federal CIO Council Center of Excellence for Information Technology (CEIT) award. The CEIT award recognizes the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) for successfully applying web-enabled technology to significantly cut costs and improve performance, resulting in an estimated savings in excess of $2.3 billion.

GTN is the leading supply chain management system for USTRANSCOM, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, and the first major Department of Defense (DoD) system to apply web-enabled technology to support forces deployed worldwide. Whether the military needs to send a crate of airplane parts to Colorado, ship thirty tanks overseas, or deploy a military unit anywhere in the world, GTN is the primary command and control system used to coordinate and track the response.

A central feature of GTN, In-Transit Visibility (ITV) allows users to instantly track the status, location, and content of 90 percent of the shipments moving through the enormous Defense Transportation System (DTS). Any authorized user anywhere in the world, from supply clerks at seaports to command center officials at USTRANSCOM headquarters, can open up a web browser and find out where their shipment is, where it's headed, when it will get there, and what it contains. That view into the DTS pipeline boosts confidence in the system, saves time and cuts costs considerably.

"GTN has revolutionized how we are able to accomplish our mission, and has saved considerable money over the earlier client-server system," explained Colonel Ernest Speck, Director of the GTN Program Management Office. "We can track any shipment from the time it's loaded on to the truck to the time it gets to the ship and then to the people who need it. That visibility into everything that's moving through the DTS allows us to rely on the movement of that system and plan for its arrival as opposed to sitting in the dark."

That confidence and efficiency GTN provides has produced hard savings, cost avoidance, and benefits to the DoD estimated at $2.356 billion.

"USTRANSCOM has taken full advantage of the web's vast potential through GTN," said Terry Drabant, president of Lockheed Martin Mission Systems. "They provide a critical service for all branches of the military, and it's vital that they deliver the necessary equipment and munitions to the warfighters who need them, when they need them. They've been very effective in using GTN to accomplish that mission better, faster and cheaper than before. We congratulate them on this well-deserved honor." Lockheed Martin has been the prime contractor on GTN since 1995.

Key to GTN's success is its ability to collect data from 30 distinct DoD systems and 30 commercial carriers, refine that data, and present it through a single, integrated database available to users anytime, anywhere. The system processes 2,100 user queries and 2.1 million transactions per day, and employs secure, encrypted servers to keep that data safe. The highly reliable system currently boasts an availability rate of 99.68 percent.

GTN's 5,600-plus users enjoy a number of other benefits, such as automatic e-mail alerts that notify a user when a high-interest shipment has reached certain stages in its movement. Also, enhanced command and control capabilities give USTRANSCOM a better understanding of how major operations are carried out and how they might be streamlined or improved.

The CEIT award was presented to USTRANSCOM at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's (AFCEA) 6th annual Virtual Government Conference in Washington, DC.

A leader in mission critical systems integration and information operations, Lockheed Martin Mission Systems serves U.S. and international defense and civil government agencies. Mission Systems employs about 2,600 at major facilities in Gaithersburg, Md., Colorado Springs, Colo., and Santa Maria, Calif., and is a business unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global enterprise engaged principally in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced-technology systems, products and services. The Corporation's core businesses are systems integration, space, aeronautics, and technology services.

For additional information, visit the website: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/missionsystems/

SOURCE: Lockheed Martin Mission Systems