Reengineering Records and Information Management in the US Department of Defense: A Success Story

The US Department of Defense, sponsored by the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence) and funded through the Corporate Information Management program, has completed the reengineering process of its records management program. The program began in August 1993, published its last report in November 1996, and began test, evaluation and certification testing in 1997. Using IDEF0 and IDEF1X models, Functional Baseline Requirements for Records Management Application Software were established.The requirements were enhanced to include additional functionality identified by experts at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. During this same time, review of the program results by individuals from the National Archives and Records Administration and other Federal agencies suggested the results of the program could be a model for other agencies. Consequently, a testbed facility at the Center for Army Lessons Learned, Fort Leavenzvorth, Kansas, coordinated by the National Media Laboratory, has been established.Currently the Defense Information Systems Agency, Joint Interoperability Test Center, Fort Huachuca, Arizona is administering the first ever Records Management Application Certification Test and Evaluation program. It will test compliance with requirements established by the reengineering effort and specifically derived from the IDEF0 and IDEF1X models.