IT-based system could serve as model for other military facilities

by James E. O'Neal, July 11, 2007

FORT EUSTIS, VA

While the Army’s Fort Eustis has roots extending back to 1918, it also has one of the most modern systems for managing multiformat media available at any military post or base.

As with much military nomenclature, the full name is a mouthful—Army Enterprise Multimedia/Visual Information Support Center Information Web Portal.

The system has been in the works for the past three years and is now operational, even though another coat of paint (in this case a final tasking for the system integrator to deliver a “work order management system” module) must be added for the total amount of functionality planned.

But according Michael Maxey, the visual information manager at Fort Eustis’s Directorate of Information Management, this last deliverable is really icing on the cake.

“The system is already making a big impact on the way things are done here,” he said. “Instead of moving 9,000 people back and forth to the auditorium here for mandatory training sessions, they can now get the training delivered to their desktops. It’s a great time and money saver—just imagine the efficiency gained when before you had thousands of people coming and going, stopping along the way to visit or for coffee and donuts. Also you have to keep in mind that in an operation this size you will probably have 400 to 500 people out on travel or leave on a given day. Archiving the content with this system makes it a lot easier for everyone to receive the required training.”

MANY NOW ONE

The new system combines functionalities of all media-related activities at the post. Before, there were separate operations for producing training videos, another for printing tasks, another for training services. Now there’s a Web Portal.

“A lot of what we do here is training related,” said Maxey.

As the home to the U.S. Army Transportation Center and the <