An analysis of migration alternatives of the apply process within the United States Reserves

Abstract

As the Navy Reserve Force continues to align with the Active Navy to create a total force, initiatives are in place to migrate existing Navy Manpower, Personnel, and Distribution systems into a single enterprise system. This migration will improve data integrity, and provide the foundation for a position based Navy which is needed to support Sea Warrior. With this focus in mind, this thesis studies the feasibility of combining the current Navy Reserve Officer detailing and placement systems (APPLY/JOAPPLY) with other Navy systems with similar functionalities. The goal is to find a reasonable solution that will ultimately assist the Navy Reserves' transition toward the total force enterprise system. Currently APPLY/JOAPPLY does not exist within the active Navy; however, both active and reserve Navy use Career Management System-Interactive Detailing (CMS-ID) as a personnel management tool. Not only does CMS-ID manage enlisted records, but it also has access to officer data, though not currently in use. Using a common system for both the Active and Reserve components could provide an economy of scales in systems management and maintenance, thus providing cost savings through the elimination of the management of two different information systems.