EM&I Launches ACART to Help Government Agencies Address Enterprise Architecture and Requirements Compliance

Herndon, Va. (PRWEB) May 19, 2007

Federal agencies and programs face the unenviable situation of having to perform their mission while transforming their underlying systems in real time. Each has unique technology environments which must comply with the laws, regulations, policies (LRP) and multi-dimensional layers of enterprise architectures and requirements. 145,000 LRPs exist within the federal financial management domain alone, and compliance can be a complex, confusing and time-consuming effort.

To help address the challenge, EM&I today announced the release of ACART™, a network-centric, management decision support tool that helps stakeholders determine which requirements apply to their programs, and then assert compliance against those regulations.

Originally piloted and now used by the Business Transformation Agency, ACART is generally available to other programs, agencies and commercial clients. ACART assesses, filters and federates a vast number of enterprise requirements and LRPs. The requirements might include overarching architectures, acquisition regulations, internal checklists, and performance requirements, depending upon the application. The LRPs 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 Genera (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.

ACART helps answer the tough questions in regulatory compliance:
•How do I effectively keep track of which requirements apply to my planned scope of analysis?
•Are my systems in compliance?
•How do I make more informed asset investment decisions that I can support and defend?
•How do I accurately pinpoint where corrective compliance action is needed and the nature of that action?

ACART extracts what is relevant to a user's defined scope of interest. It then provides an intuitive way to assess, document and store a system or group's scope and state of compliancy.

"Complying with the countless regulations government agencies face is a difficult job. Many programs turn to outside contractors to help make sense of it, which can be an expensive undertaking," commented Shaun Enright, ACART business development manager for EM&I. "Working with BTA, EM&I created a way to help make the process much easier to understand. Though compliance is still not simple, programs can have a much better understanding of what regulations impact them so they can ensure their systems are in alignment with current laws, regulations and policies."

ACART provides multiple benefits for programs, including: helping them determine their compliance status; providing guidance to achieve compliance; and helping them evaluate potential systems they are considering installing to make sure they comply with all applicable regulations.

ACART helps perform the following functions:
•Requirements Filtering and Scoping: ACART automatically filters and evaluates 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: Develop tactical actions to achieve compliancy for systems that are out of compliance.
•Compliance Assertion: ACART documents a program's state of compliancy and outlines a program's compliance plans. ACART can 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. The offering can demonstrate compliance to LRPs such as FMFIA, FMIA, Clinger-Cohen, GPRA and A-123
•Integrated Compliance Reports: ACART tracks and reports compliance progress for Pre-Certification Authorities (PCA), Institutional Review Boards (IRB) and other auditing/review committees.
•Plug-n-Play Requirements Modules: Quickly and easily add requirement sets into ACART to extend compliance analysis.
•Compare Systems: ACART provides the capability to compare vendor proposals against solicitation requirements and report to the Source Selection Board This makes it possible to make more effective IT investment decisions and develop an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) for proposed system(s) or program(s).

About EM&I

Engineering, Management and Integration, Inc. (EM&I) is a certified Small Disadvantaged 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.

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