The United States Army is the largest branch of the Armed Forces of the United States that performs land-based military operations, and is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and senior branch of the U.S. military. In the fiscal year 2011, the Regular Army reported a strength of

546,057 soldiers; the Army National Guard reported 358,078 soldiers, and the United States Army Reserve reported 201,166 soldiers; the combined- component strength of the U.S. Army was 1,105,301 soldiers. As a branch of the Armed Forces, the mission of the Army is "to fight and win our Nation's wars, by providing prompt, sustained, land dominance, across the full range of military operations and the spectrum of conflict, in support of combatant commanders.”

Each year a new freshman class enters the Academies, ready to start their education and need a computer.

Providing computers to the cadets and plebes is a coveted assignment by computer companies, and Dell is most often the winning brand. That’s where Premier comes in. Each laptop needs to be loaded with a custom configuration for the appropriate Academy, ID, and password for the individual user. Everyone arrives at the same time, ready to get started, and we have to deliver 1,300 laptops at one time, ready to go.

The school district wanted 10,000 laptops of a 22,000 unit order deployed to schools across the district quickly, so the students could start using the computers. Dell looked to Premier for this important, fast-turn project, knowing their expertise in provisioning and deployment. Dell provided Dell Latitude laptops and carrying cases. Premier was their partner of choice to provide the services: etching, imaging, asset tagging, updating BIOS, renaming, joining the Fort Worth ISD domain, and on-site assistance with the deployment to

students.  Initially, the project was scoped with a March 28th deadline. Then the schedule was revised to have all the laptops delivered prior to Spring Break, beginning March 7th; then the deadline changed again needing all laptops delivered by February 7th.
 

We were able to adjust on the fly to meet the district’s change in requirements.

Every government department runs on technology today, and the DEA is no exception. With more than 10,000 employees, 21 divisions, offices in 62 countries, the DEA have a significant procurement process for technology. As an agency charged with protecting and securing our citizens, every process is held to a higher standard including how servers, switches, cables get shipped to the DEA. They need to arrive intact and ready for action.

The DCMA issued a PO for new laptops to be issued to various personnel around the world. The Dell PO covered 1200 laptops and specified the newer tracking technology Radio-frequency identification (RFID). RFID labeling has been around for years, was first patented in the 1970s, but the use of it is relatively new within government and commercial settings. RFID is the wireless use of electromagnetic fields to transfer data, for the purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects. The tags contain electronically stored information. Unlike a barcode, the tag does not necessarily need to be within line of sight of the reader and may be embedded in the tracked object. One advantage of RFID technology is that the tag can hold more data for asset tracking including location (i.e. where we shipped the laptop), the date, and the age of the asset, allowing the government to better determine when to refresh the technology. Prior technology used was Unique Identification (UID) which is readable by humans and by barcode, which was then loaded to a national registry.

The program we support is called “Mission Command” and run by the Distributed Common Ground Systems. The Army programs are run by General Dynamics, and Dell sells computers to the mobile workstations. Laptops, like other Army equipment, must be cataloged, tracked and managed. To aid in this process, Premier etches the Mission Command logo onto every computer and secures each one with a Universal Identification Label. When you walk into the briefing tent, everyone has the etched laptop. It provides a number of benefits, starting with “company pride,” and adding security deterrents as well – at a glance you can tell if someone doesn’t belong by looking at the etched logo on their computer.

Computers don’t walk out of the door in the wrong person’s hands. It helps in packing and distribution as well. You can separate the gear by group using the etched logos.

Most of the Army equipment has an asset tag using a Universal Identification label (UID). Nationwide, all Army equipment is in a database, tracking location, date of purchase and expected lifecycle.