MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- Imagine moving the papers off of the desk, shredding them and saying goodbye forever. Soon Marines will not have to imagine it, they will see their desktop uncluttered and free from a lot of their paperwork.
Incorporating an automated way of taking care of administrative needs went into play as the first of three phases, Bundled Capability Package-1 was explained to Depot Marines Wednesday at the Depot Theater.
"This was an overall brief [intended] for all hands," said Chief Warrant Officer Peter Torinese, Marine Corps Total Force Systems officer.
After the brief, the Professional Military Education moved from the all hands phase into the subject matter expert phase, phase two, which was geared toward the people who will actually be implementing and operating the program.
Phase three went to the individual units the battalion commanders, who were shown first hand how to operate the system.
This system allows individual Marines to have more control, as leave requests, special liberty, promotions and pro and con systems will now be automated through Marine Online.
The Manpower Information Systems Support Office - 02 at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, N.C., has been actively conducting training to activate units under Marine Online BCP1, said Sgt. Jared W. Miller, MISSO analyst.
"Since October 2003, MISSO-02 has activated over 90 units aboard Camp Lejeune, Camp Johnson, MCAS Cherry Point, MCAS New River and Jurisdiction-02," he said. "Many of the RUC's [Report Unit Code] within Jurisdiction-02 have been activated, and are now using the BCP function to the fullest."
The functionality of the system allows a more automated version of an administration shop, alleviating a lot of the paperwork that is currently done. The system is incorporated in Marine Online under eight modules BCP-1 provides: leave management, unit management status report, proficiency and conduct marks, promotion recommendations, permissive temporary additional duty, special liberty, table of organization assignment, and view reports.
"These eight modules within MOL BCP-1 are a 'weapon' for commands to utilize to complete their mission of taking care of their Marines administratively," said Miller. "The commands, commanders and small unit leaders, have always had the authority and responsibility to ensure that these tasks were accomplished, but since the consolidation of administration centers, in recent years, commands have given that power away. Marine Online BCP-1 gives commands the power back."
However, along with power comes the responsibility that was once solely that of the administration shop. Now that power is back in control of each Marine and their command.
"The responsibility of managing personnel is moving away from DCAC [Depot Consolidated Administrative Center] down to the individual battalions," said Torinese. "It is giving them ability that they used to have years ago when they had battalion admin. [They will be able to move] their people without having to notify us here [at DCAC]. The system will notify us, but they don't have to actually physically notify us when they are moving folks."
This gives more people more information, and that is the point of it, he said. The information is posted in an individuals record automatically, which is just an awesome system. Plus, this system puts a stop to the large amounts of paperwork that personnel have to deal with on a regular basis.
"My goal, in my head, is to spend 90 days before we get all of the battalions and all of the company staffs and everybody [on the same page] and then people actually start operating the program," said Torinese.
Those 90 days should end around the same time as the usual flow of leave requests is overtaking DCAC.
"Every Christmas we run about 300 sets of leave papers, and that is now gone," said Master Sgt. Timothy Floyd, noncommissioned officer in charge for DCAC. "[Now] it is all done electronically, so when you check back in off of leave we go to MOL and put the time and date that you checked in and it is automatic, that leave entry is generated by that action."
That automatic response will also lead to more efficiency, manpower savings and economic savings with regards to mailing out reports, photocopying and other tasks that each shops had to undergo to log and retain information for their records.
Floyd further illustrates this point by stating that with fitness reports, they used to be filled out by hand and the officer would fill in all of the information. Now the officer would go to a sheet on Marine Online and it would have already had the information present, all he would have to do is fill in the rest.
"This will also alleviate that fitness report getting lost in the mail," said Floyd. "Because, once the reviewing officer hits submit, it heads directly to headquarters Marine Corps."
Since the information age has taken hold of the Marine Corps, every Marine can now take control of their pay, leave and future by utilizing the process and embracing a bit of technology.