The primary advantages of using CITIS

The Contractor Integrated Technical Information Service (CITIS), as its name implies, is a service not a product. It is a contractor-developed and maintained service to provide electronic access and/or delivery of NATO-procured contractually required information. CITIS is generally acquired from prime contractors who may also use electronic networks for access and delivery of information from their suppliers. Thus, the prime contractor is the information integrator for a specific program/product acquisition.

Project managers should give preference to use of CITIS for performing the functions of updating, storing, controlling, reproducing, and distributing data items. CITIS satisfies one of the major CALS objectives to furnish a single entry point for authorized access to contractor-generated data. CITIS exemplifies the CALS philosophy of creating data once and using it many times. It establishes a set of core information functions to facilitate the CALS concept of "shared data", and it standardizes functional characteristics of the data to facilitate its usage by a wide variety of different users.

The primary advantages of using CITIS are:

• substantial reduction in the amount of data delivered and stored in paper format;
• improved accuracy and timeliness of data;
• improved management and tracking of review status;
• reduction in review cycle time;
• improved comment collection and correlation;
• consistency of data used by all agencies/activities;
• readily accessible archive/repository of program date;
• facilitated sharing of data within the contractors own enterprise, between the contractor and the users, and between the users' activities and locations;
• reduced lead times and costs for weapons system design, manufacturing, and support processes;
• technical information accuracy and timeliness.

Although there may be some initial identifiable costs associated with implementing a CITIS , carefully-selected CITIS requirements should result in substantial savings over the program life cycle by reducing costs for data generation, delivery, and access/usage. Cost savings should be realized not only in terms of reductions in paper purchases, copying costs, and actual delivery costs, but also through a substantial reduction in the labour required to locate, access, and process information. A CITIS has the potential to greatly improve the efficiency of both the contractor's and the users' processes.

Contractors already gravitate toward CITIS environments independent of NATO/NATO nations efforts to achieve effective information management. The project manager should keep in mind that the usefulness of CITIS will increase as NATO/NATO nations operations are streamlined and contractor capabilities are developed.