The events of 9/11, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as the 2008 Midwest floods exposed the Coast Guard's lack of and need for an easy to use web-based tool to track mobilized and TDY personnel responding to vast spectrum of surge operations.
The Mobilization Readiness Tracking Tool (MRTT) is a web-based solution that eliminated the U.S. Coast Guard’s manually-intensive process of using inconsistent spreadsheets, homegrown tracking systems, and the "good-old-boy" network to track mobilized and temporary duty (TDY) personnel responding to crisis situations and natural disasters. Available simultaneously to all authorized users wherever they are located, MRTT enables the Coast Guard to properly respond to crises and disasters by:
- ascertaining precise resources needed
- assigning proper resources with requisite competencies
- tracking those resources
- demobilizing temporarily mobilized resources at the end of an operation.
MRTT dramatically increases the Coast Guard’s surge response efficiency and effectiveness by eliminating the personnel and cost redundancy that resulted as multiple individuals were assigned the same billet, as individuals without proper competencies were assigned, as many hours were wasted matching competencies to requirements, and as response disarray resulted due to a lack of a standardized means to track resources and provide senior management an accurate status and representation of resources assigned and available.
A Platform for Business Intelligence
First used and “crisis-tested” in response to Hurricane Gustav today MRTT, a fully integrated solution, accesses the Coast Guard's Electronic Data Warehouse (EDW) and other legacy systems to plan for and properly respond to emergencies and disasters. The system provides commanders, their staff and on-site responders instant access to the reliable, consistent information they need, anywhere anytime. This not only facilitates getting the proper rapid response resources to the right place at the right time, but also enables accurate situational communications with state and local officials as the requirements of the disaster/crisis evolve to the best conclusion possible.
In addition to its value as a rapid response tool, MRTT is also an efficient and effective response planning tool. Integrated with the scenarios in MRTT’s Contingency Personnel Requirements List (CPRL) capability, MRTT allows Coast Guard mission planners to view the readiness and availability of requisite human resources needed for anticipated missions, and alerts leadership to possible resource or skill gaps.
Using MRTT’s extensive reporting tools, including powerful ad hoc reporting capability, as well as the capability to download and upload from spreadsheets, planners and action officers can now more efficiently analyze the entire spectrum of resources available. Thus the Coast Guard is better able to ensure that the right resources are available at the right place at the right time. MRTT also allows for state and local responders better visibility with regards to the range and depth of USCG assistance they can anticipate.
Through the ultimate test of recent hurricanes and floods, MRTT has proven it is a secure, reliable system which contributes towards the Coast Guards ultimate mission of saving lives.
Adaptive & Responsive
Requestors, the responders at the affected units, can now centrally enter their requirements for approval up the chain-of-command to Headquarters, where an electronic search for the appropriate personnel occurs. What before took hours to research, now takes minutes. Once a match is made, appropriate steps are taken to issue orders and the individual is directed to the appropriate site. MRTT is capable of ordering active duty, reserve component, civilians, and contractors to duty. It also tracks their locations and funding, as well as provides the capability to generate standard and ad hoc reports and graphs at any processing point based on almost any data set in the system. Once a surge operation is completed, MRTT is instrumental in properly demobilizing reserve personnel and/or dispatching active duty, civilians, and contractors back to their home units with minimal delay and with the assurance that all of the necessary administrative work is complete.