Corps of Engineers Operations and Maintenance Budget Decision Support System - (COMB-DSS-D)

The COMB-DSS-D is an acronym for Corps Operation and Maintenance Budget Decision Support System - Division Version. The COMB-DSS prototype was originally developed as part of the Improvement of Operations and Management Techniques (IOMT) research program. The COMB-DSS was a project oriented towards providing decision support capabilities for the existing O&M budget development process at the HQ level. Specifically, the COMB-DSS provides assistance in financial analysis and development of rankings for the work items in the annual budget submittal. The COMB-DSS prototype system was actually used in the 1994 budget submittal. Because the COMB-DSS was successful, IOMT funded a prototype Division decision support system (COMB-DSS-D) to provide similar capabilities at the Division level. The COMB-DSS-D prototype was tested on-site at the Ohio River Division in the FY 95 budget year. Again, the prototype COMB-DSS-D was so successful that Headquarters, OC&R Division decided to extend the use of the COMB-DSS-D to all Divisions. System refinements were made to the COMB-DSS-D early in 1994 to accommodate revised budget guidelines and specific Division requirements. Training was conducted in May 1994 and the COMB-DSS-D was distributed to Divisions and used in place of the Division ABS in the FY 96 budget submittal. Prior to the development of the COMB-DSS-D, the Division ABS was used to handle budget analysis and ranking and current year work allowance submittals to HQUSACE. Initially, the COMB-DSS-D did not handle work allowance management. However, by the end of the FY 96 budget process, the COMB-DSS-D included a work allowance module yielding a single analysis and reporting system for budget submittal and work allowance adjustments. The COMB-DSS/COMB-DSS-D development process and history is summarized in Table 1-1.