| March 2010 |
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| Director's Message |
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Welcome to the latest edition of What’s Up at DAS, the quarterly newsletter of the Department of Administrative Services.
What's Up readers recently may have received an invitation to participate in a comprehensive evaluation of DAS, which occurs at an especially critical time in our history as an organization. Your feedback will guide us as we make significant changes at DAS. We look forward to hearing from our customers on the value of DAS, the cost and benefits of our services, and the areas that need improvement. The depth of this particular evaluation reflects the value we place on the voice of our customers. For more information, or to participate in the evaluation, please contact Jennifer C. Lara.
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We have dubbed our main change project "Wall-2-Wall." As the name implies, we will use the project to take a comprehensive look at how DAS can better meet customers' needs and do more with limited resources. Wall-2-Wall is already picking up steam within the department, and we look forward to sharing our successes and "lessons learned" in the months to come. You can read more about the project in the Director's Office section, below.
We hope you enjoy this edition of What’s Up at DAS. Feel free to contact us if you have questions or if you want to suggest a future topic. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Links to Articles
Director's Office
EISPD
Facilities
HRSD
State Data Center
State Services
Fleet | SPO
Surplus | P&D
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Scott L. Harra
Director, Department of Administrative Services
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| State Data Center |
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State Data Center achieves major milestone
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The tenet of government is that it should operate at its very best
when times are at their very worst.
–John Gillispie, Chief Operating Officer, State of Iowa
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Doing your best in the worst of times takes preparation and practice. Over the past year, Oregon’s State Data Center has taken many steps toward preparing for disaster recovery. Among these are the following:
- Established a new statewide price agreement for disaster recovery services with SunGard.
- Reached agreement with the data center’s key customers to purchase recovery services — at a significantly reduced cost — for the state’s most critical systems: mainframe, production AIX, data backup, iSeries, and about 100 critical Windows servers.
- Identified the SDC’s core infrastructure (hardware and systems) that is necessary to support the recovery of agencies’ systems and data.
- Held workshops for customers to build awareness and help them define specific disaster recovery requirements and priorities.
The SDC thanks agencies for the countless hours they spent identifying disaster recovery requirements. Recovery plans and actions are achievable when the “business owners” get involved and drive recovery-planning efforts. Without agencies’ participation, the SDC would not be able to deliver the critical computing systems required to maintain business continuity in the event of a disaster.
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A practice session for the SDC’s recovery plans occurred during an offsite exercise at SunGard facilities in December 2009 — the SDC’s first exercise since state agencies moved to the centralized data center. The test demonstrated successful recovery of portions of Networking, Security, Unix/AIX, and supporting data backup systems. To prepare for the test, the data center developed various templates and procedures for planning, execution, and post-test reporting.
As the disaster recovery program moves forward, the data center will support agencies as they further develop plans to recover their critical systems.
Contacts: Claudia J. Light, Frank R. Kuchta, 503-378-2176
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SDC staff monitors the test at SunGard.
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| State Services Division |
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A more direct path to federal surplus
State agencies and other eligible organizations* can now view federal surplus property on the General Services Administration’s Web site by using a special password. The system allows DAS Surplus specialists to freeze items of interest for their customers. A freeze tells GSA that an Oregon organization has a use for the items; GSA then considers any other interested organizations and decides which state will receive the items.
State purchasers of equipment and supplies may contact Jeff Royer to obtain a password for the GSA system.
*Visit the Surplus Property Web site for eligibility requirements.
Contact: Jeff Royer, 503-378-4089
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Fleet and Daimler Trucks build a greener future
The Daimler Truck research facility on Portland’s Swan Island desperately needed a place to fuel a newly developed compressed natural gas truck for its first road tests. Chris Warner, the Governor’s Senior Transportation Liaison, helped the DAS Fleet program obtain an amendment to the law that allows DAS to sell compressed natural gas to Daimler.
The estimated emissions of the new truck are approximately 20-percent lower than a comparable diesel truck. Fleet counted it a privilege to get involved. Trucks like this prototype may help reduce pollution in cities across Oregon and the U.S.
Contact: Brian King, 503-378-6057
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Daimler Truck's
new prototype
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Forum sheds light on tort claims act
Each year the State Procurement Office hosts a forum that corresponds to the Governor’s proclamation of “Purchasing Month.” The fifth annual Statewide Managers Procurement Forum occurred on March 11. SPO’s partners for the event — Department of Justice and DAS Risk Management — reviewed the Oregon Tort Claims Act (Senate Bill 311), which went into effect on July 1, 2009.
The act affects state government in many ways. For example, the act increased liability limitations. State agencies’ claim limits for property damage now begin at $100,000 per occurrence. Affected areas include the following:
- Claims
- Legal fees
- Contracts
- Insurance premiums and limits
- Partnerships (including partnerships between local governments)
- Malpractice
The forum represents just one way that SPO and Risk Management have publicized how the act changes Oregon law and agencies’ practices. Procurement and contract specialists will need to make changes in solicitations and contracts to accommodate new limitation amounts and potentially shift the gap in liability exposure to contractors. Risk managers will need to advise government agencies about the act’s provisions. And DOJ plays a role in helping agencies work through complex situations.
SPO thanks its partners for a successful forum.
Contact: Dianne Lancaster, 503-378-3529
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Cost-saving services for print and mail
As a licensee of the U.S. Postal Service, Publishing & Distribution collectively saves between $165,000 and $170,000 a month in postage costs for state agencies. P&D realizes discounted postage rates by affixing bar codes and presorting agencies’ mail.
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The main character in this drama is the mail sorter, which is an Optical Character Reader that sorts an average of 105,000 pieces of mail each day. On a busy day, P&D may send as many as 186,000 pieces of mail through this incredible machine. The mail also passes through the FASTforward system, which uses address-matching software and the Postal Service’s electronic change-of-address database. When people or businesses file a change-of-address card with the post office, the information appears in a national database. P&D’s mail sorter reads the address, compares it to the national database and sprays the new address on that piece of mail.
P&D uses a variety of specialized printers that can meet most address and bar code requirements. They can print addresses and other data directly onto self-mailers, personalized letters, cards, checks, oversized or thick documents, regular envelopes and labels. Automated folding and inserting equipment helps P&D process jobs faster, more economically, and more efficiently than a manual process.
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Tim Shippey attends
the OCR mail
sorting machine.
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Call on P&D’s customer service staff to discuss ways to streamline your print and mail projects and save your agency time and money.
Contact: Customer Service Team, 503-373-1700
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| Enterprise Information Strategy and Policy Division |
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E-Gov announces trusted URL shortening
Oregon’s E-Government Program recently worked with its governance board and the General Services Administration to provide a new service that state agencies can use to shorten Web site addresses. The service offers something that commercial shortening services cannot: assurance that a link connects a visitor to a government Web site. In other words, trustworthiness. The provider is Go.USA.gov.
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If a long URL doesn’t meet a business need, consider a short URL such as this example:
Before:
After:
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Only government sites such as oregon.gov or state.or.us can use the service. This builds trust among users. Even if an agency owns a .com, .info, .org, or other domain name, they cannot use Go.USA.gov to shorten the URL.
Signing up for this free service takes less than a minute. The only prerequisite is the state e-mail extension, “state.or.us.” Self-register at http://go.usa.gov and click on “create new account.”
Before using this service, check with your department public affairs manager or public information officer to make certain that short URLs conform to your department’s policies.
Contact: E-Government Help Desk, 503-378-2126
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| Facilities Division |
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DAS receives funds for energy projects
The DAS Facilities Division recently received $500,000 in federal funds from the Oregon Department of Energy. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal government has awarded funds across the country for many kinds of energy projects. Oregon can use the funds for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in public buildings.
Facilities will use the funds to replace two aged heating and cooling systems at the Archives Building in Salem and the Portland Crime Lab. Both projects will create local jobs, increase energy efficiency in the buildings and improve tenant comfort. If funds remain after completion of the two projects, Facilities will install highly efficient LED lights in select elevators.
Contact: Elin Shepard, 503-373-7132
Quick Links: ARRA | ODOE Energy Program | DAS Buildings - History and Sustainability
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For Sale: School for the Blind
In February, the Legislature directed DAS to sell the Oregon School for the Blind. Buying and selling real estate for state government is one of the functions of the DAS Facilities Division. In this case, DAS will retain a broker to help market and sell the property. Until the sale takes place, Facilities will maintain the grounds and buildings.
The Blind School property is exempt from the surplus property process. It will go out to the private real estate market once Facilities completes some final tasks to make the site ready to sell.
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DAS will continue to work with the city of Salem and neighborhood associations to keep them apprised of the status of the sale.
Contact: Robin Harpster, 503-373-7152
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| Human Resource Services Division |
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HRSD announces reorganization
The Human Resource Services Division sustained many position reductions during the preceding year. HRSD Administrator Diana Foster recently implemented a limited reorganization to help bridge gaps caused by fewer managers and staff, as well as the elimination of whole functions, such as statewide training and development services.
Several sections remain virtually unchanged: Labor Relations, Systems and Services (PPDB and PERS reconciliation), Audits, and Human Resource Management and Consultation.
A newly created Project Management Office, led by manager Steve Schafer, houses several projects already in progress, including Electronic Learning Management (iLearn) and Electronic Recruitment (E-Recruit). Some agencies already have implemented iLearn and E-Recruit, with more agencies poised to implement in the future. The office also oversees technical training and logistics for classroom reservations and setup.
The Classification and Compensation section now reports directly to Ms. Foster, which enables her to evaluate workloads, processes, challenges and the conflicting priorities that affect the section. Most importantly, the move better positions Ms. Foster to champion necessary improvements to the current class-comp system.
The division began moving staff into the new reporting and working structure at the beginning of the year. Visitors will still find HRSD located on the second floor of the DAS Executive Building, 155 Cottage Street NE, in Salem.
 “I want to thank our customers for their patience and understanding as our division puts these changes into effect,” said Ms. Foster. “Our goal is to find new ways to streamline processes and make our HR services more transparent and highly efficient.”
View HRSD's revised organization chart.
Contact: Diana L. Foster, 503-378-3020
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| Director's Office |
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A transformation initiative at DAS
In October, DAS Director Scott Harra launched a transformation project, the Wall-2-Wall Initiative, so that DAS could better understand and respond to its customers’ needs and increase the agency’s capacity to do more within available resources. DAS formed an Office of Transformation and recruited David Almond, a veteran of process improvement, to head up the effort.
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Wall-2-Wall has several components, including engaging and listening to customers and using “Lean Six Sigma” and other business transformation techniques to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of DAS processes. Two units have completed lean projects – the Technology Support Center and Fleet. Both projects reduced waste in an existing process by eliminating redundant efforts. The improved workflows will result in faster results for customers.
By early summer, the entire agency will be involved in some level of transformation. Watch for additional updates in future editions of What’s Up at DAS.
Contact: David Almond, 503-378-3202
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What's Up at DAS will return next quarter.
Until then, please contact DAS if you have questions or need assistance.
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