SSA's Capital Assets Plan

SSA's Capital Assets Plan identifies major acquisition areas that will
contribute significantly to the achievement of SSA's performance goals
and the President's Management Agenda reforms. Below are the capital
assets initiatives arrayed by the four strategic goals, and those
pertaining to infrastructure.

Strategic Goal - Service

**Electronic Service Delivery (ESD)**

This initiative provides electronic services to the public via the SSA
Internet web-site. These Internet services are being implemented
incrementally, adding online functionality along with appropriate
privacy/security safeguards.

## National 800 Number Service and Call Center 

This project funds SSA's national 800-number telephone service,
including the automatic call distributor technology that consolidates
all the national 800 number network queues at SSA's various call centers
into one logical queue and directs incoming calls to the next available
agent, regardless of the physical location.

# 

# Paperless Processing Centers

The Paperless Processing Centers (PPC) project is an enterprise-wide
document imaging/workflow system. Under this project, SSA uses
electronic imaging to capture information received on paper and from
programmatic sources and makes that information available to processing
center employees for case processing on demand. Thus, it provides the
capability to better manage and control processing center workloads and
improves accuracy and timeliness. It involves the capture, storage,
management, retrieval and routing of document images and electronic
forms, providing a framework for further Agency-wide planning and
development of electronic folders.

## Electronic Wage Reporting (EWR) System

This system will enable SSA to efficiently and effectively process wage
reports submitted on various media in a variety of methods. It will
expand services to customers by providing an acknowledgement of receipt,
filing status information, complete and timely information on processing
results, testing capabilities and additional customer support.

**Accelerated Electronic Disability (AeDib) System**

This project consists of several inter-dependent projects designed to
move all partners in the Agency\'s disability claims adjudication and
review to an electronic business process through the use of an
electronic disability folder. The AeDib initiative will affect every
part of the Agency that develops, adjudicates, processes, reviews, or
pays disability claims. AeDib will significantly change the business
process and the ways that components interact with disability claims.

**Title II Redesign (T2R)**

The goal of this project is a single system to process virtually all
Social Security retirement and survivors insurance claims and
client-initiated postentitlement actions in an online interactive mode.
This should result in greater capability to completely process work at
the first point of contact, and a system that is easier and less costly
to maintain and modify.

Service cont.

**Digital Audio for Administrative Law Judge Hearings**

This item includes funding to migrate from the current 4-track analog
audiocassette system for recording hearings to a digital recording
system producing compact discs (CDs), which can be stored in the case
folder. Upon implementation of the AeDib project, recordings could
become part of an electronic folder, generating further savings.

Strategic Goal - Stewardship

**e-Vital**

This project will expand the existing vital records online data exchange
between federal agencies and state governments. It will eliminate the
burden imposed on citizens to obtain and deliver vital record
information from local government to the federal government and enable
more efficient benefit qualifications. In addition, it will save
millions of dollars annually through fraud detection from computer
matching programs, as well as from reductions in erroneous payments.

**Financial Accounting System (FACTS)**

This project will provide a comprehensive financial accounting system
replacing current accounts payable, accounts receivable, and core
accounting and reporting systems. It will provide better control of
funds and financial data consistency across the Agency and will be
compliant with the requirements of the Joint Financial Management
Improvement Program (JFMIP).

**Managerial Cost Accountability System (MCAS)**

MCAS will modernize the way SSA collects, organizes, and provides
management and financial information about SSA's programs and operations
to its managers, analysts and outside entities that oversee SSA. It will
provide essential data that the Agency needs to track its progress and
efficiency in meeting its goals and objectives. MCAS is closely related
and dependent upon another Agency initiative -- the Social Security
Unified Measurement System (SUMS) that provides SSA's new management
information architecture.

**Access to Financial Institutions Information**

With this initiative SSA will develop the capability to electronically
query financial institutions to determine if applicants/recipients have
a level of resources that would make them ineligible for Supplemental
Security Income (SSI) benefits. SSA is required to verify the income and
assets of SSI applicants and recipients in order to determine their
entitlement to benefits. Current manual and paper processes are
extremely slow, labor-intensive and non-comprehensive.

Strategic Goal - Staff

**Employees With Disabilities (EWD)**

This project will maintain and refresh the installed equipment for the
Agency\'s 1,400 employees with disabilities (EWD) and provide equipment
for the additional 3,000 EWD whom the Agency has committed to hire in
the next five years. This investment is necessary for SSA to meet the
legal requirements of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended.

**Interactive Video Teletraining (IVT)**

In FY 2003, this project will continue the rollout of interactive-video
teletraining (IVT) to the Agency locations previously funded and
identified as providing a positive return on investment. In addition, it
provides essential network infrastructure upgrades needed to sustain the
IVT system and will add features such as closed-captioning, in order to
comply with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended.

Infrastructure

## Desktop Infrastructure

This project provides for the replacement of the Agency\'s installed
base of workstations, wide-area networking switches and related
components and servers.

**Data Communications Network (DCN)**

This project includes installation and monthly recurring charges for
hardware connectivity required for the Agency's mission-critical
wide-area network. Funding is needed for dedicated circuits, circuits to
support Internet Protocol and Systems Network Architecture traffic,
Internet, Virtual Private Network for the remote dial-in community,
foreign service posts and international frame relay circuits. DCN
resources are provided through the General Services Administration's FTS
2001 contract. Funding is included for managed services and life cycle
management.

## Data Center Infrastructure

This project supports, upgrades and/or replaces, as needed, the
principal components in the Agency's mainframe computer architecture,
which are located in the Agency's national computer center. These
components include the DASD, mainframe computer, storage management and
magnetic tape infrastructures, and mainframe computer software
acquisitions and upgrades.

## DDS Automation

The Social Security Act mandates that disability determination services
(DDS) in each state perform determinations of disability for residents
of that state who file for disability benefits. This project includes
funds for federal procurements on behalf of DDSs, as well as direct
purchases by the states according to specific proposals that they may
submit.

**Telephone System Purchases**

This project replaces outdated telephone systems in the Agency,
currently targeting systems that were installed in the early 1990s.

## Client /Server Software

Client/Server software is a vital part of the modernization of the SSA
infrastructure, central to providing a more user-friendly and efficient
interface between SSA computer systems and SSA customers. This
initiative replaces the enterprise licenses for IWS/LAN software that
will expire in 2003, as well as acquiring new software products to
improve reliability and enhance workstation performance.

**Internet Services (Websphere)**

In order for SSA to meet the many challenges for electronic processing
of SSA\'s forms and information requests, an updated and more flexible
Internet service delivery platform is required. This initiative will
establish a standardized platform for the development, support and
scalable operation of Internet applications, in order to reduce the
projected personnel skills and costs required to build, install, and
operate the SSA Internet applications.