The OCS Connect Vision...

United States Department of the Interior

Content: Jan Weisel

Pagemasters:
Marcia Oliver
Alice Drew

To increase operational efficiency and better serve MMS stakeholders-employees, citizens, industry, and other government agencies-through customized, secure electronic information exchange.

What is OCS Connect?

The OCS Connect project is a phased, multi-year, electronic government (e-Government) transformation of MMS’s Offshore Minerals Management (OMM) Program. The blueprint for the OCS Connect project was developed in response to the increasing complexity of oil and gas operations, greater workloads, and the need for more sophisticated technical analyses and secure data exchange.

Industry and public priorities were critical drivers for OMM’s e-Government initiative. So, to meet future mission requirements, encourage participation in the domestic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas programs, and to unitekey stakeholders, OMM embarked upon a concerted effort to reform and streamline its business operations, and the project was appropriately named, OCS Connect.

OMM began planning the OCS Connect project in early 2001, completing an e-Government Transformation Foundational

OCS Connect -- An MMS Offshore Minerals Management Transformation Project

New OCS Connect System Release:
Public Connect Goes Live!

Public Connect is the first interactive, on-line system released as part of the OCS Connect project. Public Connect gives citizens the ability to electronically submit their comments on Offshore Minerals Management (OMM) regulatory and planning information that is open for comment in the Federal Register.

For more information on this new release, visit the MMS Newsroom.

Interested parties may submit comments on-line.

Study, Business Case, and Implementation Plan in 2002. During this planning stage, OMM identified business processes to be re-engineered, as well as the conditions and considerations supporting the transformation, and documented a baseline of its current internal and external business environment and areas for improvement. From this baseline, OMM began development of an appropriate Enterprise Architecture consisting of improved business processes that incorporate advances in information technology and industry “best practices.” When the project is complete, OMM will be equipped with the processes, tools, and technologies needed to better perform its work, and, therefore, better serve its customers.

The e-Government transformation will provide OMM, its customers, and stakeholders with secure electronic data exchange capabilities, improved operating efficiency, and the increased agility and flexibility to adjust to and meet future business conditions and demands. When complete, government agencies, industry, and citizens will benefit from expanded access, faster processing, and greater accuracy of the information required for decision-making, and OMM will realize additional operational benefits by developing secure electronic data exchange capabilities.

The magnitude of the OCS Connect effort warranted the establishment of a Project Management Office (PMO) to drive the project and oversee its success. The PMO is located at OMM headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, as well as in New Orleans, Louisiana, near the Gulf of Mexico Region (GOMR) Office.

Last Updated: 08/31/2004, 07:56:24 AM