Hi Art, 1) The goal for normal DXCC turnaround is 4 weeks or less, except during the 3rd quarter. The turnaround time normally floats to 12 weeks or so following the September 30 deadline for the annual list, and then the backlog quickly decreases once the September work is finished. Last week Staff completed the remaining Sept 30 work and also completed the data entry for October. This week they are making good progress on November. The Branch has had some personnel challenges this year - health problems and some turnover and training issues - that are largely behind us. Given the slightly downward trends in DXCC activity, we expect to be able to maintain reasonable turnaround times with the planned staff. By publishing the official standings once a year in the Annual List, we encourage the more serious participants to hold their cards for the Sept 30 deadline to make their totals as large as possible for the annual snapshot. As a result, about 25% of our annual DXCC business arrives in September. As noted in my report, Wayne believes that we can smooth out the workflow by publishing the standings - the equivalent of the annual list - on the Web more often throughout the year. Wayne has been working with John Proctor to see what can be extracted from the current DXCC software for display on the Web. The current DXCC software is working and has been reliable since the last major problem with the database in December 2002. The main improvements that a new system will bring are upgrade from the FoxPro based software that will grow harder to support each year and the ability to easily get data into and out of the system through an electronic interface. Both of these improvements will, over time, allow us to provide better service with less staff handling. 2) For the latter half of 2003, the focus has been on getting the initial Section Emergency Plan drafts by the year-end deadline. We have now received 45, with 20 more commitments. As noted in Document 40 (Agenda Item 11), Staff's response to the VRC's evaluation of the Field Organization, we do anticipate review and strengthening of these plans over time, as well as sharing of the plans and cooperative efforts among neighboring sections. 3) Our assumptions for 2004, including the challenges, risks, and changes to our programs are outlined in the 2004/2005 Plan Summary document previously distributed to the Board. The strategies selected by the Executive Committee for work in 2004 are included in the Plan as explained in Dave Sumner's response to questions about his report. All managers have been involved in reviewing their areas of responsibility for process and efficiency improvements. It's an ongoing challenge, with some changes made in 2003 and others planned for 2004. The integration of the Web front end and enterprise software to automatically handle Web orders is a remaining open issue. The current status is that after several false starts, our Siebel vendor Klein Management Systems (KMS) has devised an approach to getting information into and out of the system using "enterprise Java beans" (EJB -- an e-commerce technology developed by Sun Microsystems). This widely used technology is superior to the native Siebel e-commerce tools and will be expandable and extensible going forward. Klein has built many of the "hooks" to make the enterprise system ready for e-commerce. The next step is to build a new Web e-commerce front end to handle the commercial transactions, or to modify the existing Web site to communicate with the enterprise software through the EJB interface. Klein has provided several proposals to build a new front end, but their estimated price to complete this work is in the $250,000 range. We do not believe that we can justify this expenditure and are looking at alternatives. Jon Bloom has reviewed the work Klein has done to date and believes that the best approach is to add the needed functionality to the current Web store and add an EJB interface to communicate with the enterprise software. Jon would be the project leader and handle much of the modification to the current Web site. We would identify contract programmers with EJB experience to build the interface to make the Web site compatible with the Siebel EJB modules, and work with the HQ information services staff and Klein for any additional work needed on the Siebel side. Currently Jon is completing the Award software modules needed to enable Logbook of the World users to submit Logbook credits for DXCC. We anticipate completion of the initial Logbook Award software by mid-February, at which point Jon can devote a significant portion of his time to developing the specifications and workplan for the e-commerce project. 73, Mark K1RO

-----Original Message----- From: Goddard, Art (Dir, SW) Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 3:02 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:9947] Re: COO Report

Mark, a few Qs:

1) The DXCC card processing time has grown to 13+ weeks (1/4 year). That is in the ballpark where we began to receive Member complaints on at least two past occasions. What is the standard of Member service for DXCC card processing? What's the outlook in this area given the departure of a (probationary) employee and the likelihood of having to use the outdated DXCC software for the forseeable future?

2) What is being done with the Section Emergency Plans beyond encouraging their development and filing them for reference? Are copies of Plans being exchanged by neighboring Sections to assess plan compatibility in bordering areas? What is being done to determine state of readiness and ability to implement these plans?

3) The report appears to be a collection of department manager activity reports. From the COO perspective, please characterize the alignment of these activities with the strategic framework developed by the Board in September, 2003. What trends do you see that may require significant corrective action to meet our 2004 plan? What initiatives do you have going for process and efficiency improvement? We haven't achieved all the goals we set out to meet with our new enterprise software, e.g., automatic handling of web orders. Where do we go from here?

It just seems like the COO part of the report is missing...

73, Art W6XD

----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson, Mark K1RO" <k1ro@arrl.org> To: "arrl-odv" <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:26 PM Subject: [ARRL-ODV:9927] COO Report

Attached is my report for the January Board meeting, Document 11. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

73, Mark K1RO