Marine Corps Total Force System

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Marine Corps Total Force System (MCTFS) is the integrated pay and personnel system for active duty and reserve Marines, and the authoritative source of data for all Marine Corps (MC) pay and personnel information consisting of over 550,000 records. MCTFS has been successfully fielded and is currently in the post-deployment system support phase of its lifecycle. MCTFS supports centralized business-critical pay functions for the Marine Corps Enterprise on time and accurately, including computation and payment of net pay to individual Marines, while accommodating all necessary system change requests to meet current legislative, regulatory, mission essential, force reset, and contingency change requirements. MCTFS is maintained in an audit compliant state to ensure accurate financial transactions and reporting. MCTFS includes a comprehensive history of pay entitlements, deductions, and payments for each active duty and reserve Marine. The principal advocate within the Marine Corps is the Deputy Commandant, Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

Contents

Mission

The mission of the MCTFS is to provide integrated personnel and pay functionality for all active and reserve Marines within a single system and personnel management for retirees, by using a single, logical database which incorporates the records of all active, reserve and retired Marines. Additionally, the MCTFS will provide limited functionality for training and security management matters that pertain to personnel and pay management.

Payroll

A payroll is a company's list of its employees, but the term is commonly used to refer to:

In engineering, a function is interpreted as a specific process, action or task that a system is able to perform.

Training Acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of teaching

Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of technology. In addition to the basic training required for a trade, occupation or profession, observers of the labor-market recognize as of 2008 the need to continue training beyond initial qualifications: to maintain, upgrade and update skills throughout working life. People within many professions and occupations may refer to this sort of training as professional development.

Purpose

The system provides for recording, processing, and maintaining of military personnel and pay data on a continuing basis within the Marine Corps. It provides information for pay, personnel administration, and manpower management. It uses an integrated, single logical data base to process transactions, at one central location at the Defense Enterprise Computing Center (DECC) in Mechanicsburg. This supports all operating forces and supporting establishment organizations, which total over 800 reporting units (RU's). Use of this information facilitates:

A service record is a collection of either electronic or printed material which provides a documentary history of a person's activities and accomplishments while serving as a member of a given organization. Service records are most often associated with the military, but are commonly found in other groups, such as large corporations or for use by employees of a civilian government.

Data processing is, generally, "the collection and manipulation of items of data to produce meaningful information." In this sense it can be considered a subset of information processing, "the change (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an observer."

Maintaining was a comic strip by cartoonist Nate Creekmore.

Mobilization assembling and readying troops and supplies for war

Mobilization, in military terminology, is the act of assembling and readying troops and supplies for war. The word mobilization was first used, in a military context, to describe the preparation of the Imperial Russian Army during the 1850s and 1860s. Mobilization theories and tactics have continuously changed since then. The opposite of mobilization is demobilization.

Promotion (rank) advancement of ranking within a hierarchy

A promotion is the advancement of an employee's rank or position in an organizational hierarchy system. Promotion may be an employee's reward for good performance, i.e., positive appraisal. Before a company promotes an employee to a particular position it ensures that the person is able to handle the added responsibilities by screening the employee with interviews and tests and giving them training or on-the-job experience. A promotion can involve advancement in terms of designation, salary and benefits, and in some organizations the type of job activities may change a great deal. The opposite of a promotion is a demotion.

In the U.S. armed forces, separation means that a person is leaving active duty, but not necessarily leaving the service entirely. Separation typically occurs when someone reaches the date of their Expiration of Term of Service (ETS) and are released from active duty, but still must complete their military reserve obligations. Upon separation, they receive form DD214, which indicates their former and future status.

Reporting purposes

The data collection of the MCTFS is based on the principle of singular reporting. Whenever practical, an event is reported when and where it occurs to ensure accuracy and timeliness of reporting. An item of information is entered into the system only once; thereafter, only changes, deletions, or corrections to this information are reported. MCTFS uses a centralized strategy and management style with decentralized execution at the lowest reporting level. The information maintained within the MCTFS is used for the functions described above. Additionally, the purposes for which information is maintained within the MCTFS are adequately described per the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974 and manpower Life Cycle Management (LCM) documentation maintained by the Deputy Commandant Manpower and Reserve Affairs (Code MI) and Deputy Commandant Programs & Resources (Code RFF). Data maintained in MCTFS on Marines is categorized as the Official Electronic Military File (OEMF) for that individual. As such, the OEMF is subordinate in precedence to the Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) maintained by the Commandant of the Marine Corps (Code MMSB). The data contained in the OEMF must be carefully safeguarded under the provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974. Commanders who fail to do so may be held personally accountable.

Privacy Act of 1974 American law regarding the disclosiure of personal information held by the US government

The Privacy Act of 1974, a United States federal law, establishes a Code of Fair Information Practice that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies. A system of records is a group of records under the control of an agency from which information is retrieved by the name of the individual or by some identifier assigned to the individual. The Privacy Act requires that agencies give the public notice of their systems of records by publication in the Federal Register. The Privacy Act prohibits the disclosure of information from a system of records absent of the written consent of the subject individual, unless the disclosure is pursuant to one of twelve statutory exceptions. The Act also provides individuals with a means by which to seek access to and amendment of their records and sets forth various agency record-keeping requirements. Additionally, with people granted the right to review what was documented with their name, they are also able to find out if the "records have been disclosed".. and are also given the rights to make corrections.

Commandant of the Marine Corps Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) is normally the highest-ranking officer in the United States Marine Corps and is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The CMC reports directly to the United States secretary of the Navy and is responsible for ensuring the organization, policy, plans, and programs for the Marine Corps as well as advising the president, the secretary of defense, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and the secretary of the Navy on matters involving the Marine Corps. Under the authority of the secretary of the Navy, the CMC designates Marine personnel and resources to the commanders of Unified Combatant Commands. The commandant performs all other functions prescribed in Section 5043 in Title 10 of the United States Code or delegates those duties and responsibilities to other officers in his administration in his name. As with the other joint chiefs, the commandant is an administrative position and has no operational command authority over United States Marine Corps forces.

Reporting feedback

Prompt and complete feedback is essential in the MCTFS. Reporting Units (RU) are provided access to several files holding cyclic data retrievable by the unit as desired. This feedback results in the reentry of corrected data if required. Usage of the information contained in the data files depicted in the MCTFS Input/Output Model Figure 1-1 of the MCTFS PRIUM is encouraged by all levels of command and management. Feedback to these levels of command and management via reports and to the RU's via online files is critical to the quality control of information within the MCTFS.

MCTFS database

The MCTFS central database is maintained by TSO - Indianapolis, IN (though it is physically resident at the Defense Enterprise Computing Center (DECC), Mechanicsburg) and contains all data elements resident in the MCTFS. Information concerning the overall security parameters of the MCTFS is contained in the MCTFS Decision Paper IV as well as within other chapters of the MCTFSPRIUM. Records containing specified data elements for all military personnel (Active and Reserve components, to include retirees) comprise the Central Master File (CMF). The central database contains all data elements resident in the MCTFS.

See also

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References

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