Thrift Supervision boosts field support
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With most of its year 2000 work and an overhaul of its information technology organization done, the Office of Thrift Supervision plans to start some new projects this year. Frank DiGialleonardo came on board last April to help consolidate IT functions at OTS. The agency combined the Office of IRM, Test Projects Office and Information and Management Services Department into the Office of Information Systems. In the fall, OTS made
With most of its year 2000 work and an overhaul of its information technology
organization done, the Office of Thrift Supervision plans to start some new projects this
year.
Frank DiGialleonardo came on board last April to help consolidate IT functions at OTS.
The agency combined the Office of IRM, Test Projects Office and Information and Management
Services Department into the Office of Information Systems. In the fall, OTS made
DiGialleonardo its chief information officer and chief of the new office.
One priority for this year is to upgrade dial-up connections for OTS field examiners to
56 Kbps, DiGialleonardo said. The agency will also modernize its infrastructure at
headquarters and upgrade its modems in the field, he said.
Last year the agency completed implementing its Thrift Examination Support System. OTS
thrift examiners in the field use TESS to file reports and generate documents.
It is similar in purpose to a system the Office of Comptroller of the Currency
developed for its bank examiners called Examiner View [GCN, Oct. 26, 1998, Page 9].
OTS developed TESS in-house, but it is a blend of commercial products that includes
Microsoft Excel, DiGialleonardo said.
The agency rolled out the system in increments last year, finishing the work in
September. Instead of adding TESS one region at a time, however, OTS deployed the system
at all five regions simultaneously, adding modules throughout the year.
Now OTS is working on stabilizing TESS, streamlining its operations and adding
refinements and enhancements, DiGialleonardo said.
OTS will also begin a three-year program of modernizing its legacy systems, he said.
Weve been operating in a VAX environment for years, but we will be moving
to a combination of Digital Equipment Corp. VAX and Microsoft Windows NT, he said.
This could require adding a Web front end to provide easier access or replacing some
systems, he said. Replacing systems was not a priority in readying the agency for the year
2000, he said.
All OTS systems have been remediated, tested and validated, and the only
remaining work is contingency planning, he said.