Northrop Grumman Corp. has been awarded a contract to support the U.S. Transportation Command with tools to reduce costs and better manage the Defense Transportation System.

The contract, Agile Transportation for the 21st Century, or AT21, was awarded through the Defense Information Systems Agency’s NexGen contract vehicle. The initial contract is worth $9.6 million in the first year, and could be worth $25 million over three years.

Northrop Grumman Information Technology sector will develop capabilities to better manage DTS in two ways: It will improve mode selection and optimization to make the most of limited assets, and upgrade technology to gather transportation requirements from many sources, including the global command and control system.

One goal is to reduce the cost of DTS operations to combatant commanders and services by applying commercial best practices where appropriate.

Work on the program will be performed at a Northrop Grumman IT facility in O’Fallon, Ill., near Scott Air Force Base.

The Northrop Grumman team includes Accenture Ltd., Asynchrony Solutions Inc., AT&T Government Solutions, Dynamics Research Corp., EDSI, Manugistics Inc. and Yantra Corp.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Northrop Grumman is one of the world’s largest defense contractors. The company employs more than 117,000 people worldwide, and it reported fiscal 2002 revenue of $17.2 billion.