Enterprise Business System
ENTERPRISE BUSINESS SYSTEMS
Functioning like an enterprise resource planning system in a Fortune 500 company, the Defense Logistics Agency’s Enterprise Business System (EBS) will bring DLA into the retail business. EBS will use demand planning modules to monitor retail-level stock.
By Dawn S. Onley
Functioning like an ERP in a Fortune 500 company, DLA’s Enterprise Business System (EBS), formerly the Business Systems Modernization (BSM) program, will increasingly use demand planning modules to monitor the retail-level stock—everything from food and medical supplies to spare parts and equipment—that is stored at military supply storage and distribution sites. Essentially, EBS will help link the entire supply chain from the time a warfighter places an order to the time that order is delivered.
Currently at full operational capacity, EBS enables DLA employees, some of whom are deployed at dozens of sites globally, to take information on stock that is stored at military supply storage and distribution sites and turn that information into an actionable document called a supply plan that is used by buyers to procure products. EBS allows DLA’s over 8,000 EBS users and DLA’s customers to make supply queries online, place orders, improve delivery time, have automated product data information and give commanders immediate access to stock information.
“This has really been a transformational program to enable DLA to not only do business as we’ve done it traditionally at the wholesale level, but also on a retail level,” said Mae E. DeVincentis, the agency’s director of information operations and CIO, adding that supply plans get translated into purchase requests.
The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005 shifted supply storage and distribution at the customer level under DLA’s area of responsibility. That move is resulting in the reassignment of employees at Navy shipyards, Army overhaul facilities and the Air Systems Command to work as DLA employees. Those employees, some of them specifically referred to as demand planners, are now co-located with DLA’s customers.
“We’ve got this schedule. We’ve negotiated with the four services,” said DeVincentis. “We’re marching to a steady drumbeat… putting them on our payroll…and then working with those individuals to figure out how we can support them at the retail level.”
EBS, which supports the Defense Department’s business enterprise architecture and the Joint Vision 2020 Concept of “Focused Logistics,” replaces the Standard Automated Materiel Management System (SAMMS) and Defense Integrated Subsistence Management System (DISMS), two legacy mainframe applications that were essentially impossible to modernize.
“The old SAMMS COBOL system had DLA-unique code. It was all batched,” DeVincentis said. EBS works in real time. “If you put something in that doesn’t compute, EBS comes back to tell you this couldn’t be done,” she added.
Additionally, SAMMS and DISMS did not have line-item accounting.
“Today, we are able to make the three-way match of order, invoice and receipt before we pay for a product,” DeVincentis said. “We’re able to close our books at the end of the fiscal year in hours, instead of weeks.” EBS is also currently supporting operations in Iraq, DeVincentis said.
This year, EBS will undergo an upgrade that puts DLA in a better position to deliver its future capabilities.
“As our Enterprise Business System continues to evolve, expansion of the capabilities and benefits introduced under the Business Systems Modernization program will be added through investments such as the Enterprise Operational Accounting System, eProcurement, Energy Convergence and the retail integration efforts required by BRAC,” said Army Lieutenant General Robert Dail, director of DLA.
The eProcurement module will replace a decades-old, Visual Basic and C programming languages legacy system for contract writing known as DPACS. The components of eProcurement include SAP Procurement for Public Sector, SAP Document Builder and SAP Records and Case Management. These new components will be integrated with existing SAP products, including SAP ERP, SAP Business Intelligence and SAP Enterprise Portal.
Implementation of the eProcurement software components are expected to help support DLA’s assumption of the depot level reparable contracting function from the military services, as a result of BRAC 2005.
“We’ll look to design a standard process enabling the system to receive required purchase request, technical and financial data from service legacy or ERP systems as well as provide financial and contract status updates to the applicable service systems,” according to DLA.
“Future enhancements to the system will allow DLA to extend our supply chains further into the ‘retail’ support aspects” enhancing financial integrity, Dail added. Ultimately, EBS will bring “additional capabilities to our foundational system, allowing us to improve demand/supply planning, order fulfillment, procurement and financial management.”
Accenture won a $252 million contract last year to support DLA’s business systems integration, systems sustainment and development of new enterprise systems capabilities for EBS. The company previously delivered the BSM system with an SAP backbone architecture with which DLA uses JDA/Manugistics software applications for demand planning. Accenture is currently working with DLA to upgrade the SAP components of EBS, including implementing a SAP-based eProcurement system.
“As a result of the United States’ growing military obligations as well as Base Realignment and Closure requirements, DLA’s global mission continues to expand,” said Eric Stange, managing director of Accenture’s Defense practice, in a company news release. “Our supply chain expertise and unique understanding of DLA’s technical environment make us well positioned to help the agency achieve its mission of supporting America’s warfighters around the globe.” ♦