NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.–The Air Force is wrapping up a report, without input from the acquisition community, scrutinizing the service’s information technology (IT) programs, which are often costly and problematic.
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Acting Air Force Secretary
Eric Fanning
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Acting Air Force Secretary Eric Fanning told reporters yesterday the report is not being developed by the service’s acquisition community because when it reviews its own work, it often produces “incomprehensible” reports for laymen, or civilians. Fanning said the report, led by the Air Force’s office of the deputy chief management officer (DCMO), will approach these IT programs from a different perspective than normal.
“Not ‘Are the programs on schedule,’ (but) ‘Why do we need them? What are we trying to solve? What are other ways to do this? Is what we’re doing solving the big problems,” Fanning said at the Air Force Association’s annual conference here.
Fanning said the report is due “soon” and will set up the service’s next round of important questions for its IT programs, one of which has drawn a great deal of attention recently. The Air Force in December canceled the Expeditionary Combat Support System (ECSS), a program that cost $1 billion without apparently producing any significant military capability. ECSS was an effort to globally view, standardize and manage logistics resources to help close process gaps. It was also to use enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to more efficiently manage logistics like end items, materiel and people (Defense Daily, April 5).
Fanning, in his previous role as the Navy’s deputy under secretary and DCMO, said not only did he oversee the cancellation of another IT program, the sea service’s Future Personnel and Pay System (FPPS), it was one of the first things he did upon arrival. Fanning said one lesson learned from his experience with FPPS was that the functional community wasn’t as empowered as it should have been. Fanning said often the functional community could have fixed a problem itself, but deferred to the acquisition community who wasn’t empowered to change the processes and ended up building upon original problems.
Though it took a while, the Navy’s functional community became empowered and made a big difference fixing the service’s overall personnel and pay problems, Fanning said.
Another big ticket, and troubled, Air Force IT program is the Defense Enterprise Accounting Management System (DEAMS), which has had an original cost estimate reportedly quintuple to over $2 billion. DEAMS is a major automated information system that uses commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) ERP software to provide accounting and management services. In its fiscal year 2012 annual report to Congress, the Defense Department’s director, operational test and evaluation (DOT&E) office said DEAMS, in addition to its $2 billion overrun, is 7.5 years behind schedule (Defense Daily, Jan. 25).
President Barack Obama in August announced his intent to nominate SAIC‘s [SAI] Deborah James as the Air Force’s next secretary. Her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) is Thursday.