Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center Reengineers Itself

Facing dual missions of remaining the world's premier aerospace test facility and reducing costs, the Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) teamed with CACI to transform and integrate its business processes. Although the project would address nearly every activity at AEDC, it would mainly focus on reducing the costs of maintenance, supply, purchasing, finance and human resources management. To help control the costs and reduce the risks of developing a technology infrastructure to support these new business processes AEDC decided to take advantage of proven commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software.

Although it's too soon to quantify returns and benefits of this project, early feedback is encouraging. In particular, AEDC is seeing positive results through

• The availability of real time workflow and configuration data
• A strong pull from the users for more COTS modules
• Reports of successfully streamlined, integrated processes

In fact, the results have been so positive that AEDC has asked CACI to expand the project by building and testing more COTS systems and companion processes.

The Commercial Off-the-Shelf Systems

Just a year and a half after the start date AEDC has gone live with two modules of the Synergen Series^TM Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and the PeopleSoft^® Human Resources Management System, or HRMS. These proven COTS products give AEDC the ability to improve support operations through

• Base-wide workflow management
• Integrated asset configuration management
• Better personnel resource management

In May 1999 CACI completed full deployment of the Synergen Series CMMS, including inventory management and purchasing capability.

Based on the success to date, AEDC has given CACI the go ahead to design, build and test more COTS software and companion processes, called releases. Follow-on releases will include PeopleSoft Finance software with interfaces to CMMS, the commercial Metaphase^® Product Data Management System and selected Air Force standard systems.

The Process Component

Although integrating several disparate COTS software packages into a single, large scale solution such as CMMS is a very challenging task, systems integration and implementation was only part of the CACI team's challenge. In addition, CACI consultants had to ensure AEDC's business processes would support an integrated work environment.

After assessing AEDC's logistics practices and conducting a requirements analysis, CACI began working toward AEDC's vision of an integrated logistics support system. This involved

• Enterprise-wide reengineering of logistics processes - from maintenance management and supply to asset configuration management and purchasing
• Configuring the COTS package to enable and sustain them

A Unique Project

Because of its heavy focus on business processes, AEDC's COTS-based reengineering is different than many projects of its kind - both in terms of its approach and its goals. Explains Captain Tom Snyder, USN AEDC Reengineering Program Manager:

"Although many people focus on the COTS products themselves, our real thrust is the redesign of more than 100 core logistics, human resource and business management processes. To achieve optimum gains we design our new processes in an unconstrained environment and then adjust them, as required, to stay within the configuration boundaries of the COTS package. Our goals are lofty - we're striving to achieve 23-28% return on investment - but I am confident we'll reach them."

Proof of COTS

COTS-based business solutions can help government agencies both modernize and integrate systems and processes and keep the time and costs of these efforts in check. Despite these advantages, use of COTS-based solutions is relatively infrequent, possibly because of a perception that packaged software is less flexible or comprehensive than custom applications.

As the success of the AEDC demonstrates, an experienced COTS integrator such as CACI can use packaged applications to create an effective, custom solution. Moreover, the resulting solutions

• Can fit into an organization's daily business
• Can be integrated enterprise-wide
• Can accommodate process reengineering

About the Arnold Engineering Development Center

AEDC is the largest and most advanced complex of flight simulation test facilities in the world and is located on Arnold AFB in middle Tennessee. It has 53 specialized ground test units

• Aerodynamic and propulsion wind tunnels
• Rocket and turbine engine test cells
• Space environmental chambers
• Arc heaters
• Ballistic ranges
• And much more

AEDC facilities can simulate flight conditions from sea level to altitudes more than 100,000 feet and from subsonic velocities to well over Mach 20. From the B-1 bomber to the Space Shuttle, AEDC has helped develop practically every one of the nation's top priority aerospace programs.

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