MARIES CORPS LOGISTIC BASE ALBANY, GA --
Logistics experts from throughout the Marine Corps met Oct. 30 Nov 7 at the Best Western in Albany to discuss supply functions of the Marine Corps Systems Command Program Manager Information Systems, Systems Realignment and Categorization/Consolidation initiative. The process is designed to support logistical planning throughout the Marine Corps.
The purpose of SRAC is to reduce the number of redundant Marine Corps logistics systems and applications, and to generate migration and integration strategy recommendations to support rational information technology investments.
SRAC is an Integrated Logistics Capability initiative being managed by the Assistant Program Manager Office, MARCORSYSCOM. The SRAC Core team is composed of logistics systems, Headquarters Marine Corps functional advocate, and contract personnel. The domain team participating at the Best Western represented functional experts for supply. The domains being included in the SRAC process, which is taken from the Marine Corps War Fighting 4-1 document, are transportation, supply, maintenance, health services, engineering and acquisition.
The Marine Corps logistics community uses more than 200 automated information systems to support logistics. These software programs have been improved and developed, but were not originally designed to work together as an integrated network. Consequently, the Marine Corps now has multiple systems with the same capabilities.
Marine Corps leaders recognized the need to address the problem and correct it, said Thelma S. Jackson, SRAC project director here.
"This is not going to be easy. Some people will have to give up old friends," said Lt. Gen. Gary S. McKissock, deputy commandant for installations and logistics.
Jackson agreed.
"The Corps cannot afford to keep all these systems, so some of the systems will be eradicated while some may be combined to eliminate redundancies," Jackson said.
To determine which AISs will be kept, which ones will be combined and which ones will be eliminated, SRAC developed a comprehensive process, said Jackson. Software users and technical experts will complete surveys, giving SRAC Core team members a better understanding of what different software does and how effective it is. The core team will then rate or score the AISs based on the surveys and other factors.
Recommendations for the retirement, migration or integration of AISs will then be made to the ILC Executive Steering Committee, which owns the ILC and SRAC process, said Jackson.
The Three-phase SRAC process was started in October 2000 and is scheduled to be completed in September 2002. The process is now in its final phase.
During this phase, the AISs that have not been eliminated are the ones that are of sufficient value to be kept or combined with other AISs, said Jackson.