The future is now at Dyess: The Expeditionary Combat Support System

  • Published
  • By 7th Logistics Readiness Squadron
DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  The Air Force is in the midst of an historical transformation. The way the Air Force is organized and airpower is employed are changing in revolutionary ways. Changing, too, are the ways in which Air Force logisticians provide support to warfighters.

The Expeditionary Combat Support System is the cornerstone enabler of the logistics transformation effort. Using an Enterprise Resource Planning software solution, ECSS is applying best commercial practices and using industry-proven tools to establish the Air Force's first capability to globally view and manage its logistics resources such as major end items, materiel, people and funds.

But ECSS is much more than an IT system. It will fundamentally change business processes, personnel roles and jobs across the spectrum of the Air Force logistics community. Locally, ECSS will drive dramatic changes and improvements in the way logistics is done.

For example, the process of scheduling a repair currently means setting a repair date at base level without the ability to ensure technicians, parts, facilities, tools, etc., are available Air Force-wide. With ECSS, an integrated global view of people and parts availability will enable greater scheduling effectiveness and ultimately increase availability of repaired components or major end items. Simply put, Air Force logisticians will have what they need to get the job done when repairs are system-scheduled under ECSS.

Citing another example, today Air Force logisticians collectively rely on paper forms and enter data into multiple base-level systems. This labor-intensive effort will be replaced by entering data once into one system. When fully implemented, ECSS will replace hundreds of logistics information systems and will be the single source of truth for logistics information.

ECSS is planned to be implemented with four phases. Release one is entitled Base Materiel and Equipment Management. This release, which affects wing level operations to include ordering assets via SBSS, equipment accountability, mobility weapons and bags accountability, vehicle fleet management, tool accountability and much more, is scheduled for full implementation in July 2012.

Releases two and three are designed toward higher supply chain management at depots.

Finally, release four, Flight Line Maintenance and Ammunition Management, returns the implementation to wing level which affects IMDS, sortie generation, flightline maintenance and more is planned for final implementation in 2016.

While it will be several years before ECSS reaches full operational capability and its benefits are fully realized, the implementation process is already underway; that process will affect the 7th Bomb Wing and 317th Airlift Group very soon.

To help with that preparation, the ECSS program conducted its kick-off meetings with 7th Bomb Wing leaders and ECSS users in September. During these meetings, Gene Collins and Brad Stahlman, Headquarters Air Combat Command, provided an informational and educational briefing about ECSS, its goals, program timelines and how the Air Force will be affected.
At the kick-off, Mr. Collins introduced the ECSS field agent from Computer Sciences Corporation, Mike Meis, to the base leadership and base population. Mr. Meis is part of team ECSS and will assist the wing's change agent coordinator, Michael Brown, 7th Logisitics Readiness Squadron, on various ECSS activities. Mr. Brown will work with each unit at Dyess to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities under the ECSS implementation plan.

The kick-off represents the beginning of the ECSS organizational change management program, which is designed to help prepare everyone for this transformation effort. History tells us that no change is ever successful until individual behaviors change. The people who perform Air Force logistics processes, from all functional communities, must personally engage in the transformative aspects of ECSS in order for it to succeed.

As is always the case, these sweeping changes will not be easy, as long-standing ways of doing business will either dramatically change or completely disappear. ECSS will pull people from their comfort zones and cause them to do new tasks in different, unfamiliar ways.

To help logisticians navigate these changes, the ECSS program provides education and training programs for those who will use the new system. An Air Force-wide change agent network, supported by an ECSS program team, will share information on ECSS activities, schedules, and lessons learned, and conduct local problem-solving meetings to help smooth implementation at each installation. This same network will support the sustainment of ECSS after fielding is completed.

ECSS will drive changes in the way the Air Force does business and the way logisticians perform their jobs. The result will be an Air Force enterprise better enabled to provide its warfighters the right materiel at the right time. ECSS also enables logisticians to use their time more productively, significantly reducing the cost of accomplishing the Air Force logistics mission.

To learn more about ECSS, call Mr. Brown at (325) 696-4949.