Gunning for Superiority (ST Digital Life 20060207)
A new system that aims to integrate the logistics, procurement and finance of the SAF is under way.
Serene Luo (serl@sph.com.sg) reports
These days, SSG Wee spends less time playing postman, delivering messages from office to ships and back.
The 28-year-old from Changi Maintenance Base's marine engineering workshops can focus on ship and engine repairs, instead.
All courtesy of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system the SAF adopted last year.
Until then, the SAF used separate legacy systems to handle the logistics, procurement and finance for each of its three units - the army, navy and air force.
A challenge because each unit had its own logistics systems, said BG Philip Lim, the head of SAF's joint logistics department.
As the systems were due for replacement after 10 years, a decision was made to buy one that would integrate all of them, explained BG Lim.
So far, the system - called SAF Enterprise System (ES) - has been put in place for the RSN in April last year, and will be implemented for the army this year.
The RSAF will get its systems overhauled by 2007.
Already, processing time has improved by between 20 and 60 per cent - and that is just the navy using the ES, said BG Lim.
Given that men are now routed from menial administrative tasks to maintenance work, the savings apply to both operational and manpower costs, he added.
From start to end
According to LTC Tan, head of logistics systems branch at SAF the ES provides "end-to-end support". From buying a piece of equipment (say, a new submarine), paying the contractors, tracking the movement of the submarine and who is using it, up to when and how it is disposed of at the end of its lifespan.
The ES covers finance and cost accounting, acquisition and purchasing, supply management, and engineering and maintenance. It also gives a secure gateway portal for the SAF to transact with its suppliers and other ministries.
Take the recent SAF humanitarian mission in Meulaboh, Aceh. The system could track which warehouses the supplies were stored in and have the goods quickly transferred to ports, making everything moer "transparent", said Lt-Col Tan.
Also, Said SSG Wee, the system is intelligent enough to generate maintenance work orders for scheduled tasks. So, there is no need to have someone check the logs frequently or manually, saving time.
Checks on the spare parts available are done with a single click, he said. And because "everything is available on a single screen", users do not need to log off from one system and sign on to another.
For MSG Wilson Tan, who works at the Submarine Maintenance Branch, the system means a shorter processing time: authorisation and accceptance of jobs can be done through the intranet.
"In the past, we would need to route hard copy forms down to the ships physically to get signatures. That would take between three and seven days," said MSG Tan.
Electronic approvals via the ES have cut the waiting time by half, he added.
Putting it together
The Defence Science and Technology Agency came in to act as programme manager for the system bought "off-the-shelf" from ERP solution specialist, SAP.
The agency "translated (SAF's) operational requirements into stringent technical specifications and guidelines", said its division manager, Ms Woo.
Where the servers are concerned, there is a "load balancing" function - so the usage is spread out evenly to prevent congestion - and functions for critical applications like database servers and application servers are always up and running.
A disaster recovery solution is in the works, said Ms Woo.
Next steps
Being a third-generation or "3G" SAF is not just a matter of having technologically superior - and deadlier - weapons. It is also about backend systems like the ES, said BG Lim.
Many armed forces around the world already have separate ERP systems for each of its army, navy or air force units. But not an integrated tri-service one.
"Our new ES goes beyong logistics," he said. "Now we have an end-to-end system that is more connected and has high visibility."
************ End News Article ***************
Serene Luo (serl@sph.com.sg) reports
These days, SSG Wee spends less time playing postman, delivering messages from office to ships and back.
The 28-year-old from Changi Maintenance Base's marine engineering workshops can focus on ship and engine repairs, instead.
All courtesy of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system the SAF adopted last year.
Until then, the SAF used separate legacy systems to handle the logistics, procurement and finance for each of its three units - the army, navy and air force.
A challenge because each unit had its own logistics systems, said BG Philip Lim, the head of SAF's joint logistics department.
As the systems were due for replacement after 10 years, a decision was made to buy one that would integrate all of them, explained BG Lim.
So far, the system - called SAF Enterprise System (ES) - has been put in place for the RSN in April last year, and will be implemented for the army this year.
The RSAF will get its systems overhauled by 2007.
Already, processing time has improved by between 20 and 60 per cent - and that is just the navy using the ES, said BG Lim.
Given that men are now routed from menial administrative tasks to maintenance work, the savings apply to both operational and manpower costs, he added.
From start to end
According to LTC Tan, head of logistics systems branch at SAF the ES provides "end-to-end support". From buying a piece of equipment (say, a new submarine), paying the contractors, tracking the movement of the submarine and who is using it, up to when and how it is disposed of at the end of its lifespan.
The ES covers finance and cost accounting, acquisition and purchasing, supply management, and engineering and maintenance. It also gives a secure gateway portal for the SAF to transact with its suppliers and other ministries.
Take the recent SAF humanitarian mission in Meulaboh, Aceh. The system could track which warehouses the supplies were stored in and have the goods quickly transferred to ports, making everything moer "transparent", said Lt-Col Tan.
Also, Said SSG Wee, the system is intelligent enough to generate maintenance work orders for scheduled tasks. So, there is no need to have someone check the logs frequently or manually, saving time.
Checks on the spare parts available are done with a single click, he said. And because "everything is available on a single screen", users do not need to log off from one system and sign on to another.
For MSG Wilson Tan, who works at the Submarine Maintenance Branch, the system means a shorter processing time: authorisation and accceptance of jobs can be done through the intranet.
"In the past, we would need to route hard copy forms down to the ships physically to get signatures. That would take between three and seven days," said MSG Tan.
Electronic approvals via the ES have cut the waiting time by half, he added.
Putting it together
The Defence Science and Technology Agency came in to act as programme manager for the system bought "off-the-shelf" from ERP solution specialist, SAP.
The agency "translated (SAF's) operational requirements into stringent technical specifications and guidelines", said its division manager, Ms Woo.
Where the servers are concerned, there is a "load balancing" function - so the usage is spread out evenly to prevent congestion - and functions for critical applications like database servers and application servers are always up and running.
A disaster recovery solution is in the works, said Ms Woo.
Next steps
Being a third-generation or "3G" SAF is not just a matter of having technologically superior - and deadlier - weapons. It is also about backend systems like the ES, said BG Lim.
Many armed forces around the world already have separate ERP systems for each of its army, navy or air force units. But not an integrated tri-service one.
"Our new ES goes beyong logistics," he said. "Now we have an end-to-end system that is more connected and has high visibility."
************ End News Article ***************
posted by Global Citizen at 4:31 PM
1 Comments:
As much as this is an impressive endeavour, what caught my attention was that the disaster recovery "was in the works".
In other words, if the system crashed today, RSN would be in a world of trouble.
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