Army revamps business approach

[OceanBonfire]

The Army is overhauling how it does business behind the scenes in order to operate at the speed of conflict during the information age, said the top Army finance official, who outlined plans for a new business system slated to impact modernization efforts by 2027.

The Enterprise Business System Multi-Functional Capabilities Team, or EBS-MFCT, is a three-tiered business rollout currently six months into its initial phase, said Jonathan D. Moak, the senior official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Army for financial management and comptroller.

By the time it is fully functional, it will completely revamp how all business is done and reported in a rapidly modernizing Army, Moak said.

The new system goes far beyond the pen and ledger of yesterday’s money handling, and taps into tomorrow’s advanced technology such as artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, and algorithms that are constantly learning, he said.

It will gradually replace the clunky 30-year-old business model currently being used, and will shift toward a holistically functioning modern plan, similar to what works in private industries.

“This system will positively impact the buying power of the entire United States Army,” Moak said. “And, if we commit ourselves to a streamlined system that’s more reliable with respect to information accuracy, it will improve our lethality across the Army.”

How the Army’s enterprise business operates is the lifeblood for movement and support of funds, people, and materiel throughout the force. So as the Army modernizes its force and equipment, it’s also improving its business process execution, data-analytics value, and cloud computing advances, he said, all while reducing cost and freeing up manpower.


What to expect

Soldiers and civilians working in the financial, logistics, acquisition, and human resources career fields will be directly affected by the new system, Moak said. “It will impact their day-to-day operations, so it’s critical to get their feedback and buy-in during this Herculean effort, because we’re going to lead our way through this.”

Everyone else, depending on various degrees of improvements, will be impacted by things like improved system latency and more accurate accountability when they need it most.

Today, some Soldiers have to memorize the meanings of countless codes, all needed to categorize different financial activities. One big change Moak hopes to offer is predictive outcomes, similar to Google searches, which will allow troops to quickly search for things in inventories.

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https://www.army.mil/article/236652/army_revamps_business_approach

 

[Navy_Pete]

Wow, that uses so many buzzwords I'm inherently skeptical.

I'm all for business analytics, but have seen first hand where it falls down because of overconfidence in information. I've had too many parts show up mislabeled, rusted out or not actually assembled (where it requires special tools held at the 2nd line facility) not to frequently request QC checks on critical parts by a tech before shipping overseas. Porting existing inventory info over means that you inherit all the BS along with the real data, so needs a lot of hands on verification before you can go from a legacy operation to something similar to the just in time systems they use in industry (which also doesn't work in a lot of respects for different scenarios we need to be prepared for).