The United States Air Force Utilizes Space-Aged Logistics System for Inventory Tracking

Posted by James Lusk on

 

The United States Air Force comprises thousands of state-of-the-art aircraft, each with its own individual maintenance requirements. Even with such an expansive fleet, every aircraft is kept in optimal flying condition and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. The USAF depends on its huge staff of maintenance workers and a veritable ocean of parts to accomplish this colossal feat. But maintaining this parts inventory, as well as the myriad other supplies necessary for the USAF to carry out its missions from bases across the globe, is no easy task.

 

The ILS-S

To keep track of its assets and ensure their constant availability, the USAF utilizes a tool developed in collaboration with its contractor industry partners called the Integrated Logistics System – Supply, or ILS-S. The ILS-S is a secure U.S. Air Force Cloud One Amazon Services GovCloud application that supports Department of the Air Force active-duty, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve operations, among other military services. The system has 120 interface agreements with 46 systems, supporting 18,000 end users and over 100,000 consumers of information at 250 military installations.

 

A Heavy Lift

Currently, ILS-S tracks over 35 million assets, distributed and stored across 1.7 million warehouse locations, with a total monetary value of $18 billion. It also supports contingencies and special operations with inventory control of 230,000 assets in deployable air transportable containers.

ILS-S is capable of performing a long list of functions. These include ordering, receiving, storage, distribution, disposition, and movement of supplies, organizational account management, weapon system spares support, cataloging, calculating stock levels, warranty management, financial reporting, contractor-provided weapon system support, hazardous material management, communications security management and mobile technology, among others.

The system functions very much like the inventory tracking programs used by auto parts stores. Only instead of allowing employees to track parts compatibility and inventory levels at different stores, ILS-S offers the USAF the same capability for tracking its assets across its total force enterprise.

 

The Latest Technology

ILS-S leverages modern computing and software development concepts to improve the system’s performance and functionality. It utilizes primarily open-source coding for enhanced stability and ease of interface for new developers. ILS-S supports robust application delivery with a mobile cross-platform solution. It also features automated testing, with over 17,000 automated end-to-end tests that enable non-technical personnel to develop tests.

ILS-S has reduced annual infrastructure hosting costs by $25 million, with an expectation to further reduce costs in FY 2022.

The DoD and branches of our Armed Forces depend on the latest technology to remove manual processes, eliminate human error, and expedite the processes that need to be completed to accomplish their missions. If you are a contractor doing business with the DoD, shouldn’t you have a similar technological advantage on your side?

To learn more about how Odyssey can help your business achieve high efficiency and align yourself to continue doing business with the DoD for years to come, contact us today.