• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

	Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
FY97 Annual Report

AMMUNITION MANAGEMENT STANDARD SYSTEM (AMSS)

	JLSC ACAT IAM Program 87 sites Total program cost (TY$) $98M Average unit cost (TY$) $1.1M Full-rate production 4QFY99 Prime Contractor Electronic Data Systems (EDS)

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION & CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT VISION 2010

AMSS is designed to provide standardized logistics information across the Services and provide greater support for Joint Force operations, thereby giving the deployed Joint Task Force Commander, Theater Commander, Joint Staff and Services a single focused visibility of all ammunition assets within the area of operations, en route, and pending shipment.

AMSS should also achieve significant logistics savings in wholesale and retail activities by standardizing functional business processes, improve the logistics pipeline effectiveness via better inventory management within the Inventory Control Points (ICPs), and provide interoperability, portability, and scalability via an open systems environment.

System requirements that must be supported include: worldwide visibility of all assets; technical data; tracking information; on-line requisition processing; financial reporting; physical inventory and disposal processing; transportation planning/monitoring; and, suspensions/restrictions processing and notification.

AMSS supports JV2010 through improvements in the area of focused logistics. Improved asset visibility and ammunition management allow more efficient usage of resources for combat.

AMSS was conceived as fulfilling the function of ammunition management for DoD in accordance with the CIM strategy. It will address the ammunition management functional, operational and supportability requirements established by Congress, OMB, OSD, and the DoD components. It will not cover nuclear weapons and their components or information on any other munitions program with a security classification above Secret.

AMSS was designated ACAT IAM for Congressional interest in January 1996 at which time an Economic Analysis and Business Area Analysis was being conducted. Funding problems caused an appreciable slip in the program's deployment schedule leading to the program being placed on hold until November. The MNS and ORD were released in February 1997 and followed later that month with a Milestone 0 decision. Contract award to EDS and a Milestone I/II decision occurred in June 1997.

The Program Office's acquisition strategy places significant responsibility for system architecture and developmental approach in the hands of the contractor and details of the structure of the system will await contractor proposals.

No test activity has yet occurred, but test strategy development and test planning have commenced and Operational Testing, in compliance with an approved Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) is planned for completion by 4QFY99. A major issue will be system security. The services have conflicting classification requirements for the same data, i.e., the Air Force has declassified many items, but several items and rules exist to drive a "Secret" requirement while the Navy has a requirement for "Confidential" and the Army and Marine Corps "Unclassified."

Because of the joint nature of this system it is vital to have test sites that are representative of the diverse using community. Further, system security will be an issue as the services have conflicting requirements for the protection of the data contained in AMSS. Additionally there are two areas that may cause problems in the future for this program. The first is any repeat of the funding issues which caused an initial slip in the schedule. The second is the PMOs acquisition strategy of placing significant responsibility for approaches to system architecture and development on the contractor. This approach requires intensive management by the PMO.