The Transportation Coordinators' Automated Information for Movement System II (TC-AIMS II) addresses critical shortfalls in the movement of materiel and personnel in support of DoD operations. It merges the best business practices of the current Service-unique transportation automated information systems into a single system that combines the requirements for the Unit Movement, Installation Transportation Office/Transportation Management Office, and Theater Distribution functional areas, and integrates several legacy systems of the four Services. TC-AIMS II improves joint capabilities for rapid worldwide deployment and reduces "buildup time." It enables rapid crisis response at unit and installation transportation offices. It allows the direct delivery of tailored logistics and sustainment packages at the strategic, operational, and tactical level of operations.

TC-AIMS II is intended to be a standard joint system sufficiently flexible to meet Service-unique requirements that will be developed and fielded in functional blocks. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council approved the Operational Requirements Document in March 1999. This document was updated to include specific interoperability requirements.

During joint exercise Foal Eagle 99, a TC-AIMS II prototype was used to manage the deployment equipment list, create military shipping labels, and utilize advanced identification techniques to facilitate in-transit visibility during deployment and redeployment of U.S. Marine and Army units. ATEC, the independent OTA, conducted an OA during the exercise, but results were not encouraging. The software was immature and had not undergone adequate DT.

Software Qualification Testing was conducted during FY00, but as the scheduled OT&E of the Unit Movement functionality (Version 3.01) approached, it became clear that the software still was not mature and that many user requirements had not yet been met. The OT&E was changed to a Customer Test, which ATEC conducted from July 19-August 30, 2000, at four Service test sites: Ft. Hood, TX; Shaw AFB, SC; Gulfport, MS; and Camp LeJeune, NC. Although the results were favorable in some respects, none of the Services were able to complete a transportation planning, coordination, and execution scenario from end to end. It was apparent that significant development was still needed.

The TEMP was approved by DOT&E on November 7, 2001. The OT for Version 3.01 was conducted during November and December 2001 at four test sites, one from each Service: Shaw AFB, SC (Air Force); Amphibious Base, Little Creek, VA (Navy); Quantico, VA (Marine Corps); and the Heidelberg, Germany area (Army). The testing in Germany encompassed users from both U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) and U.S. Army Forces Command. MCOTEA is conducting the Marine Corps portion of the IOT&E. ATEC, the lead OTA, conducted the testing at the other Service sites and will provide the overall evaluation.

Although the OT has been completed at the test sites, the evaluation of the test data will not be available until March 2002. However, it is clear that the lack of a joint transportation process has caused development problems. Despite substantial progress in defining joint requirements, the Services still have processes that are different enough to preclude effective "one size fits all" software.

In addition, the numerous external system interfaces have presented substantial technical and operational challenges. While TC-AIMS II was designed in accordance with the original interface agreements, many of the interface requirements changed considerably along the way. Some of the legacy interfacing systems do not comply with data standards, were supposed to have been replaced with new systems, or shouldn't have been planned to interface in the first place.