Army Logistics System Closing in on Big Plus-up

Tucked into the Defense Appropriations Bill passed by the House last Friday is an almost 100 percent increase in 2008 funding for the mammoth Enterprise Resource Planning-based logistics system, called the Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-A).

The House version of the Defense bill provides $94.7 million in finding next year for GCSS-A, an increase over the budget line of $59.7 million proposed by the Senate. This looks like an almost sure deal, as the funding was approved in a conference with the Senate, which needs to pass its version of the bill, and who knows when that will happen.

GCSS-A, according to the Enterprise Transition Plan released by the Defense Business Transformation Office in September, will serve as a data warehouse to track all the beans and bullets as well as gadgets and gizmos used by the Army worldwide. The system is based on an SAP ERP system.

It will take a while to fill up that data warehouse, according to the Army Enterprise Solutions Competency Center, which projects full operational capability for GCSS-A in 2014, which means at least seven years more of work for systems integrator Northrop Grumman.