On e-wings of Indian air force

-Aishna Jain

Tanuj Jain25-Aug-2012 1On e-wings and a Network

Introduction

• The IMMOLS is a comprehensive Resource Planning Solution.

• IMMOLS = Integrated Materials Management online system.

• It is the first gigantic enterprise resource planning solution implementation, in the history of India’s defense forces.

• Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), leading technology and consulting firm, announced the go-live of IMMOLS at an investment outlay of around Rs 55 crore, a nation-wide systems integration project that will transform the requirements of the Air force.

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• This project exemplifies synergy between public & private partnership in a true sense and results from IAF's vision to adopt newer technologies to bring in greater administrative

efficiencies.

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Journey of IMMOLS

• TCS IMMOLS took a concrete shape in 2003 when the company carried out pilot implementation in around 22 sites of the IAF.

• After extensive testing of the application, which included

Software development

Acceptance testing

Training

Analysis

• The project has been successfully rolled out across all 108 sites

of IAF nationally in 2006.

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IMMOLS

• This nation-wide systems integration project addresses the need for computerizing the IAF’s inventory control and logistics management. This project is also considered as a significant development in India’s road to e-Governance

• All the persons involved in making a decision will act on the same platform online more or less at the same time.

• What used to take months and years through use of papers, files and e-mails, often leading to huge delays, now gets cleared in a few minutes.

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• The implementation of IMMOLS has evolved from integration of technology with the Indian Air Force materials management business processes.

• The Indian Air Force has truly increased its asset availability and war fighting potential without firing any weapon

• Scattered resources and information database of millions of critical inputs and components ranging from nuts and bolts to missiles & bombs have now been made available to the Commanders, war planners on the press of a button.

• Deployment and use of all assets of IAF has become extremely efficient and cost effective.

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Challenges with IMMOLS

• With respect to paper-based processes, the IAF was facing a big issue in keeping and maintaining records for inventory management.

• Then to track inventory and to communicate transparently with an individual running short of inventory were other issues that were needed to tackle.

• Countering the complexity of functionality, geographical spread, distributed data processing, training, large amount of inter-base information transfers and most importantly, the psychological barriers resisting change from a manual to a fully automated system.

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Tackling the challenges

IMMOLS will provide :-• Asset visibility for better utilisation of available

resources• It will provide information triggers for mid-

course corrections in various materials management processes;

• Help reduce inventory levels (leading to huge savings)

• Improve fleet serviceability and so on.25-Aug-2012 8On e-wings and a Network

• IMMOLS can broadly be divided into two components—a custom designed application that caters to all facets of materials management at various levels of hierarchy in the IAF and IT infrastructure covering a nationwide installation of computing platforms and campus LANs.

• Users as well as supply chain managers will now shift to IMMOLS, as the application will encompass all materials management tasks.

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BENEFITS The benefits of IMMOLS are far too many :-• Sharp reduction in “downtime” and micro detailing of demand and supply of all

inputs.

• The use of each and every single input of the most complex and technical variety has been put on line and can be monitored.

• Instant Information about availability and location of all the fighting and material resources has suddenly provided the IAF with a much bigger asset visibility and availability of force levels.

• The IMMOLS has thus provided the IAF a giant push into the era of modern management of warfare and its network centric capabilities.

• The IAF is expecting to see greater flight safety standards as well as utilization of its assets in any eventuality.

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How did IMMOLS help IAF

• The application tackles two essential processes in order to achieve efficient materials management and the repair management cycle.

• improve the availability of items/spares, which would lead to enhanced Service ability of weapons systems and reduce inventory costs

• This e-decision support system will enable the techno-logistics hierarchy to fully tap all available material resources and accurately forecast future requirements.

• IMMOLS has the capability of providing online asset visibility as well as transit asset visibility to various echelons of the IAF hierarchy.

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Cont…

• An online accounting system and audit system, IMMOLS is a functional system cleared for e-audits where the concept of ‘no e-voucher, no issue’ is strictly enforced.

• The IAF now has real-time access to information on any spare part or piece of equipment at the push of a button, information that would take weeks to collect.

• At the unit level (the lowest level), the records of specific items, various stock levels, replenishment cycles, usage patterns and metadata standards used to maintain the fast retrievability of information also became much easier to organise for the IAF’s top brass.

• IMMOLS will also generate reports (itemised stock register) at the unit level on available material, usage patterns, among others.

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IMMOLS gets its wings (Conclusion)

• Increased asset visibility• Better quality of provisioning data• Budget management• Availability of history of costs for price

negotiations.• Financial concurrence and sanction

IMMOLS not only gave IAF an edge over other countries but also made the Indian skies more safe.

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Thank you !!!

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