U.S. Air Force: Service-oriented Architecture Enabled Accounting and Management System

With nine major commands, 35 field operating agencies, four direct reporting units and their subordinate units, the United States Air Force harnesses its field and administrative operations to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests in the air, space and cyberspace.

The U.S. Air Force is working to modernize its financial administration, including accounting and management, to take advantage of technologies that assist with administrative efficiency and streamlining, as well as business-process optimization. The Air Force selected Accenture for the first increment of the project based on its experience with service-oriented architectures and deep industry insight.

Accenture and the Air Force are teaming to initiate a wide-ranging, multiyear program to move from decades-old mainframe systems to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that modernize and streamline Air Force accounting and management, while supporting a complex array of Air Force and federal government regulations.

Using Oracle 11i Federal Financials, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Accenture’s deep finance and technology know-how, Accenture and the Air Force delivered Spiral 1, the first phase of the implementation, at Scotts Air Force Base in Illinois. The DEAMS program uses open Web services standards (SOAP, WSDL, XML and more) as well as Business Process Execution Language and Business Activity Monitoring, all in support of the Air Force’s goal of becoming a high-performance government organization. Eventually, more than 70 Air Force bases and corresponding tenant locations will be supported by DEAMS and its reusable, SOA-based web services that link with the Air Force’s mainframes.

Accenture has helped the Air Force create a flexible SOA–enabled technology environment that supports high performance and delivers the following benefits:

• Modernization: Business-process focus creates adaptable, flexible and robust heterogeneous IT systems—modernizing the way the Air Force does business by integrating with other US government enterprise systems (e.g., Marines and the Army) for greater inventory, logistics, invoicing and cost control.
  
  
• Speed and accuracy: The new DEAMS system will promote streamlined administrative processes and procedures, reduce paperwork and provide results for review by senior Air Force managers in real time.
  
  
• Cost savings: Air Force and the U.S. Defense Department Finance and Accounting Shared Services Center will save costs by automating transactions and by consolidating 30-plus legacy systems.
  
  
• Strategy for the future: The ability to conduct transactions automatically enables the finance community to shift their focus from manual processing to serving as a strategic advisor to the US armed forces. And the Accenture SOA Road Map offering has prepared Air Force for future implementations to support both short- and long-term business goals since DEAMS is scalable and integrates with legacy-system formats.