Air Force program recognized for excellence in government

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Russell P. Petcoff
  • Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
The Air Force's Logistics, Installations and Mission Support-Enterprise View, or LIMS-EV,  Logistics Transformation initiative was one of 20 finalists in the 2010 Excellence.Gov Awards, competing with other organizations from throughout the federal government.

The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council established the Excellence.Gov Awards to recognize best management practices in the federal government and use of information technology, according to their website.

Air Force logisticians created LIMS-EV to bring together Air Force logistics data from across the service, according to Tony McCormack, LIMS-EV team lead, assigned to the information technology division of the directorate of transformation within the Air Force deputy chief for logistics, installations and mission support. It provides leaders with near-real time data on the location, quantity and status of Air Force resources, Mr. McCormack added.

Development of the program began in 2005. Air Force logistics officials plan to have LIMS-EV throughout the Air Force by 2012.

The Headquarters Air Force Logistics (A4) LIMS-EV team lead said the program will provide access to logistics information throughout the A4/7 community.

"LIMS-EV is the A4/7 Business Intelligence gateway providing a standardized data exploitation capability for reporting and analytics across all A4/7 business areas," Mr. McCormack said.

LIMS-EV provides a single entry point on the Air Force Portal that hosts a variety of business intelligence capabilities in a flexible, dynamic Web-based environment, Mr. McCormack said. This capability supports reporting and analysis requirements using scorecards, and dashboards to all levels of users, whether strategic, operational or tactical, he added.

"LIMS-EV will be the integrated business intelligence environment delivering 'One Version of the Truth' to war fighters across all Air Force Logistics, Installations and Mission Support business areas," Mr. McCormack said. The system ensures logistics information is accurate, well-organized and complete, he added.

Mr. McCormack said LIMS-EV streamlines the process in gathering information about the status and location of all Air Force resources.

"The LIMS-EV project is pulling all the data that is currently scattered across hundreds of stand-alone information systems, operations data stores and small data warehouses into an integrated system, creating one version of the truth," he said.

Before LIMS-EV, an Air Force employee would have to access more than 60 systems, each with a different password, to run a query, download the results, analyze the information and then build a slide to present the results, according to Mr. McCormack.

"This process could take hours to days, depending on how complex the question was," he added. "With LIMS-EV, the same information is now available in near real time with a couple of clicks of the mouse."

The new system also will ensure the currency of resource information. Previously, base commanders were responsible for the information on his or her base, according to Mr. McCormack.

"Now, all Air Force leaders have visibility to each base's resources," he said. "This helps keep base commanders accountable for their resources and also gives leaders the ability to see the location of all Air Force resources and then collaborate on the redistribution as necessary based on mission priorities."

According to Mr. McCormack, LIMS-EV provides Air Force senior leaders with a one-stop shop for logistics and installations information on their desktop computer. It provides near real-time metrics for weapons system availability, munitions, vehicle, support equipment and supply chain management status to aid in the daily decision-making process, he added.