Council saves major commands money

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MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, GUNTER ANNEX, Ala. (AFPN) --  Collective buying power helped Air Force Information Technology Commodity Council members save three major commands more than $4 million in computer purchases.

Representatives from Air Combat Command, Air Education and Training Command and the United States Air Forces in Europe now collectively have 14,863 desktop and 763 laptop computers. These would have cost them the extra $4 million if they had bought them through their respective channels rather than using the council's help.

Formed in June 2003, the council includes representatives from the Air Force's major commands and the Air Staff. Its charter is to develop enterprise strategies for buying and managing information technology products and services. Air Force Standards Systems Group officials here lead the council.

By getting the Air Force's major commands to agree to three mainstream computer configurations -- one desktop and two notebook PCs -- the council could lower purchase and operational costs, said Ken Heitkamp, council director and systems group technical director. Also, this approach helps make sure users are buying computers intended to be used for three or four years and to meet the architectural targets Air Force officials established.

"For example, one of the Air Force's objectives is to use the Common Access Card to authenticate users for network access," Heitkamp said. "A card reader is included in each of the mainstream configurations to support this objective."

For the PCs, council members asked for pricing based on three quantity levels, ranging from single machines to 20,000, he said. The current standard desktop PC configuration includes a 2.6-gigahertz Pentium M processor or equivalent, an 80 gigabyte hard drive, 512 megabyte of RAM and a DVD-re-writable drive. Notebooks require a 1.6-GHz processor, a 40 GB hard drive and at least a 14-inch screen.

"Because of the mainstream configurations, I like to think that not only are we getting the best value, but also causing people to get the best solution," Heitkamp said.

By combining purchases, ACC's buying power increased by 22 percent or 778 computers, said Lt. Col. Roland Rivera, ACC systems integration division deputy chief. These additional computers would have cost the command an additional $1 million to purchase.

"Traditionally, we have asked our wings and units to buy life-cycle replacement desktops and laptops on their own," Rivera said. "Except for the quantities purchased directly for headquarters Air Combat Command, all remaining purchases would have … (resulted) in higher total cost."

Using end-of-year funds, experts at AETC headquarters helped people at their wings upgrade their computers, said Maj. Adam Greed AETC support branch chief information officer.

"We purchased 8,969 desktops for our bases at a cost of $6.13 million and 235 laptops costing $370,000," he said. "AETC and the other major commands cooperated to not only standardize desktop and laptop specifications, but also to leverage our collective buying power.

"The commands were able to take advantage of volume discounts -- something our individual budgets just didn't support,” Greed said. “AETC was able to save approximately $3 million on the overall purchase which translated into additional systems for each base."

"The (council’s) Air Force-wide strategy for desktops and laptops allows us to more fully leverage the buying power of the Air Force and make better use of our resources," said John Gilligan, Air Force chief information officer. "Now that we've proven this industry ‘best practice’ as a viable approach for the Air Force, (council members) will begin to develop enterprise-wide strategies for other commodities to help achieve efficiencies in … IT acquisition, installation, maintenance and disposal."

Rivera said he and his crew we were very pleased to work with members of the systems group. And because of this success, the command is working a follow-on strategy to lay out a future buying approach. (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)