Air Force consolidates legacy IT systems Published June 8, 2022 By Business and Enterprise Systems Directorate WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio – The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s (AFLCMC) Business and Enterprise Systems (BES) Directorate recently led a successful delivery of one of eight Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to start the consolidation effort of two legacy IT systems used by members of the Air Force sustainment community. With the merger of the Centralized Access for Data Exchange (CAFDEx™) and the Maintenance Planning and Execution (MP&E) systems, the Sustainment Planning, Execution and Reporting System (SPERS) was created and went live with MVP 1 in Cloud One’s Azure environment on March 28. The MP&E system was a critical logistics data system used by the U.S. Air Force as the primary source of data for reporting core national defense capabilities for aerospace depot maintenance to Congress. The CAFDEx™ system is an enterprise tool used to plan, program, budget, and execute Centralized Asset Management (CAM) Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) requirements. “The consolidation allows us to update a legacy system and bring it into the 21st Century,” said Laura Harmon, the directorate’s Capability Delivery Manager for SPERS. “It also allows us to save money and stop what we’ve been calling the ‘swivel chair’ effect, where users have to put data into two different systems.” SPERS is a Depot Level Maintenance requirements and program management system. It manages the Logistics Requirements Determination Process (LRDP) to capture the unconstrained and constrained requirements of Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) for the Air Force Program Objective Memorandum (POM) and Fiscal Year Execution Plan. SPERS also supports key Air Force and Department of Defense processes, initiatives, and reporting efforts to include: Other Funded Customer Order (OFCO) Workload Planning, Requirements Review and Depot Determination, Strategic Requirements Review, and Core. “This merger is the first-ever organic Strike Team consolidation, providing a technical refresh of the legacy MP&E system and eventually a Government-off-the-Shelf (GOTS) replacement for the proprietary CAFDEx™ application,” said Peter Blake, Air Force Materiel Command’s chief of Systems Integration Division. “This specific MVP provides a more user-intuitive experience, providing requirements maintenance process automation and enhanced data integrity to the annual $22 billion CAM WSS program.” “First and foremost - Amazing Partners across every part of the SPERS effort,” added Glenn Davis, Product Support Management Deputy Division Chief. “It was team centric from day one, hour one, and functionals never spent a minute in the dark. Great insight and down range thinking drives teamwork today and plan thinking tomorrow.” SPERS move to the cloud is a significant milestone. Due to continuous collaboration between the Capability Delivery Team (CDT), 581st Software Engineering Squadron (System Integrator), and Strike Teams 1 and 3, SPERS expeditiously transitioned to Cloud One within 180 days, resulting in achieving the Air Force Directive by reducing the IT footprint by $260,000. “As the SPERS Agile Coach with over 20 years of experience, this is the best collaborating team who pulled together to meet all of the challenges associated with the delivery of value in the first module,” said Sandra O’Brien, with the Air Force Materiel Command. “The collaboration and outstanding relationship between the integrated SPERS team of 100 percent government entities established and successfully proved out a blueprint that will allow our valued AFMC/A4N partner to enjoy future application rationalizations at a low risk and reduced cost,” stated Herbert Hunter, Jr., the Enterprise Logistics Readiness Portfolio Manager. The next step for SPERS is to deliver seven additional MVPs that provide additional capability to the customer.