CEMS Transitions to PEO BES Agile Toolset

  • Published
  • By Johnathan Lee, Courtney Clark, and Shaharyar Rajput
  • Propulsion Directorate
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Oklahoma --  The Comprehensive Engine Management System (CEMS), part of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s (AFLCMC) Propulsion Directorate (LPZC), has successfully transitioned to the Business and Enterprise Systems (BES) Directorate’s Atlassian Toolset (BAT).

This achievement highlights cross-directorate collaboration, agile leadership, and enhanced transparency for end users across the propulsion community.

CEMS is the U.S. Air Force’s congressionally designated system of record for tracking engine status, accountability and critical parts life. It serves as the official Accountable Property System of Record (APSR) for Air Force engines, providing centralized, cradle-to-grave visibility of engine lifecycle data.

The CEMS Program Management Office (PMO) applies the Agile mindset across all its disciplines, including software development, engineering, testing, service desk support, functional management and financial reconciliation.

Demonstrating strong leadership and commitment to agile transformation, the CEMS PMO leadership elected to transition to the BAT to adopt the Enhanced Agile Metrics Guide developed by the BES Agile Services Office.

As part of this effort, the CEMS team migrated approximately 10,000 tickets from its legacy system to the BAT JIRA platform within two months of Service Level Agreement (SLA) signoff. The transition included rigorous testing, user training and full operational deployment.

This rapid, large-scale migration was made possible through close collaboration between the CEMS PMO, CEMS System Integrator team and BES BAT teams, showcasing the strength of cross-organizational teamwork.

Following the transition, the CEMS PMO now conducts biweekly agile reviews using the full suite of enhanced metrics.

This practice enables data-driven-decision-making, continuous improvement and significantly improves visibility for collaborators across the Propulsion Directorate. Stakeholders now have real-time insight into software development progress, priorities and support ticket status.

By leveraging the BAT, including JIRA, JIRA Service Management (JSM), Confluence, and Bitbucket, the CEMS team continues to deliver agile, efficient and mission-focused solutions. These tools streamline planning, collaboration and execution, enabling faster, more responsive support to user needs.

Bitbucket enhances CEMS DevOps deployment pipelines and facilitates testing across multiple environments, improving flexibility beyond what GitLab offered.

Confluence supports seamless documentation and knowledge sharing, while Zephyr Scale empowers the test team with integrated test management capabilities.