Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Initiative (MROi) Plus Contract Award

  • Published
  • By Jeff Stephan
  • AFLCMC/HIM
GUNTER ANNEX, Ala. – The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Business and Enterprise Systems (BES) Directorate recently awarded a $90 million contract to Accenture Federal Services, LLC for continued design, development, integration,  test, implementation, and sustainment of a web-based Maintenance Repair and Overhaul initiative (MROi) solution, incorporating maintenance driven financials, using commercial software. 

“MROi will provide the Air Force with an integrated capability for planning, scheduling, and executing organic depot maintenance to support agile planning, optimized workload assignment, and resource allocation,” said Joe Lask, program manager for the system. “It is expected to fill a void by providing leadership with accurate, consistent, and timely data to conduct strategic decision making and support larger Department initiatives, such as Financial Improvement and Audit Remediation.”

MROi will provide a single maintenance and financials information system for all Air Force Sustainment Center (AFSC) customers, and enable standardized business operations across the depot enterprise.

 MROi will begin implementation across the Commodities, Electronics, Missile, and Propulsion Maintenance Groups, and then be expanded to Aircraft Maintenance Groups.  Maintenance Support Groups will also be transition to MROi.  The MROi system will be used at Robins Air Force Base (AFB), Georgia; Tinker AFB, Oklahoma; Hill AFB, Utah; Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; and Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) locations in Ohio, Maine, and Indiana as well as Kadena Air Base, Japan, Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, Davis Monthan AFB, Arizona, and four missile sites.

Eventually, MROi will support up to 20,450 users as it is fielded after a series of incremental software builds under an agile software development program.  The original MROi contract provided foundational capability and completed in September 2020.  The MROi plus contract effort will build upon that foundational capability through a series of cumulative minimal viable product deliveries.

“Implementation across a shop floor production environment is always challenging, especially when the entire business process is being transformed with the information technology system.  While the system is developed in an agile, incremental manner, implementation to the shop floor must wait for cumulative capability to support end-to-end production needs.”, said Lori Bury, AFSC’s functional lead.”

“The AFSC maintenance and financials team is managing a significant organizational change management effort along with the supporting system acquisition program to ensure both the business process changes and system solution remain synchronized as we prepare the user communities for the future implementation”  Bury said. 
MROi is one of the AFSC Commander’s top priorities and a key initiative in satisfying AFSC strategic goals.

There was considerable upfront planning to incorporate commercial and Department of Defense (DoD) best practices while reducing cost.  And thanks to the extensive business process reengineering efforts performed by subject matter experts across AFSC,  Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), Air Force, and DFAS, MROi will leverage out-of-the-box functionality with significantly fewer Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, and Extensions (RICE) than other Air Force Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)-based systems.

“Utilizing the out-of-the-box functionality and aligning our business processes with commercial best practices built into the software, places the Working Capital Fund (WCF) in a better position in our goal of obtaining an unmodified audit opinion from our external auditors”, said Jeremy Oldham, AFSC’s financial lead.

This second contract is expanding the MROi effort to include maintenance-driven AF WCF financial transactions.  AFMC and AFSC are excited that MROi will accurately capture integrated financial transactions at the point of the business activity.  This will improve operational decision making and enable the generation of correct and complete financial reports in compliance with DoD audit traceability.

MROi is also the first Air Force ERP system to be developed in a production representative environment hosted by the Defense Information Systems Agency. Additionally, MROi is the first ERP system to leverage the infrastructure, tools and services from the Air Force’s ERP Common Services program.  Furthermore, the MROi system will provide support for future logistics activities and is designed to be a major pillar of the Air Force’s Logistics Information Technology modernization currently underway.

While much of the team focused on delivery and integrated testing of capabilities associated with the first contract, Capt. Stephen Colangelo led the acquisition efforts for the follow-on contract.  The team was able to go from request for proposal release to contract award in just seven months, despite nationwide COVID-19 pandemic impacts.