A new asset management system now being deployed could save
the British Army millions of pounds and is a crucial step towards
building a single database for tracking assets across the armed
forces.
The army is in the process of deploying an asset tracking system in
a bid to reduce wastage and errors caused by fitting wrongly
specified components during aircraft maintenance. The system is
updated each time an aircraft is flown, allowing maintenance
engineers to check when components need servicing.
Corporals and staff sergeants involved in aircraft maintenance
access the system from browser-based PC systems. Commander Terry
O'Reilly of the Ministry of Defence said, "We have been smart at
reducing the overhead costs. We use a browser interface rather than
paying for a £70 client."
O'Reilly believes the system will save the British Army "millions"
and it is an interim step in moving the armed forces to a common
system, which is due to be completed by 2007.
The armed forces have had trouble with previous asset tracking
systems but O'Reilly said his team has learnt lessons from
implementations at the Royal Navy and the Royal Airforce.
"We learnt from the navy and airforce that quality assurance has to
have a high priority," he said. One example of this was paperwork.
"We realised our paperwork would not be as good as we thought it
was," said O'Reilly. "In order to put the paperwork into the
system, it had to be 100% accurate."
The Wram (Work Recording and Asset Management) system from Spirent
Systems and SCO is being deployed on the army's Lynx and Gazelle
helicopters and will be rolled out to Apache helicopters later in
the year. The software shares the same database as the Royal Navy's
Spirent terminal-based asset tracking system, which was rolled out
in 1993.
Tarantella server software provides a Windows-like graphical user
interface for Spirent. The platform is based on Unixware 7 and
SCO's Reliant HA, which are being deployed to provide high
availability.