For over 50 years, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has relied on the Military Standard Logistics System – commonly referred to as “MILS” – to help achieve standardization within its global supply chain and ensure proper Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul (MRO) of defense assets. Tapestry’s GOLDesp MRO & Supply software interfaces with MILS to enable domestic and foreign military sales (FMS) customers to quickly obtain supplies through the U.S. military.
As the supply chain evolves and becomes increasingly complex, however, the DoD has found it necessary to replace MILS with a new Defense Logistics Management Standards (DLMS) capability in order to meet its business logistics transformation goals. The new standard goes into effect in 2020.
Tapestry Solutions is supporting this DoD directive to ensure its GOLDesp MRO & Supply software is compliant with DLMS by January 1, 2020. As part of this effort, the company is developing a new Distributed Logistics Service (DLS) module that is expected to be released later this year. The new module will convert outgoing MILS formatted message to DLMS, and incoming DLMS formatted messages to MILS. All changes will be transparent to the user.
What is DLMS?
DLMS is a system of guidelines that governs the standards and practices of logistics business management. DLMS interprets, prescribes and implements the DoD policy in the functional areas of supply, transportation, acquisition, maintenance and finance.
Founded on the widely used, mature Accredited Standards Committee (ASC X12), DLMS is one of the key enterprise standards in the DoD Business Enterprise Architecture. “DLMS not only subsumed all the functional capabilities of the MILS, but has taken joint logistics to the next level by introducing new capabilities not previously possible,” according to the Defense Logistics Agency’s DLMS Implementation Strategy Guide.
The DLMS system allows the DoD to meet its logistics objectives by converting its communication and business protocol from the 80-column message format supported by MILS to the EDI X12 data format, which is governed by ASC X12 standards.
The current MILS is built around fixed-length Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) formats, which are functionally constraining, technically obsolete and are specific to the DoD.
In conjunction with the DLMS transition, Tapestry is developing a new Materiel Accountability (MA) module that will enable GOLDesp to communicate with the U.S. Air Force Accountable Property System of Record (APSR). The GOLDesp MA module, designed in accordance with the requirements by the Air Force, is configurable to send DLMS transactions to other ASPR systems.
About GOLDesp MRO & Supply
GOLDesp MRO & Supply is an industry-leading software solution that manages Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and supply operations for complex assets operating in air, space, sea and ground environments. The Commercial off-the-Shelf (COTS) software is designed for aftermarket logistics support and Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) management.
Featuring a comprehensive set of fully integrated maintenance and supply modules, GOLDesp MRO & Supply has been implemented as a tri-service logistics management solution by customers on five continents. Defense contractors and OEMs have also widely adopted GOLDesp as a key element in their defense sustainment strategies.
For more information, please contact us at tapestrymarketing@boeing.com