SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — Fixing a broken part on a ship was anything but simple at U.S. Navy bases in Japan, at least until Friday.
Far too many computer systems were involved but none communicated with the others. Each carried out one task, such as determining access, data entry, funding, scheduling, procurement, tracking the actual repair and completing maintenance reports.
All to fix one problem.
To hear Sasebo’s Ship Repair Facility detachment official Fred Graening describe it, past procedures have been a bewildering process that made otherwise sensible steps for repairs become entanglements of absurd complexity.
On Friday, however, U.S. Navy bases at Yokosuka and Sasebo simultaneously launched the Enterprise Resource System, designed to collect maintenance and repair details and funnel the data into one networked process. Part of the global Navy Enterprise Maintenance Automated Information System (NEMAIS), the launch links the Japan facilities with Regional Maintenance Centers at San Diego; Norfolk, Va.; Mayport, Fla.; and Pascagoula, Miss.
Officials say the new system will prevent tasking logjams and enhance 7th Fleet’s readiness. They also predict millions of dollars could be saved in short-term cost reductions, if only by eliminating systems no longer needed.
The system took “thousands of man hours” for development teams to get up and running, said global deployment manager Steve Urso. Graening is managing Sasebo’s system deployment and Pete Rita is handling Yokosuka’s.
The system “allows visibility of all work at any maintenance facility, status of the work and the tracking and execution of the work,” Urso said.
Added Rita: “The days are gone when each department uses its own software to perform one — or part of one — aspect of ship maintenance. These programs are being eliminated and replaced by NEMAIS.”
Driving the change is a move for increased efficiency and accountability in the wake of the The Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990. The act, with subsequent congressional actions and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s goals for the military, require agencies to adopt highly structured business practices to reduce waste while maintaining peak readiness.
Sasebo’s and Yokosuka’s repair and maintenance facilities “had to meet unique challenges in accomplishing this,” Urso said, “such as the distance from Norfolk, time differences, the foreign worker population and ship production schedules, to name a few.”
