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News Analysis
IMMOLS: up with flying colours
Faiz Askari reports on the Indian Air Force’s
ERP deployment, a giant leap ahead in terms of inventory control, logistics
management and e-Governance.
S Ramadorai |
IMMOLS (Integrated Materials Management Online Services) is
fully operational now making it the first gigantic enterprise resource planning
solution implementation, in the history of India’s defence forces. Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS) and Indian Air Force jointly announced the go-live
of IMMOLS, a proud moment for the Indian Air Force (IAF) which is celebrating
its platinum anniversary or 75 years.
This nation-wide systems integration project addresses the need for computerising
the IAF’s inventory control and logistics management. This project is also
considered as a significant development in India’s road to e-Governance.
S Ramadorai, CEO and Managing Director, TCS said, “Project IMMOLS represents
a milestone achievement for India. It is a great example of public-private partnership.”
Inaugurating the project, Minister for Defence, Government of India, Pranab
Mukherjee said, “I’m proud to dedicate this project to the nation
today, which holds the potential of setting new benchmarks on how computerisation
can re-define the efficiencies for various defence applications—making
us more equipped, agile and robust to effectively handle any contingencies,
as well as benefitting from better cost management.”
Ramadorai added, “TCS is excited about this project, which is set to revolutionise
the way the Indian Air Force manages its logistics and materials. This project
exemplifies synergy between public and private sectors and springs from the
IAF’s vision to adopt technology that will bring in greater administrative
efficiencies.”
Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi said, “Technically speaking,
it was not an easy job. The major challenge for us was the vast geography of
India.”
The money sunk into this project tots up to Rs 55 crore,
IMMOLS has been implemented in a distributed manner at various IAF depots and
it replaces the current manual system of materials management in the IAF at
all levels of hierarchy and at all its headquarters and units across the country.
Tracking inventory transparently
Hinting at what exactly the IAF faced when it kicked off
this project, Air Chief Marshal Tyagi said, “With respect to paper-based
processes, the IAF was facing a big issue in keeping and maintaining records
for inventory management. Then to track inventory and to communicate transparently
with an individual running short of inventory were other issues that we needed
to tackle. We required a comprehensive solution in short order.”
Other key challenges faced by implementing teams included
countering the complexity of functionality, geographical spread, distributed
data processing, training, large amount of inter-base information transfers
and most importantly, the psychological barriers resisting change from a manual
to a fully automated system.
Tackling the challenges
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IMMOLS is the best example of streamlining
of Indian defence logistics work and auditing. It is complemented by the
Equipment Accounting On-Line System and the Audit Online System which
are embedded in the solution. The strengths of IMMOLS are its e-auditability
and e-vouchers features. The latter makes it a powerful and comprehensive
logistics solution
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Replacing paper-based processes, IMMOLS will obviate the problems that confronted
the IAF—stock outs, delays, dependencies on individuals and inaccurate
communications.
Along with this, IMMOLS will provide asset visibility for better utilisation
of available resources; it will provide information triggers for mid-course
corrections in various materials management processes; help reduce inventory
levels (leading to huge savings); improve fleet serviceability and so on.
The Air Chief said, “IMMOLS is the best example of streamlining of Indian
defence logistics work and auditing. It is complemented by the Equipment Accounting
On-Line System and the Audit Online System which are embedded in the solution.
The strengths of IMMOLS are its e-auditability and e-vouchers features. The
latter makes it a powerful and comprehensive logistics solution.”
Providing details on the project, Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice-president and Head,
Global Government Industry Group, TCS said, “TCS IMMOLS took a concrete
shape in 2003, wherein we carried out a pilot implementation at around 22 IAF
sites. After extensive testing of the application, which included software development,
acceptance testing, training, analysis and several other initiatives, the project
has now been successfully rolled out nationally across all 108 sites of the
IAF.”
Chakrabarty added, “I would like to thank the IAF for the assistance extended
at every level right from creating a dedicated project office for IMMOLS to
the support extended by top officials. This played a crucial role in ensuring
the success of this project.”
IMMOLS can broadly be divided into two components—a custom designed application
that caters to all facets of materials management at various levels of hierarchy
in the IAF and IT infrastructure covering a nationwide installation of computing
platforms and campus LANs.
Users as well as supply chain managers will now shift to IMMOLS, as the application
will encompass all materials management tasks.
More defence projects on the anvil
With the successful implementation of IMMOLS under its belt, TCS is looking
to implement more e-governance projects for the defence establishment.
Ramadorai said, “We are happy to see the results of our hard work and enjoy
great relations with the Indian Air Force. I however, like to consider IMMOLS
as a start of a success story. We look forward to replicating this success story
in a short span of time.”
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