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A look into the future of Marine Corps IT development and procurement
Marine Corps information technology applications tend to be outdated and difficult to use, and the DOD procurement process to replace them has been notoriously slow and unresponsive to user input. Recent logistics software acquisition, however, shows this may no longer be the case. The Marine Corps is undergoing a massive digital transformation effort to improve data validity and availability, user experience, and-perhaps most importantly-procurement practices. The Technical Data Management-Catalyst (TDM-Catalyst) application, which is the first logistics information technology (LOG-IT) capability to be fielded since the Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics (DC I&L) created a separate LOG-IT branch (the branch is abbreviated as LPI), serves as an example of what Marines can expect in replacement for legacy programs. TDM-Catalyst is a cloud-hosted application that replaces four legacy systems and automatically ingests and validates data on every repair part and end item configuration in the Marine Corps inventory, enabling global logistics awareness.1 Notably, it provides clean data to other downstream systems and users in support of logistics planning, operations, and lifecycle management activities across the Marine Corps through a user-friendly, intuitive platform. Additionally, it is one of the first Marine Corps programs to adopt the Agile software development methodology, reducing its procurement cycle from the standard multi-year process where product visions at the outset seldom meet the required capability at delivery (e.g., Global Combat Support SystemMarine Corps) to an eighteen-month process from idea to deployment with continuous collaboration between the customer and developers to ensure the finished product meets Marine Corps needs. With TDM-Catalyst, Marines no longer have to adapt their mission to fit the tools they receive; rather, they can modify their tools during development and after fielding to better support the mission.
Background
TDM-Catalyst began as a Technical Data Pilot study led by I&L and the Logistics Portfolio Manager (LPfM) from October 2017 to January 2018 to inform future technology adoption and product development strategy for the enterprise's cataloging and provisioning systems.2 Both processes were selected for review since they are central to nearly all supply and maintenance transactions and susceptible to poor data. The pilot concluded by delivering a functioning application over a secure, schema-agnostic noSQL database that simplified user...