The Expeditionary Combat Support System (ECSS) was a failed

enterprise resource planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of Business management tools, business management ...

software project undertaken by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

(USAF) between 2005 and 2012. The goal of the project was to automate and streamline the USAF's

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

operations by, in part, consolidating and replacing over 200 separate

legacy system In computing, a legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program, "of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated computer system", yet still in use. Often referencing a system as "legacy" means that it paved ...

s. The project was undertaken to develop a single integrated enterprise resource planning system built using commercial off-the-shelf software, aimed at tracking all of its physical assets and making efficiency savings. The purpose of the system was to enable the organisation to track all of its physical assets including airplanes, fuel, and even spare parts. The ECSS program was established through two main contracts. The first contract was with the database software company

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

, to supply the

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

(COTS) software. The second contract was with the Computer Science Corporation (CSC), to amalgamate the COTS software into the existing Air Force infrastructure. After spending $1.1 billion on its development, the USAF concluded in 2012 that the system, "has not yielded any significant military capability" and estimated that, "it would require an additional $1.1B for about a quarter of the original scope to continue and fielding would not be until 2020." Based on that conclusion, the USAF canceled the program in November 2012.

United States Senate Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services (sometimes abbreviated SASC for ''Senate Armed Services Committee'') is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Defe ...

members

Carl Levin Carl Milton Levin (June 28, 1934 – July 29, 2021) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Michigan from 1979 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the chair of the Senate Armed Services C ...

and

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...

characterized the failed project as "one of the most egregious examples of mismanagement in recent memory."

References

* * * 2005 establishments in the United States 2012 disestablishments in the United States Projects established in 2005 Projects disestablished in 2012 Military logistics of the United States Projects of the United States Air Force United States military scandals 21st-century history of the United States Air Force Discontinued custom software projects {{USAF-stub