Mission Area
January 18, 2022
PEO EIS’s General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS) product office — part of the Defense Integrated Business Systems (DIBS) portfolio — has wrapped up the transition of sustainment activities for its financial management enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to the Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) Software Engineering Center (SEC) Army Shared Services Center (SSC) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
The GFEBS system — which provides secure, web-based, real-time financial data to the Army’s senior leaders — fully fielded its functionality in 2012 and migrated to the cloud in summer 2020, setting the stage for a smooth transition to the Army SSC this year. The Army SSC helps bring efficiency and cost savings to ERP sustainment, providing centralized ERP support teams, enterprise-level oversight and DevSecOps software development lifecycles. These offerings enable ERP programs like GFEBS to focus on developing new capabilities to meet ever-changing auditability and financial management requirements.
DIBS leadership expects to benefit both from short-term efficiencies and long-term cost savings by migrating the GFEBS system to a consolidated contract supporting Army ERP delivery and management of services. The move to a shared services business model will ensure that deployed ERP systems are meeting reliability and maintainability objectives, while aligning with Army audit requirements.
“This transition marks the final U.S. Army ERP to move to the Army SSC,” said Michelle Dirner, director of the Army SSC. “We are excited to bring our expertise to the finance domain and begin to look for efficiencies across systems. Our goal is to ensure readiness at the best value for the Army.”
GFEBS is the second cloud-based ERP system to transition to the Army SSC, having incorporated lessons learned from the migration of GFEBS – Sensitive Activities last summer. PEO EIS’s Logistics Modernization Program, Army Enterprise Systems Integration Program Hub and Global Combat Support System – Army also are nested within the Army SSC, enabling cross-program collaboration and many opportunities for continuous improvement. The ERPs’ program management teams have already harnessed process improvements for commonality and standardization across all systems.
“The efficiencies and potential cost savings of the Army Shared Services Center management model are the game-changer for sustainment,” said Col. Donald L. Burton, project manager for DIBS at PEO EIS. “This model allows us to develop new capabilities, while delivering the auditability and financial management tools that are important to all stakeholders.”
GFEBS’ transition to the Army SSC will combine traditional ERP sustainment activities with the enterprise help desk operations of PEO EIS’s Business Mission Area, thus enabling EIS to begin reducing the costs of sustaining the Army’s legacy ERPs.