The road ahead for DEAMS: the road not traveled--until now: three entities are joining forces to change dramatically their business and financial management processes.

To provide the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) and the United States Air Force (USAF) with a single financial system, USTRANSCOM, USAF, and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) have joined forces to implement the Defense Enterprise Accounting and Management System (DEAMS). DEAMS is a significant undertaking that dramatically changes USTRANSCOM, USAF, and DFAS business and financial management processes, thus improving combat support for the warfighter and sharpening information accuracy for Department of Defense (DoD) decision makers. With a long-range eye on the future, DEAMS has the potential to expand functionality to support other DoD components.

This article examines the current status of DEAMS system requirements and its concept of operations. It also includes an update on the training and change management initiatives.

Current Status

Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Selection

The DEAMS $22.7 million firm fixed-price delivery order was awarded to Oracle Corporation for commercial software on June 30, 2005, through the DoD's Enterprise Solutions Initiative Blanket Purchase Agreement under the General Services Administration schedule.

With this contract award, the military Will procure 60 developer licenses, 26,650 production licenses, 4 one-year priced optional maintenance periods and training, and familiarization training. Using the Oracle software, DEAMS will implement a modernized, integrated accounting and financial system that is Joint Financial Management Improvement Program-qualified. The DEAMS software package will produce fully auditable financial statements for US-TRANSCOM, USAF, and other units at Scott Air Force Base (AFB), Illinois.

Systems Integrator

The systems integrator (SI) selected will implement the DEAMS requirements including, but not limited to, the System Requirements Document, Process Flows and Narratives, the Requirements Traceability Matrix, and the Oracle product suite, The program is being implemented through the incremental development approach with versions that leverage commercial best practices to reengineer USTRANSCOM business processes.

Some of the technical, managerial, and functional objectives for this initiative include the following:

* Providing a single, inclusive, and scalable financial management system to support both the transportation working capital fund and the general funds for the Air Force

* Leveraging best value products and services to the government based on an appropriate blend of COTS, commercial practice, innovation, and risk management

* Providing integrated implementation of commercial, national, and international standards and government mandates including implementation of DoD's Standard Financial Information Structure (SFIS)

* Maximizing interoperability through approaches that create interfaces that allow for legacy system and application integration and results in transparent, user-friendly access to required information and services

* Exploiting technologies such as centralized databases, existing data warehouses, and modern analytical reporting tools that offer system users both the ability to provide accurate and timely financial data to decision makers and the ability to drill down through financial data from a highly aggregated level to transaction-level detail

Requirements and Concept of Operations

DEAMS will support and replace an array of existing financial processes to include general ledger, customer order, and customer billing and collection; purchase request/commitment, obligation, receipt, and acceptance; accounts payable; and cost management and decision support (Figure 1).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Budget Process

Budget targets will be loaded electronically into DEAMS. DEAMS will further distribute targets to a level appropriate for management and control, track/control actual activity against targets, and export to data warehouses for use in reporting and budget execution analysis.

General Ledger Process

The general ledger provides the overall framework for capturing and maintaining the DEAMS accounting data. DEAMS financial management information will be captured and maintained within the general ledger using SFIS. DEAMS will also support budget distribution, budgetary control, and budget execution processes. More detailed distribution will occur in DEAMS to create targets appropriate for management and control.

DEAMS also will allow standard general ledger processing across the enterprise, facilitate simplified preparation of financial statements, and enable real-time tracking or control against budget targets at the point of transaction entry.

Customer Order, Billing, and Collection Process

DEAMS provides a flexible solution for use by general fund and working capital fund activities. Specifically, DEAMS will support the establishment of customer orders, track cost activity against orders, electronically interface data from feeder systems, serve as the single billing system for USTRANSCOM, and provide pre-bill information for customer review.

Purchase Request/Commitment Process

With DEAMS, the future purchase request process will be streamlined and paperless. The purchase request is the first step in the procurement process and establishes a business need for goods or services. DEAMS will provide standard forms, online fund control, and commitment identification number/standard document number link to an obligation. Under DEAMS, the system will edit and validate the data and budget availability at the point of entry. Consequently, personnel in the finance office will no longer enter commitments.

Obligation Process

DEAMS will receive electronic purchase order information from the appropriate external systems. In cases where a purchase order or a contract is not used, the obligation will be created automatically at the point when the purchase request is approved.

Changes that result from business process reengineering will enable obligation data from contracting and other feeder systems to be electronically interfaced into DEAMS and fix responsibility within the USAF/USTP, ANSCOM for their obligations, to include their entering of obligations online when required.

Receipt and Acceptance Processing

The DEAMS receipt and acceptance process will be fully electronic and paperless. The end user receiving the goods or services will be presented with user-friendly screens to record the receipt. The receipt immediately will be available to the three-way match process or to an accounts payable specialist at any location. DEAMS will provide the capability to enter receipt data directly into DEAMS or to accept information fed into DEAMS, support the automated interface of electronic receipts from other external systems, and provide notification of receipt sent to Wide Area Work Flow (WAWF).

Accounts Payable Processing

All invoices will be loaded electronically, using a WAWF interface or an electronic feed from vendors. Data will be edited and validated automatically upon entry into DEAMS. An automated three-way match process will be used to validate that the purchase order, receipt document, and invoice match when appropriate. If the three-way match is successful, the payment will be approved with no user intervention. If the three-way match is not successful, an accounts payable specialist will review the electronic documents to determine if the invoice should be paid.

DEAMS will accommodate the processing of transactions by others (TBOs) and intra-governmental bills received via automated interface or online entry. TBOs loaded as disbursement or collection vouchers will use a two-way match. The system will allow the capability to manually enter data, based on hard-copy documents.

Cost Management and Decision Support

According to Mr. John Senn, DEAMS functional manager, the most significant benefit that DEAMS will yield is greatly improved cost management information. The financial manager of the future will know exactly what it costs to deliver a shipment, complete a project or reimbursable order, use a specific transportation platform, and achieve specified outputs. To improve cost accounting capabilities, DEAMS will include labor-reporting software, which allows users to assign their hours to activities for cost management purposes. DEAMS also will support unmetered access to financial information.

Building Up to Implement the System

Figure 2 depicts the incremental timeline and phasing for DEAMS from the selection of Oracle as the COTS product to the operation and sustainment of the program in 2009.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

At this writing, the DEAMS program office is in the process of selecting the systems integrator. Following that selection, the Functional Management Team will initiate an effort to confirm the requirements against the Oracle package beginning in early 2006 (Figure 2, lower left). That team will compare the requirements with the COTS package and then initiate system development. During this phase, the team will build interfaces, reports, configure the software, and prepare for the testing phase. Once the formal four- to six-month testing process begins, the team also will initiate change management activities. Based on the results of the testing, the training documentation will reflect current changes based on the testing results; training will start prior to program implementation in October 2006.

The first increment of DEAMS is the technology demonstration conducted at Scott AFB (Version 1.1), which starts in October 2006. This increment includes USTRANSCOM, as well as Air Mobility Command (AMC) and Air Force tenants on Scott AFB. Version 1.2 includes the remainder of the USTRANSCOM components (Military Sealift Command and the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command) and pushes the system to the rest of AMC's bases during the increment rollout starting in October 2007. During the increment rollout in March 2009, the system (Version 2.1) will be available to the rest of the USAF operational commands as well as to participating Defense agencies.

During Version 1.1, as a safeguard, the Office of the Secretary of Defense will require the DEAMS program simultaneously to run dual processes using the General Accounting and Finance System (GAFS), Integrated Accounts Payable System, and Automated Business Services System as DEAMS matures. GAFS will remain the system of record until third-party compliance testing validates the existence of auditable financial statement in DEAMS. Subsequently, the other systems will be terminated after fielding to Air Force operational commands.

Training and Change Management

A training component is key to the successful implementation of the DEAMS program, reinforcing a sentiment uncovered in a December 2004 change management survey of internal stakeholders. The survey revealed concerns about the deployment of the DEAMS software and a need for training. Financial system administrators, executives, commanders, managers, transaction processors, approvers/certifying officers, and other DEAMS users will be identified and trained to ensure acceptance and usage of the system.

The development of a training program is under way by a special team--DEAMS Training In-Process Integrated Process Team (TIIPT). The DEAMS TIIPT met during the first week in April 2005 to begin planning a strategy and curriculum for the training program. The DEAMS TIIPT comprises representatives from the following organizations: the DEAMS Functional Management Team office, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller, the 375th Airlift Wing, DFAS, the Air

Force "schoolhouse" at Maxwell AFB, and the USTRANSCOM, including its component commands.

The change management process for DEAMS also is in place. Change management will play a key role in engaging stakeholders and end users in comprehensive dialogue and interaction to facilitate effective and appropriate change. The DEAMS Change Management Team is charged to recognize and resolve issues that may impede a successful DEAMS implementation. The Change Management Team is responsible for all DEAMS change management activities, including oversight, communication support, project management, risk management, and project coordination with stakeholders, end users, and other members of the DEAMS implementation team.

Conclusion

DEAMS is a joint partnership formed under a cohesive team comprising subject matter experts from USTRANSCOM, USAF, and DFAS that is comprehensively identifying requirements, preparing for transition to contractor support, and beginning software configuration for field deployment. The DEAMS Functional Team members have completed requirements and documentation on several key functions, and the team continues the process in preparation for the DEAMS SI selection. With the continued excellent teamwork and the SI selection, DEAMS will transform USTRANSCOM, USAF, and DFAS business and financial management processes and systems, improve combat support for the warfighting forces, and improve information accuracy for DoD decision makers.

Further information on DEAMS can be found at http://deams.transcom.mil.

Arlene King is the strategic communication senior consultant for the Defense Enterprise Accounting and Management System. She retired after serving in the U.S. Army for 26 years, first as a signal officer and later as a public affairs officer.