The under secretary of defense: 3010 defense pentagon Washington, D.C. 20301-3010.

MEMORANDUM FOR SECRETARIES OF THE MILITARY DEPARTMENTS

ATTN: SERVICE ACQUISITION EXECUTIVES

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF (G-4), U.S. ARMY

DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS (FLEET READINESS AND LOGISTICS)

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR INSTALLATIONS AND LOGISTICS, U.S. AIR FORCE

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR INSTALLATIONS AND LOGISTICS, U.S. MARINE CORPS

DEPUTY COMMANDER, UNITED STATES TRANSPORTATION COMMAND 

DIRECTOR FOR LOGISTICS, THE JOINT STAFF (J-4)

DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Migration to the Defense Logistics Management Standards (DLMS) and Elimination of the Military Standard Systems (MILS)

Effective immediately, use of MILS is restricted in any new logistics system investment program. This direction requires aggressive action by the Components to eliminate the generation and transmission of logistics transactions using the 80-character MILS formats. Replacing MILS with emerging information exchange conventions in the Department of Defense (DoD) Logistics domain, including the business processes in the DoD 4000.25 series of manuals, will accelerate the Integrated Logistics Enterprise (ILE) by enacting best business practices.

MILS provided the backbone of cross-functional interoperability between organizations and systems for over 40 years. However, the data-limited MILS Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) transmission media are now impediments to our business transformation goals. Rigid fixed-length EDI formats are functionally constraining, technologically obsolete, and unique to DoD. Our ability to transform our operations to best practices, employ commercial standards, and achieve the ILE is at risk. As long as MILS forms the basis of our information exchanges, it will not be possible to track an item throughout its life cycle across the entire supply chain using Unique Identifiers (UIDs).

The Defense Logistics Management Standards Office (DLMSO) is the Department's Executive Agent (EA) for logistics data interchange. DLMSO manages the business rules, data standards, and information exchange media for the logistics community in accordance with DoDD 8190.1, DoD Logistics Use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Standards, dated May 5, 2000. DLMSO is responsible for developing, publishing, and updating the Defense Logistics Management System (DLMS) to take advantage of best interchange business practices and eliminating outmoded methods such as MILS. The DLMS is founded on American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 standards and include both X12 transactions and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)-compliant Extensible Markup Language (XML) schemas. DLMSO demonstrated that DLMS supports information exchanges using XML schemas as well as ANSI ASC X12. These information exchange media can support the unique tracking of items throughout the supply chain using the UID, as well as any other supply chain process improvements.

DoD Logistics must posture all systems to use new and expanded information exchange capabilities and adopt best business practices. This policy memorandum requires each of you to take immediate action to accept and transmit business transactions using only the DLMS. Accordingly, we direct the following policies:

* Effective January 1, 2004, no new or developing DoD logistics systems shall use either MILS formatted messages, or MILS messages wrapped with XML headers/tags, for information interchanges in support of business processes covered by the DoD 4000.25 series of manuals.

* Effective by close-of-business December 31, 2004, MILS formatted messages shall no longer be used within or between DoD systems.

* Effective January 1, 2005, all information exchanges among DoD systems shall use the DLMS ANSI ASC X12 or equivalent XML schema for all business processes supported by the DoD 4000.25 series of manuals.

Addressees shall certify that all applicable systems are in compliance with the above policy or report those specific systems that are not or will not be in compliance by January 1, 2005. These certifications or reports of noncompliance shall be delivered to me no later than September 15, 2004. Funding will be withheld from systems that are in noncompliance.

The Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Materiel Readiness, DUSD (L & MR), will initiate action to ensure that DoDD 8190.1 is consistent with this memorandum's policy. No later than February 28, 2004, addressees shall submit their draft plans for migration of their systems to the DLMS, elimination of the MILS, and incorporation of the UID in application system databases. The content of those plans is outlined in the attached guidance. A UID Users Workshop will be held in March 2004 to assist you in finalizing your plans and to begin the process for developing business process rules to capitalize on the UID marking. Additional detailed information on the workshop will be forthcoming. Final migration plans are to be submitted by April 16, 2004. Draft and final plans shall be sent to the DUSD (L & MR) point of contact (POC) identified below.

Please provide name, organization, phone number, and e-mail address of your point of contact by January 15, 2004. My POC is Mr James A. Johnson, Director, DLMSO, telephone at [phone], e-mail at [e-mail].

Attachment:

As stated

Editor's Note: To download a copy of the attachment, visit the Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy Web site at <http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap>.

Michael W. Wynne

Acting