JTMS Background.docx

JTMS will drive Department-wide business reform by integrating transportation and financial processes at the transaction level to optimize financial management of the Transportation of Things that support the Department of Defense financial auditability requirements and closing identified auditability gaps. Other benefits include improving the auditability of financial documentation and eliminating many existing transportation-related applications.

Background In September 2013, a Transportation Financial Auditability (TFA) Working Group was established to improve the auditability of the Department’s transportation payment transactions by standardizing procedures and recommending changes to guidance, systems integration, and training enterprise-wide. The group is comprised of transportation and financial managers from the Military Services, Joint Chiefs of Staff, USTRANSCOM, Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), Defense Finance Accounting System (DFAS), and Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Transportation Policy) and the Director of Revolving Funds, OUSD(C), provided oversight and guided this effort. As part of the TFA, the Executive Steering Committee (ESC) recommended an enterprise-wide approach for a single system for shipping in the business process areas of commercial freight, organic freight, and household goods /non-temporary storage, and the codifying of standard policy, processes, procedures, and business rules in the Department of Defense (DoD) regulations to achieve this objective. This recommendation was approved in 2015, and the Department pursued this material solution following the Business Capability Acquisition Cycle (BCAC) in accordance with DoD Instruction 5000.75.

In 2017, USTRANSCOM executed a 120-day Proof of Principle (PoP) to test commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) transportation management capabilities. The PoP tested numerous scenarios to “stress” the system and validate whether the system could support the command’s transportation requirements.

In 2018, USTRANSCOM executed a Transportation Management System prototype that brought end-users online and booked/shipped cargo within the United States in multiple use cases. The prototype established the use of COTS transportation and supply chain management software in the USTRANSCOM secure cloud. USTRANSCOM was able to consolidate and streamline capabilities and processes from multiple legacy applications into one system, as well as standardize the mode-agnostic transportation request process with Government and Industry. USTRANSCOM learned commercial supply chain management software can perform the functionality and data integration crucial to making decisions required to deploy and sustain the Joint Force at the time/place necessary for mission success.

Since 2013, USTRANSCOM has gathered feedback from the prototype participants, analyzed other programs implementation efforts, and conducted a gap analysis, to identify transportation and financial capability gaps. USTRANSCOM has continuously analyzed the use of commercial software and the events discussed above were conducted to validate military utility and mitigate program risk before an enterprise implementation.

In July 2021, with acquisition assistance from the Air Force, executed a task order to provide USTRANSCOM with the following: (1) Implementation Study, with a focus on analyzing relevant factors (e.g. technical, schedule, financial, operational, legal) associated with implementing and integrating a JTMS enterprise-wide, (2) System Specification Document (SSD), documenting functional requirements, performance requirements, key performance parameters, system technical requirements, and specifications, and (3) Performance Work Statement, documenting all requirements necessary from planning to implementation to sustainment. With the delivery of Implementation Study, USTRANSCOM learned there are crucial activities which need to occur prior to any implementation of commercial software.

In March 2022, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (USD) for Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S) issued a memorandum designating the JTMS program as a Business System Category (BCAT) 1 system with the USD(A&S) as the Milestone Decision Authority (MDA) consistent with Department of Defense Instruction 5000.75. The memorandum required USTRANSCOM to perform an analysis of potential acquisition pathways to inform the acquisition strategy for the JTMS program, as well as provide Executive Agent recommendations as part of the analysis assessment. The final results and recommendation is to procure an enterprise-wide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, supported with Doctrine, Organization, Training, materiel, Leadership and education, Personnel, Facilities, and Policy (DOTmLPF-P). A final decision is pending, but USTRANSCOM is pursuing efforts consistent with activities outlined in DoDI 5000.75.