The Ordnance Information System : managing the complexity of easy

Navy Supply Corps Newsletter, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Lambros P. Tzerefos

The Focused Purpose

In his October 2002 Proceedings article "Sea Power 21," the Chief of Naval Operations prescribes a broadened naval strategy that will fully integrate U.S. naval forces into joint operations against regional and transnational dangers. He rededicates the Navy to a global focus that will dissuade, deter, and defeat a growing array of potential threats, including weapons of mass destruction, conventional warfare, and widely dispersed and well-funded terrorism."

All of the capability outlined above requires systems to provide a seamless integration of disparate pockets of information, near instantaneous access to information in support of near instantaneous tactically correct decisions, and intuitive interfaces that require little or no formal training except that of being able to operate a mouse. In short, our future systems must provide us accurate, timely information that are at once easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to integrate. Doing this is complex.

For the naval ordnance community, the Ordnance Information System (OIS) is the systems strategy that supports the CNO's vision. As illustrated in Figure 1, the OIS is targeted to the entire spectrum of the ordnance community. It has been designed to serve all levels of the ordnance management and user communities, from deck plate Sailors and ground forces to flag-level warfighters, planners and managers.

Where It All Started

The vision of OIS was founded during the late 1990's when the vast majority of the systems world was striving to avert Y2K problems. During that time, an analyses of the ordnance systems in use indicated that there were approximately 24 stovepipe systems with approximately 85 percent redundancy in data and 25 percent redundancy in applications.

The redundancy amongst these systems was allowing for less than spectacular results in data consistency that translated to less than the desirable metrics for data integrity and accuracy. In addition, the lack of integration amongst these stovepipe systems, the nonstandard interfaces that they each used, and the less than intuitive user interactions prompted the need for a more focused, consolidated approach--OIS was born.

What OIS Integrates

OIS provides a "common ordnance desktop" interface to the AMMO user's workstation that serves as entry point to all the information and processing capabilities resident within the OIS. Figure 2 depicts this enterprise fusion in terms of both the internal naval systems that are integrated into the OIS as well as the external systems with which the OIS must interface.

The heart of the OIS is the vertical integration of the Navy's legacy wholesale ammunition management application, the Conventional Ammunition Integrated Management System (CALMS) and the legacy retail system, the Retail Ordnance Logistics Management System (ROLMS). In fact, once the integration of these two applications is complete, the notion of wholesale and retail will dissolve, as their integrated information will form a more complete, global picture of the ordnance inventory.

In addition to the integration of the wholesale and retail functionality, the OIS integrates the functionality associated with other ordnance management support services such as: ordnance visibility, which provides timely and accurate information on the location, movement, status, and identity of ordnance assets in storage, in process, and in transit; global positioning of naval ordnance, a simulation model that aids in allocating the total ordnance stockpile throughout the worldwide storage facilities in support of operational plans and strategies; readiness assessment in support of the various Naval mission profiles, as well as the necessary metrics that help the naval ordnance community quantitatively determine if they are meeting the varied challenges that it faces.

How OIS works

Figure 3 outlines the overall system architecture. The OIS uses a three-tier architecture as depicted by the web client entering the OIS portal (tier 1), the OIS applications (tier 2), and the OIS database (tier 3). In addition, OIS is a multi-security level system, that is, it must simultaneously support both classified and unclassified data requirements. This is depicted in Figure 3 by the two "halves" of the drawing. The left half or unclassified side hosts those data requirements that are unclassified while the right half or classified side hosts those data requirements that are classified.

The Presentation Layer (Tier 1)

The OIS is a web-based system and although the OIS architecture consists of multitiered and distributed sub-systems, from the user's perspective it operates as one integrated whole, utilizing a single portal for entry and a single set of authorizing credentials. Access is controlled by means of a security matrix that authenticates not only the user's credentials but also OIS services and to what extent each service can be utilized (e.g. read-only, delete, update, etc.). In addition, the portal provides users the capability to customize their environment in terms of content layout and appearance.