Engineering Supply Management System: The Next Generation

Abstract : Materials and equipment used for real property maintenance activity (RPMA) work, which includes construction, maintenance, and repair, are for the most part, peculiar to the Directorates or Divisions of Engineering and Housing (DEH) and are required in sufficient on-hand quantities to ensure responsiveness to the DEH's primary mission. As a result, DEHs procure and store their own inventories of RPMA materials and equipment at DEH-controlled warehouses, shops, and self-help centers. Most RPMA materials are procured through the Government's wholesale supply system or by local purchases. More than 10 years ago, DEHs around the world began using an automated information system called the Facility Engineering Supply System (FESS) to help manage their supplies. FESS is still fully operational and considered by many in the field to be a useful DEH automated system. The FESS is an automated inventory control and supply management system that improves material security, reduces the need for manual stock control, simplifies financial accounting, and accumulates necessary management information for periodic reporting. The nature of supply operations in today's Army precludes stand-alone systems. Therefore, over the past 10 years FESS has been upgraded to interface with a number of Army and DoD automated systems.