Indian Air Force takes off on inventory control

MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) announced the go-live of IMMOLS (Integrated Materials Management Online Services), a nation-wide systems integration project addressing the computerization needs of inventory control and logistics management of the Indian Air Force.

The project was unveiled at a press conference by the Union Minister for Defense, Pranab Mukherjee.

Inaugurating the project, Mukherjee, said, "I’m proud to dedicate this project to the nation today, which holds the potential of setting new benchmarks on how computerization can re-define the efficiencies for various defense applications - making us more equipped, agile and robust to effectively handle any contingencies, as well as benefiting from better cost management. I congratulate the teams from IAF and TCS for successfully taking on this mammoth challenge and emerging victorious."

Speaking on the occasion, S Ramadorai, CEO and managing director of TCS, said, " TCS is excited about this project, which is set to revolutionize the way the Indian Air Force manages their logistics and materials. This project exemplifies synergy between public and private partnership in a true sense and results from IAF’s vision to adopt technologies to bring in greater administrative efficiencies."

Providing further details on the project, Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice-president and head, Global Government Industry Group, of TCS, said, "TCS IMMOLS took a concrete shape in 2003, wherein we carried out pilot implementation for around 22 sites of the Indian Air Force. After extensive testing of the application, which included software development, acceptance testing, training, analysis and several other initiatives, the project has now been successfully rolled out across all 108 sites of Indian Air Force nationally. I would like to thank the IAF for the complete assistance extended at every level right from creating a dedicated project office for IMMOLS to the support extended by the top officials of the IAF. This played a crucial role in ensuring the success of this project."

TCS IMMOLS has broadly two key components. First, being custom designed application software, it caters to all facets of materials management at various levels of hierarchy in Indian Air Force. The second component includes IT infrastructure, which covers nationwide installation of computing platforms, campus LANs and other hardware equipment.

Replacing the earlier paper-based processes, TCS IMMOLS will obviate all problems earlier faced by IAF, including stock outs, delays, dependencies on individuals and inaccurate communications.

Along with this, IMMOLS provides assets visibility for better utilization of available resources; Provide information triggers for mid course correction in various materials management processes;Reduction in inventory levels (leading to huge savings); Improved fleet serviceability, etc.

Involving an investment outlay of around Rs 55 crore, TCS IMMOLS has been implemented in a distributed manner at various depots of IAF and replaces the current manual system of materials management in IAF at all levels of hierarchy and at all its headquarters and units across the country. In all, around 130 sites of IAF are today being networked by TCS IMMOLS. All personnel of IAF - both users as well as supply chain managers - will now be shifting to TCS IMMOLS, as the application will encompass all materials management tasks, which were till now done manually.

Some of the challenges faced by implementing teams included countering complexity of functionality, geographical spread, distributed data processing, training, large amount of inter base information transfers and most importantly, facing the psychological barriers for change from manual to fully automated systems.

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