Achieving Data Quality Within the Logistics Modernization Program

Abstract

The Joint Munitions Command (JMC) provides bombs and bullets to U.S. forces all Services and all types of conventional ammunition, from bunker-buster bombs to rifle rounds. The JMC manages the plants that produce more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition annually and the depots that store the nation's ammunition for training and combat. The JMC is currently accountable for $30 billion of munitions and missiles. For about 30 years, the JMC used the Commodity Command Standard System to manage its inventory, and the Standard Depot System to administer depot-level maintenance operations. In 1999, the JMC initiated an effort to replace those antiquated systems with the Logistics Modernization Program (LMP), an enterprise resource planning system that held the promise of reducing inventory, improving forecast planning for supply and demand, and providing a single source of data for decision-making by transforming logistics operations in six core processes: order fulfillment, supply and demand planning, procurement, asset management, materiel maintenance, and financial management. In 2010, the JMC finally fielded the LMP. However, a variety of factors have prevented the JMC from fully benefiting from the LMP's promised functionality, especially the fight to achieve and maintain data quality. This study examines published data quality records to identify data quality patterns or trends that exist in component organizations of the JMC and links them to strategies for reducing data defects. The findings and implications of this study are discussed.