US Air Force Scraps ERP Project After $1 Billion Spent

angry tapir writes "The U.S. Air Force has decided to scrap a major ERP (enterprise resource planning) software project after spending $1 billion, concluding that finishing it would cost far too much more money for too little gain. Dubbed the Expeditionary Combat Support System (ECSS), the project has racked up $1.03 billion in costs since 2005, 'and has not yielded any significant military capability,' an Air Force spokesman said in a statement. 'We estimate it would require an additional $1.1B for about a quarter of the original scope to continue and fielding would not be until 2020. The Air Force has concluded the ECSS program is no longer a viable option for meeting the FY17 Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) statutory requirement. Therefore, we are canceling the program and moving forward with other options in order to meet both requirements.'"

Comments

Ouch.

[Sorthum]

Seems that this is a common theme with ERP rollouts-- scope creep tends to get them all in the end. Granted, most organizations seem to wave off long before the $1 billion mark...

Re:Ouch.

[Amouth]

I love how each branch of the DoD gets to pick it's own ERP solution. It says Oracle won it over SAP, not that i have a preference but SAP has a showing of being successful in the market via is use in the Navy. With all ERP solutions there are going to be issues, but overall the Navy has been very successful with their SAP deployment.

Again, why isn't this pushed from the top of the DoD vs. every branch figuring it out and reinventing the wheel each time?

Re:Ouch.

[icebike]

One has to wonder if the Navy was all that successful or just willing to handle a portion of the job, or willing to settle for half the result.

You will never know, because those who do have too much ass to cover, and they will be slipping in fixes and upgrades for decades, before deciding the whole thing is too top heavy.

Systems of this size are grandiose and seldom successful. Not only government fails at systems this big, private industry does as well. But private industry learns from their costly mistakes faster. Google is a good example. They hold a house cleaning each spring and just arbitrarily kill off projects that have no chance of a ROI.

Its amazing that two world wars were fought with this kind of stuff being handled by people.

Re:New project

[ShanghaiBill]

Are the victims of drone attacks complaining much about the quality of service?

Most drone attacks are done by the CIA, not the Air Force. If the Air Force launched the attacks, the results could be second guessed by CIA analysts evaluating satellite photos. But if the CIA both launches the attacks and evaluates the results, it is all wrapped up in a neat little package with no loose strings of accountability.

Re:There IS accountability

[cusco]

And our "ally" Israel has launched terrorist attacks against Americans on US soil, attempted to bomb the offices of a Muslim US senator, has repeated been caught carrying out espionage against our intel agencies and businesses, deliberately feeds false intel to the State department, sells weapons to our enemies, sells our military technology to China, attempted to bomb the Mexican parliament, and boasts about carrying out false flag terrorist attacks so that the US will retaliate against their enemies for them. Hopefully Netenyahu shot himself in the foot with his open endorsement of Romney.