Can Cloud Technologies Help Improve Readiness?

Mark Failor, Senior Director Public Sector Solutions & Alliances at Infor, explored readiness, related platforms, and how to leverage components of cloud-based technology during the Cloud-Based Platforms for Military Readiness class at the NDTA-USTRANSCOM Fall Meeting on October 7, 2019, in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Failor began by noting a shift in readiness was occurring from a phase zero peace era to a phase II prep era. Phase zero peace logistics focuses on the ability to supply and maintain. Phase II prep indicates the environment is contested, creating a need to look at mobile logistics and to focus on sustainment and repair.

Mounting pressure for supply chain visibility is driving change. A supply chain is almost always comprised of or interconnected with several other supply chains. Each chain has its own data making it difficult to get a full picture of what is happening within your chain.

It’s time to rethink logistics. With so many systems consider, there is an increased need for integrated supply chains to manage readiness and support the defense supply chain network. This entails everyone using the same, modern, linked systems to tie the networks together. There is also a need to look at how to clean it up the vast amount of data at an enterprise-level. All these needs can be met in the cloud environment.

Benefits of using cloud-based technology are:

• Improve time to value and business agility
• Decrease hidden and capital expenditures on depreciating assets
• Don’t fall back on releases; avoid diminishing business value while complicating support
• Capitalize on software vendors investments Avoid sub-par performance across backups, uptime, bandwidth, and security

Software companies are designing in the cloud as a software as a service (SaaS). They are using pre-defined solution instances, which would serve as accelerators. This means you get configured processes immediately, allowing you to implement solutions much faster.