Marine Corps Logistics Command Albany, Ga. -- Marine Corps Logistics Command hosted business blueprint workshops over the last few weeks in order to begin the process of migrating to Navy Enterprise Resource Planning platform.
The workshops brought together key representatives from Department of the Navy Office of Financial Policy and Systems, along with MARCORLOGCOM G6 and G8, Marine Depot Maintenance Command and Logistics Services Management Center.
Maj. Matthew Phelps, Navy ERP migration program director, facilitated the workshops for MARCORLOGCOM.
“This is a massive, long term undertaking that will completely transform and optimize our business processes,” Major Phelps said.
The migration of the Navy Working Capital Fund to the ERP is mandated by the Department of the Navy, and provides a number of benefits to the enterprise.
Phelps explained the value by saying, “Our business practices will become streamlined, more efficient, auditable and accountable through the migration as we eliminate multiple legacy systems.”
The workshops are an important first step for everyone involved.
“With the many commands and stakeholders involved in the process, we needed to complete several objectives through the workshops,” Phelps said. “We covered the entire program scope and phases over the multi-year project. We needed to validate the strategy, solution capabilities, roles and responsibilities.”
Many attendees to the workshop emphasized the importance and long term value of the migration. This financial management transformation is critical to providing support to the warfighter. From the National Defense Strategy, through the Department of the Navy, and again in the commandant of the Marine Corps’ Institutional Initiatives, a reformation of our business practices is a re-occurring theme.
In the MARCORLOGCOM commander’s guidance for FY19 and beyond, Brig. Gen. Joseph F. Shrader, reaffirmed that reforming our business practices is one of the command’s most important lines of effort. MARCORLOGCOM Executive Deputy, David Clifton, addressed the workshop and summed up the effort saying, "Consistent with SECNAV guidance, MARCORLOGCOM is implementing Navy ERP into the NWCF in order to upgrade our antiquated systems in support of our mission. This is a very large effort and will fundamentally change many of our business processes. I am convinced the benefits of improved systems will make the effort fully worthwhile."
Phelps noted that MARCORLOGCOM is the only Marine Corps command that will migrate to the Navy ERP.
“A critical component to our workshops is where we collectively gain understanding of the capabilities within the Navy ERP solution, and how they can be applied within the Marine Corps,” he said. “Once we achieved that common understanding we were able to identify and gaps and began working on solutions to mitigate or resolve them.”
The significance of migrating for the Marine Corps was not lost on Major Phelps.
“As we move into the future we want to set the standard for all of the commands that will follow our Navy ERP migration,” he concluded.
The workshops came to a successful completion on Feb. 22. The complete migration is expected to take approximately two years.