The United States Marine Corps were challenged to provide logistics support management for its Global Combat Support System – Marine Corps (GCSS-MC) in disconnected mode.
This can occur, for example, when Marines are without a network connection or on a mission in hostile environments, and they don’t want to risk revealing their position.
To ensure force readiness, the Marine Corps needed a way to submit and track maintenance, parts, and service requests into the GCSS-MC system under restricted or no-bandwidth conditions. Ideally, these requests could then be synced with the GCSS-MC system once connectivity was restored.
Considering the project requirements, and that the Marine Corps was using an Oracle ERP system, Rite-Solutions evaluated several different approaches and solutions.
“In the end, we determined that developing the necessary functionality by configuring a proven commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) product would best meet the customer’s needs and timeline,” recalls Mike Barrera, Director of Federal Business Systems at Rite-Solutions.
Rite-Solutions evaluated and ultimately chose Ventureforth, an Oracle-verified partner with 25 years of experience in the mobile SaaS sector. The company offers cloud-based mobile apps that help defense, civilian, and commercial organizations efficiently manage timesheets, fleet maintenance, field service, inventory operations, asset maintenance, and more.
The Ventureforth Field Service Mobility Solution (vField) was perfect for this project. Available for multiple operating systems, the app features an easy-to-use mobile interface and robust integration to help technicians automate the process of executing service request tasks and recording the work performed. The vField solution involved a customized configuration of workflow and prioritization of requests that get sent when the Marine Corps operate in a restricted environment.
“The goal was to give the Marine Corps the ability to continue with their mission, even when they were operating under adverse networking conditions,” says Ventureforth CEO, Charles Farnell.
After a five-day demonstration in which the system was put under duress, the solution was determined to be a success.
The system-of-systems approach that Rite-Solutions has used for 20 years with Department of Defense contracts, also proved successful in the company’s first Other Transaction Authority (OTA) contract. The transparent approach considers legacy, custom, cloud, COTS, and open-source systems to provide innovative solutions that best meet the customers’ needs, timeframe, and budget.
