Accenture Federal Services secures $25mn contract to assist US Air Force in establishing ‘digital depot
Bill Marion of Accenture Federal Services
Accenture Federal Services has won a $25 million (€23.36 million) digital transformation prime contract to modernise operations for Air Force Sustainment Centre (AFSC) including each of three air logistics complexes (ALCs) at Tinker Air Force based in Oklahoma, Robins air force base in Georgia, and Hill air force base in Utah. Using an approach that includes cloud, edge computing, and industrial internet of things (IIoT), Accenture Federal Services is creating IIoT enterprise platform for AFSC’s technology hosting environment for NextGen automation, a programme commonly referred to as ATHENA. ATHENA is central to air force’s plan to create “digital depot”, and modernise AFSC operations.
“With more than 25,000 pieces of equipment and 40,000 military and civilian personnel spread across the three air logistics complexes, the Air Force Sustainment Center provides world class aircraft depot maintenance, supply chain management, and operations support for the warfighter. Accenture Federal Services is thrilled to be selected to transform operations for the centre, incorporating connected devices, machine learning, and operational technology (OT) cyber into this complex ecosystem to deliver valuable analytics and manufacturing transformation.” says Bill Marion, managing director in Accenture Federal Services and air force client executive. By securely collecting and transporting OT data generated from disparate sensors and devices onto platform, IIoT data from across entire AFSC enterprise can be integrated and transparently monitored with real-time dashboard capabilities.
“Currently, air force sustainment centre monitoring and servicing in the industrial areas is performed across ten networks with a variety of processes and tools which can lead to pockets of disconnected data sources. Accenture Federal Services looks forward to using state-of-the-art technologies to create a resilient and secure digital depot ecosystem. The platform we’re building will enable the standardisation, visualisation, and integration of data from numerous shop floor machines to support the future industrial area production environment, and ultimately, the success of the warfighter.” says Keith Runtz, a senior managing director in Accenture Federal Services and defense portfolio lead.
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