daftandbarmy
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Office Production Paths - CFR or Bust?
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Or to the NCMs realizing early that you were beyond redemption.I know, right? I put that down to me not being vigilant enough
CountDC
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In the late 80's we had a member of the cadets join the reserves directly as a Cpl wearing jump wings. Probably helped that his father was an RSM that commissioned as Capt so had contacts.
hmmm - not so sure about the management part in some places.We're Material Management Techs now
You know me too well lol.
Interesting enough some Fin O's I have had the privilege to meet have indicated to me that their degree did nothing for them as it was geared towards the business world and the military didn't follow the same logic. One even stated he wish he didn't have the degree as it was confusing him too much.
Halifax Tar
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When there is no material in the CFSS the management part is easy
For a lot of late Dec/January, 'it do be like that' as the kids say.
Halifax Tar
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Ya... It's been a frustrating period of time for my Storesmen and Departmental Storesmen.
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I hear you, and the worse part is we are finally getting in buys we did a big push through 2022 and 2023 to get out. Getting a half dozen rejections from QC a week, and the work around is to accept them under the NSN and use whatever active MMR is as a placeholder.
So now instead of something that is tech compliant to the NSN under the NSN, it's now under the MMR for a specific OEM pn and NCAGE.
Looking forward to returns for R&O or disposal where the part number was wiped in DRMIS because it wasn't the most recent 3 2, or the NSN was deleted all together because it had no usage in DRMIS in however many years (which is basically most of the big valves and things that are DWP work and at end of life).
None would have been avoided by a CFR in the log side either; this was straight DRMIS wonks driving how we do things instead of the customers requirements.
Sigh....
Halifax Tar
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Ya I am sure there is some deep DRMIS reason for it but from where I sit it just complicated things. The Storseys adapted fast, but the Dept Storesmen are still scratching their heads.
I don't get why we went away from NSNs... Isn't that part of the whole STANAG thing ?
MJP
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It is acceptable to bring it under that MPN:NCAGE as it is the same material in the system. Material isn't tracked by the NSN or MPN:NCAGE in the system. Those are just outward facing numbers that could be anything. Material in the system in reality pre & post MI is tracked by the Internal Master Master Record (MMR) Number which is created at the time the MMR was created in SAP. It is the primary keyboard to use database terms. Any NSN that was converted by MI to an MPN:NCAGE has the same internal MMR and is the same material in the system. So regardless if you put in the NSN or the MPN:NCAGE it is tracked as the same material
Yes I agree they never should have created MPN:NCAGEs for specific OEM PN & NCAGE but as far as the system is concern it is the same material. At this stage it is just a material identifier same as the NSN was just a material identifier with many parts under it. If I had a bin full of parts under an NSN with 10 different parts numbers Pre-MI and I got a demand any one of those parts would have been picked and sent. The same holds true post-MI as the MPN:NCAGE is just the identifier of that particular material much like the NSN was.
I was at one of the depots last week and discussed this with the other one's key staff. There are a few weird Harolds but generally the material arriving at the depots with an MPN:NCAGE is GTG to reciept and manage as we did before. They are all linked to existing material and can be managed the exact same way they were pre-MI.
NSNs still exist and new material that will be or could be used in a NATO context will still go through the process to get NSNs assigned (NIIN will be the field the DRMIS MMR).
Speak broadly on MI, the old system had little rigor for NSN creation and DRMIS was highly customized, plus creation of NSN took a long time. Which created more work as we created PSCNs to get around material we wanted to use right away. Years of bad data led to a bunch of things in MMR data that made it difficult to maintain material and for users to have trust in the system. Having 50 different records for a normal 10 foot ladder or basic cordless drill is not optimum.
MI fixes many of these issues by adding rigor to the MMR creation process, it consolidates any custom DND fields and gets rid of duplicate fields within the MMR. It is part of a larger trend that will see us do less customization and use out of the box solutions in the future.
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@MJP, this is exactly my frustration with it, we've replaced an NSN, which used to capture a bunch of parts, to an overly specific OEM part identifier, which we are now using.... exactly like an NSN. We absolutely have already put parts from other OEMs and/or NCAGES under that MMR, while referencing the NSN tech standards, so all we've actually done is create a random number to confuse things more instead of using the NSN as the MMR, with even worse visibility then before.
I like the additional data fields for creating new entries, but the cleanup absolutely f*cked us by deleting a lot of part numbers and NSNs still in active use. It would have been a lot easier if they had just changed the NSNs to MMRs, and let us upload additional part number tech data as they come in, while keeping legacy data (because those parts are still on ships and doing things like R&O)
You may not use the NSN when moving widgets in DRMIS, but it is absolutely the primary reference in tech data, when operating with allies (IAW the STANAGS) and every single time we buy something.
It was a decision made by people who have never worked as supply managers, LCMMs, maintainers, or done logistic movements with allies.
I think wanting to go to out of the box solutions makes no sense as we aren't a business, so our actual business processes that are embedded in maintenance and operational practices and SOPs don't align with what businesses do.
Maybe makes sense in one aspect, but the wonky system we had at least worked. Less duplicate fields and more out of the box solution (that we've already invested billions to develop) don't mean much if you break the current system.
I like the additional data fields for creating new entries, but the cleanup absolutely f*cked us by deleting a lot of part numbers and NSNs still in active use. It would have been a lot easier if they had just changed the NSNs to MMRs, and let us upload additional part number tech data as they come in, while keeping legacy data (because those parts are still on ships and doing things like R&O)
You may not use the NSN when moving widgets in DRMIS, but it is absolutely the primary reference in tech data, when operating with allies (IAW the STANAGS) and every single time we buy something.
It was a decision made by people who have never worked as supply managers, LCMMs, maintainers, or done logistic movements with allies.
I think wanting to go to out of the box solutions makes no sense as we aren't a business, so our actual business processes that are embedded in maintenance and operational practices and SOPs don't align with what businesses do.
Maybe makes sense in one aspect, but the wonky system we had at least worked. Less duplicate fields and more out of the box solution (that we've already invested billions to develop) don't mean much if you break the current system.
TangoTwoBravo
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Are the DRMIS in the computer?
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I think it is what the computer eats when it is hungry.
daftandbarmy
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Or the nightclub?
Urban Dictionary: Dermis Slut
A straight person who gets very touchy feely around gays.
www.urbandictionary.com
ballz
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That is unfortunately a slight against the CAF in that it has strayed from so far from optimal in its back-end support from anything recognizable to the business world and a slight against the Fin O's own competence in that they couldn't recognize it.
ballz
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CAF Fin Os are mostly employed as financial/budget managers, not as CPA business enablers.
There is a need for military input into financial structures and policies, to be able to explain that yes, a missile can cost north of a million dollars, require regular maintenance and upgrades in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but is still consumable inventory and not a capital asset.
But the question of what rank should be terminal for finance officers is valid. Arguably, the need for deployable financial support tops out around Maj. HQ functions could and probably should be civilianized. It was explained to me that Fin Os above the rank of Maj are needed in HQs because military leaders wouldn't trust civilians...
CountDC
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I think at least part of the problem is that we have such tight controls on us that we simply can't function the same as the business world. There are things we do that just don't make sense at all. At least there was a recent change to the procurement process in regard to quotes that was a good step.
He was actually a very good Fin O, just that his business training and military ways were in conflict so when he was doing somethings, he would start to do it the correct business way and then realize it was not the military way so had to fix it.
Now if I could just understand why finance staff are involved in the MM side of DRMIS????? Is it really that hard for the supply oops mean material management to figure it out? 3 years ago I could only give it to the QL5 supply tech now I am supposed to have cbt arms playing FSA do it.
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Along the CFR lines of things, don't see why some officer occupations don't have a formal transition to 'civilianize' about a certain rank, as you are effectively doing civilian jobs. It would give that military background, but also allow you to put a trained person in a selected job they wanted and had experience in and give you long term stability.
It happens in practice anyway everytime you get openings for Eng 5s, Exs etc I guess, especially after people qualify for the annuity.
If it was more widespread though, it actually costs most in SWE for the civilian doing the same jobs, and you have to pay pesky things like OT. Ironically very easy to have CAF member remote work though, which is making it easier to fill NCR jobs where that is workable.
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The RCEME MGen who was razzing me once went very quiet when I observed that the RCEME home station should have been, at the time, Louis St Laurent.
There are multiple Ottawa centric occupations where the CAF needs to rethink the uniformed requirement.
There are multiple Ottawa centric occupations where the CAF needs to rethink the uniformed requirement.
daftandbarmy
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I think there are definitley some civilian workplace skills that would come in handy at certain rank levels, but if we have Senior Officers doing jobs that are better done by a civilian then we'd better pull them outta there and call it a civil service position ....
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