The Australian Department of Defence has invited systems integrators to register their interest in the SAP-based Defence Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Program, expected to be the largest of its kind in Australia’s public sector.
The program has been initiated in response to the First Principles Review, completed in 2015, which found that the agency’s effectiveness “suffers from a proliferations of structures, processes and systems with unclear accountabilities which cause institutionalised waste, flawed execution and duplication”.
Defence was directed by the Government to adopt a more seamless enterprise approach to the delivery of enabling services.
According to tender documents, the aim of the Defence ERP Program is to deliver transformation across Defence’s finance and logistics domains, underpinned by a near real-time integration view of its critical information from a single source.
The program landscape, selected “following a rigorous technology evaluation process”, will include the Defense Forces and Public Security (DFPS) component of the SAP system, as well as SAP’s S/4HANA platform for implementation of a new financial chart of accounts.
The program will be implemented in three tranches, with the first comprising finance and foundation modules, the second logistics, procurement and estate components, and the final engineering and maintenance.
Among the business processes to be addressed by the program are procure to pay, source to distribute, plan to report, project concept to close, develop to retire materiel/assets, estate and service delivery, other finance processes and other logistics processes.
Defence is seeking a range of delivery partners to work on the program, including two systems integrators, a strategic partner, a technology partner, and an organisational change management partner. A clarification to the original documents states that organisations chosen to be systems integrator partners will not be eligible to also be selected as strategic partner or organisational change management partner.
The invitation to register closes on 23 June 2016, with the final contracts for the project expected to be signed in November 2017, following an extensive RFT process.
