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The Ministry of Defence is consolidating its common
cross-service functions into single Tri-service organisations.
The Test Equipment Management Organisation (TEMO) is
the first true Tri-service organisation and is responsible
for the management of the calibration and maintenance
of almost 17,000 lines of test equipment. TEMO are spearheading
Tri-service reform and innovation within the Defence
Logistics Organisation (DLO).
A key TEMO responsibility is to streamline the control
of the calibration and maintenance of test equipment
across Navy bases, numerous Army units, and almost 60
RAF bases worldwide. Central to this control is reliable
asset tracking and high visibility of global asset data.
Also of paramount importance is the high visibility
of controlled documentation relating to many facets
of Equipment Calibration and Control and the reduction
of costs in the production and maintenance of the documentation.
The present working practices for the three services
were based on legacy systems holding inconsistent data
and supported by many paper based systems.
The key to providing a solution was to work with TEMO
to engineer innovative new working practices and have
those practices supported by leading-edge software automation.
The Unicorn solution for TEMO involved the design and
construction of distributed Test Equipment Asset Tracking
system known as TE-Track, and a high profile MODWeb
Intranet site called TEMOWeb to store consolidated asset
information automatically updated from each TE-Track
site. The consolidation updates are performed using
XML communications. TEMO staff can maintain all 'global'
information for TE-Track, such as Asset Types, and when
changed centrally, are automatically sent back out to
all TE-Track sites.
TEMOWeb acts as a central point for access to all distributed
asset information. Importantly, all controlled equipment
documentation is published on TEMOWeb via automatically
produced Adobe PDF documents. TEMOWeb is the 'master'
for the dissemination of this documentation and represents
a considerable cost saving for the MOD.
TEMOWeb also allows for the following:
- Content Management (the site can be changed and
managed without using a Web Site design tool)
- Flexible searching for Assets
- Full text searching of all documents (including
proximity searching)
- Online site statistics reporting
- Online (and remote) maintenance of all site data
The implementation of a centralised distributed Test
Equipment Asset Tracking System that automatically
consolidates its Asset data to a central Intranet
site, and the usage of that site as central point
for all Test Equipment information documentation represents
a significant change in working practices for MOD.
The TE-Track and TEMOWeb combination are cost effective
developments that significantly reduce the considerable
expense associated with Test Equipment Management
and have enhanced the reliability and availability
of crucial Asset information.
As a high profile example of innovation in action
within the MOD, the TEMO solution has attracted considerable
attention as it shows that systems can be simplified,
yet enhanced greatly by embracing new technologies
and techniques and forming relationships with capable
partners.
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