With the advent of the computer age, the United States Military services sought to leverage the power of the computer to accomplish complex calculations and manage complex financial accounting functions. While combining the power of the personal computer with both the vast knowledge repository of the Internet and the support of advanced satellite communication links the, U. S. Military advanced farther and faster than ever before in history. These advancements, however, led to many “stove pipe” information systems that hindered the Department of Defense’s (DoD) ability to fully manage and leverage the power of the huge amounts of information and the knowledge base it now had.

Logistics was and remains today a particular problem that the DoD continues to struggles with in an effort to standardize logistics across the enterprise. Legacy systems written in different languages, utilizing different storage repositories/databases and naming conventions were some of the issues that had to be resolved before a viable system could be realized.