The annual report for Troika Solutions’ Asset Information Management Solution (AIMS) shows a steady growth of the implementation of the AIMS Automated Armory (AIMS-AA) across a broadened customer base. In 2021, AIMS-AA was installed at six different armories for the Marine Corps and the Navy and included both active duty and reserve organizations.
AIMS-AA is an issue and inventory application that accommodates and digitizes the accountability and inventory of ordnance assets maintained in an armory. This includes the issue/draw, recover, receipt, reporting, and maintenance processes for serialized, and non-serialized weapons, optics, and associated SL-3 and ancillary ordnance equipment. It is specifically designed to meet the standards of accountability related to an armory or other restricted access storage facility. This includes accountability of access and permissions.
New installation of AIMS-AA was completed and operational support provided for the Marine Corps at 1st Intelligence Battalion, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) at Camp Pendleton, CA; for three Marine Corps Forces Reserve units to include Weapons Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Marines, and Golf Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Marines, both in Los Angeles County, CA, as well as Combat Logistics Regiment 45 outside of Atlanta, GA; and at The Basic School, Quantico, VA.
AIMS-AA was installed for the Navy at the Naval Construction Group One in Port Hueneme, CA. NCG-1’s installation included four subordinate organization armories. In addition, Troika Solutions provided a comprehensive demonstration of its capabilities for the Naval Special Warfare Command.
Troika continues to support previous installation at ten other Marine Corps organizations on both the East Coast and West Coast and includes organizations from all elements of the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF).
The largest installation of AIMS-AA was completed recently for the armory that supports The Basic School, which is the second largest armory in the Marine Corps. The Basic School armory supports training for new second lieutenants attending the Basic Officer Course (BOC) as well as newly designated infantry officers attending the Infantry Officer Course (IOC).
The pace of training for these courses is extremely challenging and often requires 24 hour a day armory operations. The ability of the armory to assign, issue, recover, and account for hundreds of serialized assets at a pace that supports training is greatly enhanced by the use of AIMS-AA. A recent initial “bulk issue” to a BOC provides a great example. In less than four hours, over 1,400 serialized weapons assets were issued to a new BOC. This action included verifying individuals with each serialized asset, confirming accounting of all ancillary items, and digitally proceeding through all directed check-out steps to ensure accountability.
Previous issue events without AIMS-AA were described as a “dawn to dusk” events. With AIMS-AA, company staff reported that they are now able to conduct three separate training events in the time they previously had to dedicate to the asset issue by itself.
In a similar vein, a bulk check-in of serialized assets, which included four assets per lieutenant, was accomplished at a rate of approximately one platoon of 48 students in 40 minutes.
AIMS-AA also provides more productive and effective preparation by the armorers prior to the bulk issue. The bulk issue normally includes three optical devices for each primary weapon. This function is called “kitting”.
The manual means to accurately kit the three optics with the weapon, to include by-name assignment, capturing the stow location, completing each individual receipt, and preparing all signatory documentation without AIMS-AA used to take more than a day and was all paper-based. With AIMS-AA, armorers report they can digitally prepare the requisite documentation in a half day or less, and with a much greater certainty of accuracy, as well as more precise audit-ability.
Implementation across numerous types of organizations has proven how agile and scalable AIMS-AA is. The capability is specifically purposed to adjust to customer processes rather than the other way around. A good example of this also involves kitting. In an environment similar to TBS, there are often time restricted, high peak occurrences of asset “swaps”. This is usually caused by the need to replace unserviceable or degraded assets that are included in the kit right before a major training event.
Troika looked at how this process works, and rapidly made a change to ensure swaps didn’t require a return to manual procedures while maintaining the training tempo. Troika is also preparing a proof of concept that will expand the use of bar-coding on serialized assets. This will even further improve both tempo and accuracy.
As highly modernized digitization tool specific to armory operations, processes, and standards, AIMS-AA greatly enhances accountability and visibility for the organization’s assets that have the highest and most challenging accountability and visibility standards and requirements. In the coming year, Troika is looking to introduce similar capabilities for other commodities that require similar accountability standards, such as for communication assets, hazardous materials, and tool room operations. Stay tuned.