Accenture Federal Services wins $25 million award to help U.S. Air Force build first-of-its-kind “Digital Depot”

Accenture Federal Services has won a $25 million digital transformation prime contract to modernize operations for the Air Force Sustainment Center (AFSC) including each of the three Air Logistics Complexes (ALCs) at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, and Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

Using an approach that includes cloud, edge computing, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Accenture Federal Services is creating a new IIoT enterprise platform for the AFSC’s Technology Hosting Environment for NextGen Automation, a program commonly referred to as ATHENA. ATHENA is central to the Air Force’s plan to create a first-of-its-kind “digital depot”, and ultimately, modernize AFSC operations.

“With more than 25,000 pieces of equipment and 40,000 military and civilian personnel spread across the three Air Logistics Complexes, the Air Force Sustainment Center provides world class aircraft depot maintenance, supply chain management, and operations support for the warfighter,” says Bill Marion, a managing director in Accenture Federal Services and Air Force client executive. “Accenture Federal Services is thrilled to be selected to transform operations for the Center, incorporating connected devices, machine learning, and Operational Technology (OT) cyber into this complex ecosystem to deliver valuable analytics and manufacturing transformation.”

By securely collecting and transporting OT data generated from disparate sensors and devices onto the platform, IIoT data from across the entire AFSC enterprise can be integrated and transparently monitored with real-time dashboard capabilities.

“Currently, Air Force Sustainment Center monitoring and servicing in the industrial areas is performed across ten networks with a variety of processes and tools which can lead to pockets of disconnected data sources,” says Keith Runtz, a senior managing director in Accenture Federal Services and defense portfolio lead. “Accenture Federal Services looks forward to using state-of-the-art technologies to create a resilient and secure digital depot ecosystem. The platform we’re building will enable the standardization, visualization, and integration of data from numerous shop floor machines to support the future industrial area production environment, and ultimately, the success of the warfighter.”

The period of performance for the ATHENA contract is up to five years.