AFRL prototyping four applications to improve program management, accounting

The Air Force Research Laboratory is prototyping four business applications it hopes will create a cheaper, simpler way to oversee research and development programs.

The Air Force aims to streamline how it plans programs and manages money with a shared platform that also respects each AFRL site's unique processes, according to Chadwick Pfoutz, deputy division chief for enterprise business systems at AFRL. He spoke about how the service is modernizing its information technology at a Nov. 8 conference hosted by Pegasystems, which offers the cloud-based Pega business management software.

"We have a full-blown tasker app, we a have work unit initiation [app] -- think of working on a project, we have a program management app and we have a planning, something to help with our [program objective memorandum] process," he said of Pega. "I have five of the nine directorates of AFRL working on those prototypes right now."

Pfoutz told Inside Defense all four will be in production by May. The Air Force should start seeing cost and schedule savings -- as well as more automation and fewer data silos -- by next summer.