Defence has extended its engagement with Accenture for aircraft maintenance software for another three years, handing the tech services giant another $28 million for work it has led for almost two decades.
Accenture beat out a handful of other bids to keep responsibility for managing the Computer Aided Maintenance Management (CAMM2) system it delivered for Defence back in 2006.
The system manages maintenance for hundreds of Defence force aircraft to meet aviation regulatory and maintenance policy and process requirements, but reportedly suffers from a reliance on outdated underlying software.
The extended arrangement comes as Defence hits delays and cost blowouts in its wider enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrade but pledges to phase out legacy technology by the time the contract ends.
Defence went to market for the sustainment service in late 2023 and finalised the procurement in November last year, inking a new $27.7 three-year CAMM2 deal with Accenture.
The system has existed in some form since the late 1980s and Accenture was responsible for design and implementation of the major CAMM2 update around 2004, as well as acquisition and configuration of third-party products used in the system. Accenture’s latest deal takes the value of its known CAMM2 contracts to almost $70 million.
A Defence spokesperson declined to say how the ageing aircraft software is being impacted by the wider Defence ERP uplift.
The Defence ERP project has slipped by half a decade and could now cost $3.5 billion, but is expected to bring a new enterprise asset management framework for Defence materiel, including maintenance.
But the spokesperson did confirm Accenture’s latest sustainment deal is for CAMM2.
“CAMM2 is the Department of Defence aircraft maintenance management system, supporting aviation technical equipment maintenance management needs,” the spokesperson told InnovationAus.com.
The extended use of CAMM2 could cause issues because it reportedly relies on Flash software that Adobe stopped supporting in 2020.
Defence last year unveiled an aggressive plan to phase out legacy IT systems by 2027 under a fresh digital strategy which was warmly welcomed by local technology suppliers.
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