Contracting Agency: U.S. Navy and Bender Shipbuilding
Point of Contact: solutions@kbsi.com

MIDAPS Improves Material Management and Procurement at Bender Shipbuilding

One of the most significant, on-going problems facing shipbuilders today, in both new construction and repair, is the inability to efficiently identify, procure, and deliver to the job site the materials necessary to complete the job. And, Bender Shipbuilding and Repair Co., Inc. is no exception. All shipyard material requisitions are currently prepared independently of other projects and are monitored on separate databases. The absence of a centralized database and the lack of a single systematic approach in documenting procurement data create difficulty in preparing and tracking material procurement requests. The current methods result in duplication, surplus material not fully being utilized, a lack of ready access to historical cost information for validating current estimates, and relevant engineering and planning data not linked to current procurement and status data. Data changes in one department are not immediately apparent to other departments. Such information must be uploaded, sometimes manually, into Bender's IBM mainframe system. In an effort to relieve this problem, Bender teamed up with KBSI to produce an application known as the Materials Identification and Procurement System (MIDAPS).