Thoughts on GCSS Army?

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 18:03:52 -0400

I have been in the Army long enough to see ULLS-G, SAMS-E and now GCSS Army. It is a program that is "going to make our lives simpler". It will be global and PBUSE and SAMS-1E will actually become one system from what I understand. We have been told to prepare for the fielding so scrubbing the SAMS-1E box against the Units supply hand receipt is essential not that it wasn't already but it has emphasized greatly since this new program and I hear that it will be near three more years before it is fielded to all of the Army.

Response by CW3 Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 19 at 2014 6:24 PM

CW3 Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 18:24:37 -0400

SFC Compton,
I have a GCSS-A account but I usually only pull my recoverable list off it. Only issue I really have with it now is I'll have an old recoverable item pop up out the blue weeks later saying we still owe a turn in. I hate to see SAMS-1E go because I know it like the back of my hand!

Response by MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca made Jul 20 at 2014 11:31 AM

MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca — Sun, 20 Jul 2014 11:31:06 -0400

DoD needs its own software division. The government contracting and specification regs makes the process take to long to get any useful software out to the target audience in a meaningful amount of time. Look how long it takes to get a new aircraft or weapons system into SMs hands, and the same process is used for software development. By the time the software gets from the drawing board out to a computer near you, the manual process and governing regs have probably changed enough to render it obsolete. Software needs a DoD security and object based framework - something similar to Microsoft's framework - as a base platform for all apps to make development, integration, compatibility and deployment easier. The process also needs REAL & REAL-TIME input (can't rely solely on retired military in paid government contracting positions whose point of view and data may be out of date) during the development stage to make systems successful, timely and relevant.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 31 at 2015 11:11 AM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:11:23 -0400

We have been using it for about 8 months now and overall the experience has been so-so. The initial fielding we received at the SSA I work at was horrible. The fielding team's knowledge is minimal and any issues you run into during the "right seat ride" better be super simple or you wont get a resolution, at least we didn't. For the 2 weeks they were here it just felt like we were pretty much on our own to learn the system, luckily we had coordinated earlier to do some OJT with another unit on post that had been using it for over a year and that helped immensely. I think the intention behind GCSS Army is good, but just like every initial fielding of a STAMIS system it has a lot of kinks to work out. I highly recommend getting some hands on with the system waaay before your actual fielding. The system itself is not intuitive at all and provides significantly more info onscreen than PVT Snuffy will ever need and in my opinion only serves to over complicate the receipt and issue process. Having been using it for a while now I can appreciate some of the tracking capabilities it includes I just wish it was more intuitive. Also on a side note, thanks for posing a question other than politics/personal opinion.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 26 at 2017 7:25 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 19:25:03 -0400

Where do I start? We just got on Wave - 2 and it has been a nightmare. We had one week of training and everyone expects us to be experts. We now have to issue our bench stock to work orders and it is taking us a long time to do it. We opened help tickets for an issue we were having and the person who was supposed to help asked me jokingly "what do you want me to do about it". Not funny. Then he said "I really can't help you because I don't know what is causing your problem and I don't know how to fix it. So just keep clicking enter and you will be able to clear your screen".

It might be a great system for some. But for our supply office it's not good at the moment.
Our maintenance personnel need/want their bench stock ASAP and we have to process all these transactions in gcss-a before we can give it to them.
We were able to receive and issue all our parts within the day now we leave for the day and we have stacks of parts slips and parts that have not been issued because it's so time consuming.
I don't think I have ever felt so frustrated in my life. I even dream about gcss-army at night.
I know it will be some time before we are able to function properly as all systems do. I just wish we had more training from the beginning.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made May 23 at 2017 9:48 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 23 May 2017 21:48:53 -0400

I've also used ULLS-G, SAMS1-E, and PBUSE. I've been using GCSS-A since November. My take on it is that it is a horrible management tool, but an excellent micro-management program. The degree of bean counting is insane! It is also extremely prone to errors, everything must be entered pretty much as it happens to about problems later, and the training during fielding was absolute shit! Don't get me wrong, the instructors themselves were very helpful and knowledgeable, but the training material itself was hardly even worthy of even calling it a simple check the box course. The system was basically thrust upon us and then we were simply released into the wild.
I've been using GCSS-A for about 6 months now. It does okay if you actually take the time to learn it and own your new roles. It's mainly been staff that don't want to learn the system or accept the new duties it comes with that are the most miserable. There are things that I like and things that I don't. The relation between work orders and equipment fault notifications is pure trash. If you have 5 faults on a work order they will reach repeat 5 times on the 5988-E. What equipment operator is going to use a 6 page long 5988-E to do PMCS? You'd be lucky if they can even understand what it says!
Then there is the whole issue of it being online only. Yup! That's great. Like we've never deployed to remote regions where there was no internet, or even electricity for that matter. Keep your manual forms and report printouts available in case you lose connection or the power goes it. It can otherwise result in some serious down time.
The new licensing capabilities are as nice feature though. You can now simply reassign an employee profile to a new unit and all the qualifications and training stays in the record. There is still no code for H8 Recovery Training though. That was an important code for wrecker operators to have in the past.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made May 12 at 2019 9:32 AM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 12 May 2019 09:32:52 -0400

Horrible system that needs to be overhauled already or replaced. Simple tasks take literally all day to learn and it wastes lots of time. Not user friendly at all