F-FDTL (Forca Falintil Defenca Timor-Leste) is the defence government body of the young country of Timor-Leste, an organisation of 4,000 personnel that in 2018 was looking to overhaul its logistics and asset management system. The legacy system was slow, mostly manual and bureaucratic, and the task at hands was to transform ad-hoc processes into a complete new digital environment.

Similie was then engaged by the Australian Defence Cooperation Program– Timor-Leste (DCP) to develop a Logistics Management System (LMS) for the F-FDTL. This consultancy project aimed to develop and deploy a cloud- based software platform that would support the F-FDTL to perform key logistics and asset management tasks, which are critical to any modern defence force.

The logistics and asset management system is in its final stages of development with user-based testing and the preparation of a comprehensive training and mentoring program as part of Similie’s approach – technology walks along with customised training and change management.

The LMS manages all the standard operating procedures related to logistics and asset management in F-FDTL and includes all the features of a modern logistics system: purchase ordering, work orders, point of sale (POS), cost- coding, warehouse inventory and asset management scheduling. The LMS is a game changer for the F-FDTL – for the first time it will have the ability to know the cost of their operations and perform budget forecasting.

Additionally, the system comes with cutting-edge technologies: it uses blockchain to create a secure environment and uses the NATO codification system (NATO Stock Numbers (NSN)) for assets. From a slow and bureaucratic setting, F-FDTL’s system is now compatible to other major military logistics and asset management systems globally, allowing Timor-Leste defence force to participate in international peacekeeping and to be proud of its digital transformation.