The Challenge

Updating the Job Order Cost Accounting System (JOCAS) with a modern Agile cloud-based Javascript web application. Outdated technology was holding back the U.S. Air Force in accounting and bookkeeping operations. The Job Order Cost Accounting System (JOCAS) relied on an Oracle-based code from the 1990s. The user interface and increasing load times made it incredibly frustrating to use. And the code made it nearly impossible to keep up with feature enhancements.

The Solution

Gray Co-founder Ari Perez worked with a team at Fearless to transform JOCAS into a user-friendly modern Javascript application, under the leadership of the U.S. Air Force’s newly established Business and Enterprise Systems Product Innovation (BESPIN) office. By establishing close working relationships with the existing JOCAS team members, the group employed a user-centered design approach backed by a strong product-led technical team. Feature-by-feature, they began to identify and move parts of the application into the cloud, focusing first on the application layer followed by a full database migration.  

The Results

While the project is still ongoing, there has been significant progress in modernizing JOCAS. With an established high-performing Agile team, they can now complete user stories on a steady bi-weekly sprint cadence. There is a clear plan for migrating the physical data into the cloud and a path to host the application in a secure Cloud-based and U.S. Air Force-run platform as a service.

Areas of Expertise

• Product Management

• Service Design

• User Research

• User Experience Design

• Agile Development

• DevSecOps

• Technical Leadership

• Digital Transformation

• React Development

• Software Factory

** Gray Co-Founder Ari Perez supported this project while serving as Tech Lead for Skylight Digital