Thank you for the question.
The defence resource management information system is what you're talking about. When we describe the convergence of all of these systems we had, that's what we're talking about. A decade ago we even had two separate instances of SAP. We had a materiel acquisition support information system and a financial management system, both SAP-based, in different versions that talked to each other. We had another system for materiel and inventory, another system for people, and a plethora of systems underneath those, not at the enterprise level, with all of the suppliers.
Through our colleagues in information management, we've had an information management road map to pull this all into creating a true enterprise system, as they would call it in the commercial context, such that we have one system of records that now does all of this. That is the piece for which we underestimated the time to get to full amalgamation. We fully brought it all together in December of 2013 or in early 2014. Of course, in transferring all the data, we had a year to a year and a half of data cleanup to do.
We are now there. We are doing much more business analytics using it. Mr. Chen asked about some of the work we're doing around overbuys. We've created resource planning tools that actually track buys and overbuys and buys against dormant stocks, and a whole bunch of things that we can now do with this one system in place. We are using it much more for business analytics, as I mentioned, and decision-making. It is there.
It is our system of record financially as well. It is the system that I use in project management, in materiel, in inventory. It is coming together. We are probably the world leaders. We talk to SAP about how we're now using this from a military enterprise perspective. That is now there. We need to continue to grow it, and we recognize that, but the thing about the system that we brought together is that it is highly complex, and now, as we get into it and make changes.... For example, how do we use the fields around inventory? For aircraft, the manufacturing part number is so important, whereas for other equipment, a NATO stock number is the key piece. We wind up dealing with conflicts and issues and processes to make sure, as I said earlier on, that we are transforming.
However, DRMIS is an incredibly important enabler, and it is an operational system. Aircraft do not fly unless they're actually recorded as green in DRMIS, because that's the indication that all their maintenance has been done. It is an absolutely key enabler for us.