Merging Air Force Supply and Transportation - Brief Article

Air Force Journal of Logistics, Spring, 2001 by Robert E. Mansfield, Jr, Teresa Marne Peterson

One of the great strengths of Air Force logistics has been our ability to be in the forefront of innovation in our processes, technology, and organization. We have never been hesitant to change when it meant we would be providing better, faster, cheaper, and smarter support to readiness, the warfighters, and their weapons systems. And we are about to do this again as we test the merger of our supply and transportation squadrons.

This test, as part of the Chief of Staffs Logistic Review recommendations, offers some great opportunities to strengthen our ability to support an expeditionary air force through integrated processes and management. We believe a combined squadron should provide a stronger focus on the day-to-day materiel management process, and when we must deploy, we will have a truly seamless capability.

We know there is always some concern about making big changes. That is why we are testing the concepts at seven bases. More than a year's work has gone into this, so there is quite a bit of thinking behind the merger. The possibilities are exciting for improving our effectiveness and for our profession. We will keep the entire Air Force logistics community informed of the test. Once again, we will be demonstrating-when it comes to Air Force logistics-no one comes close!