MTMC shifts Yokohama container freight station work - Military Traffic Management Command - Brief Article

Translog: Journal of Military Transportation Management, Nov-Dec, 2001 by Terri Kojima

In another step aimed at concentrating on its core mission responsibilities, the Military Traffic Management Command has modified its Yokohama container freight station workload.

Effective Oct. 1, the station's work has been shifted to Defense Distribution Center Yokosuka-Japan.

"The change eliminates duplication of effort in relationship to container management on mainland Japan," said Maj. Jacqueline Lett, Executive Officer, 836th Transportation Battalion.

"This includes loading and unloading containers, documentation for container movements, and port clearance."

Sixteen Master Labor Contract personnel who conducted container freight station operations at the battalion will now augment the Defense Distribution Center staff at Yokosuka. The organization is a subordinate element of the Defense Logistics Agency.

The decision to transfer the function resulted after months of review by a working group of the 836th Transportation Battalion. The group was established to take a hard look at improving the efficiency of port operations.

The change at MTMC will actually result in an increase in work by Defense Distribution Center Yokosuka-Japan, at the battalion's North Dock.

"Once approved by United States Army Japan," said Lett, "they will establish an additional operations site here, using six of the 16 Master Labor Contract personnel transferred from the transportation battalion."

Approximately 90 percent of all mainland cargo shipped in the Defense Transportation System is containerized. Of that total, fifteen percent that would have previously transited through the 836th Transportation Battalion is now routed to Defense Distribution Yokosuka-Japan for processing.

The 836th Transportation Battalion continues to provide vital transportation services in Yokohama. The battalion retains container management and customs clearance of all cargo and loading and discharging cargo from Military Sealift Command controlled and chartered vessels.

The center currently operates a cold storage facility, a general-purpose warehouse, and a climate-control warehouse on the installation. Additional warehouse space previously used by the 836th Transportation Battalion will be added to its inventory.

The change is only the latest in a series of shifted workloads at MTMC's container freight stations.

In the last two years, MTMC has closed three of four container freight stations in the United States.

The Kent, Wash., container freight station, near Seattle, closed Feb. 28. Two stations in California-in Alameda and Oakland-closed in 1999.

The container freight stations' workload has been shifted to the Defense Logistics Agency's Defense Distribution Center's facility in Tracy, Calif.

The container freight stations represented considerable duplication, said Frank Galluzzo, Director, Distribution Analysis Center.

"Shifting the workload to the Defense Distribution Center has made a lot of sense. They do the same work with several shifts of workers on a 24-hour basis.

"The whole idea is to recognize the specific talents various components contribute to the Defense Transportation System," said Galluzzo. "Here, we are reducing some costly redundancies.

"The goal is to reduce the freight distribution platforms to a few," said Galluzzo. "Then you can explode distribution from a select number of ports."