Joint asset visibility: Why so hard? The way ahead: in the fourth and final article of his series on joint asset visibility, the author looks at some of the problems faced by those trying to provide joint asset visibility and the steps being taken to alleviate those problems

Army Logistician, Jan-Feb, 2008 by James C. Bates

A thorough logistics analysis of distribution problems experienced during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom reveals how important joint total asset visibility (JTAV) has become to success in modern warfare and how necessary it is to consider the entire global supply chain when developing JTAV improvements. SOLE--The International Society of Logistics supports this perspective by emphasizing fundamentals like JTAV and advocating that logistics be viewed as a total system.

Obtaining an overarching perspective is a tremendous challenge for the Department of Defense (DOD). DOD is not only enormous, its internal supply chain is truly global. Moreover, tens of thousands of disparate commercial companies, both domestic and foreign, provide supplies, transportation, and logistics communications and information-processing software and equipment to DOD worldwide. Coordinating the physical movement and storage of DOD supplies on such a global scale is incredibly complex. However, capturing the information pertaining to this movement and storage, integrating it within automated information systems, and ensuring that it is accessible to interested stakeholders throughout the global supply chain via wide area networks is far more complicated. With this in mind, DOD has initiated efforts to develop joint logisticians who understand the global supply chain and the logistics management information systems associated with it.

Need for Redesign

Lacking the information technology advancements that are available today, past DOD logistics leaders made far-reaching decisions based on a narrower focus of the supply chain. Stand-alone software systems were fielded without much thought as to how effective they would be in sharing their information with information networks. For instance, tactical Marine Corps asset management systems were not designed to be interoperable with the Army's tactical systems. The plethora of logistics information codes and data elements used by wholesale logistics providers overwhelmed tactical logisticians. Some of these codes were redundant and unnecessarily complex and were designed for a specific software program, not the supply chain as a whole.

To ensure interoperability throughout the DOD global supply chain, the joint asset visibility architecture should be redesigned from the top down. The current systems were designed primarily from the bottom up; this is why many of the automated information systems are not interoperable. An extra effort should be made to ensure that data are not disjointed or systems designed solely from the narrow perspective of an individual service, agency, or functional (supply, transportation, or finance) community.

In Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report 05-345, Better Strategic Planning Can Help Ensure DOD's Successful Implementation of Passive Radio Frequency Identification, William M. Solis recommends a comprehensive DOD approach to JTAV. This GAO report says--

      While DOD has taken a number of actions to
   direct the implementation of passive RFID [radio
   frequency identification], it has not yet developed a
   comprehensive strategic management approach....

      Officials estimate system interoperability to
   be the most expensive element of implementation
   because of the various systems that will need to
   be integrated to exchange automated shipping
   and receiving data from the use of passive RFID
   technology. According to DOD, system interoperability
   entails the ability of systems, units or
   forces to provide data, information, materiel and
   services and to accept the same from other systems,
   units or forces and to use the data, information,
   materiel and services so exchanged to enable
   them to operate effectively together. Interoperability
   includes both the technical exchange
   of information and the end-to-end operational
   effectiveness of that exchange of information
   as required for mission accomplishment. DOD
   envisions a seamless integration between passive
   and active RFID technology; however, such a
   seamless integration cannot take place unless the
   information captured by the RFID technology can
   flow though interoperable logistics information
   systems. According to Navy and Army projections,
   it will be fiscal year 2016--and beyond
   for the Army--before passive RFID will be fully
   implemented into supply chain operations.

      In turn, the DOD military components are also
   unable to develop comprehensive plans to support
   DOD-wide passive RFID implementation due to
   the lack of an overarching DOD comprehensive
   strategic management plan.

      ... an Air Force official explained that because
   DLA [Defense Logistics Agency] and each of the
   services are developing their own plans to incorporate
   passive RFID into existing business processes,
   there is a possibility that implementation in
   each service could be different, leading to limited
   interoperability among the services. If passive
   RFID implementation is not interoperable among
   the services, this could lead to inefficiencies that
   could be avoided if interoperability had been built
   into the services' passive RFID implementation
   plans as these plans developed.