Building blocks of focused logistics: two initiatives—Logistics Transformation and the Future Logistics Enterprise—will lay the foundation for achieving focused logistics

Army Logistician, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Robert D. Paulus

Focused logistics is the Department of Defense's (DOD's) concept for providing global sustaintainment to warfighters operating in joint, interagency, and multinational (JIM) environments under Joint Vision 2020. This second article in Army Logisticians series on the Focused Logistics Campaign Plan--the roadmap to focused logistics--discusses the the two initiatives that constitute the building blocks of focused logistics: Logistics Transformation and the Future Logistics Enterprise. Together, according to the plan, they "represent a shift from supply-based logistics to a leaner, more agile distribution-based logistics system."

Logistics Transformation

The Logistics Transformation initiative is targeted at correcting two huge obstacles to achieving focused logistics: the lack of an integrated logistics information system and the lack of a source of accurate, realtime information needed to support such a system.

When military thinkers and planners talk about such desirable characteristics of a force as agility, mobility, and flexibility, they basically are talking about speed. As we have seen in Operation Iraqi Freedom, speed wins. But combat speed cannot be sustained without support that also is speedy, or, more accurately, timely. This is what logisticians mean when they repeat the mantra: getting the right support to the warfighter in the right place, at the right time, and in the right quantities. No combat force will maintain its speed if it runs out of fuel, ammunition, food, repair parts, medical supplies, or the other commodities furnished by logisticians.

This is why information is so important, and why advances in information technology are providing rich opportunities for logisticians to support the warfighter as never before. In the Information Age, victory will go to the force that has the right information at the right time. The right information will give the warfighter the situational awareness he needs to make the right decisions that will lead to victory. But the warfighter cannot be truly aware of his situation on the battlefield without real-time logistics information. The provision of real-time information will increase the warfighter's confidence in his support and in his logisticians.

Logistics Transformation lays the foundation for the awareness the warfighter needs by

* Adopting the best logistics business practices available.

* Moving to a logistics system open architecture that can provide integrated logistics information that can be acted on by decisionmakers.

* Improving logistics responsiveness to the joint warfighter.

To achieve these capabilities, Logistics Transformation will rely on four fundamental changes to logistics practices

* Customer wait time (CWT). This is a metric used to assess the effectiveness of the supply chain. It will measure the time from the moment when a customer's requirement is documented in the supply system to the moment when the customer reports he has received the material he ordered.

* Time-definite delivery (TDD). Implementation of the TDD concept will assure customers that their requests will be filled within a specific time frame for a specific geographic area. TDD will use a simplified priority ordering system and will be based on standards now under development. TDD will represent a significant change to existing requisition and distribution practices.

* Total asset visbility (TAV). TAV gives users visibility of materiel throughout the supply chain, whether it is being purchased, undergoing maintenance, in storage, or in transit. Fixed and deployable automatic identification technology (AIT) placed at critical locations in the supply chain collects and reports data that can be used as the basis for decisionmaking.

* Web-based, shared-data environment. The World Wide Web provides the technological means to take the mass of data collected by automated systems and make it available in real time to warfighters and logisticians. Real-time information means real-time situational awareness.

CWT, TDD. TAV, and the Web together create a new customer-oriented logistics environment new business practices, new technologies, new responsiveness to customers, and new decisionmaking power for warfighters. The result will be a new logistics system that is no longer supply based (no mountains of iron as amassed in the past to make sure plenty of materiel was available to meet any contingency) but distribution based (capable of responding to customer needs with speed and agility).

Future Logistics Enterprise

DOD's process of achieving Logistics Transformation will move through the Future Logistics Enterprise (FLE). The FLE is the mid-term vision for transformation, to be realized during the years 2005 to 2010. According to the Focused Logistics Campaign Plan

   The primary objective of the FLE is to ensure
   consistent, reliable support that meets warfighter
   requirements through enterprise integration and
   end-to-end customer service. The FLE builds
   upon and accelerates specific, ongoing [military]
   service and [Defense] agency initiatives to meet
   the requirements of the Quadrennial Defense
   Review and the National Defense Strategy.

   The FLE will feature six initiatives