Army Materiel Command: It's All About the Soldier

Army, Oct 2007 by Griffin, Benjamin S

At Army Materiel Command (AMC), one phrase sums up our command philosophy: Focused on the warfighter-units and soldiers. This focus is ingrained in every aspect of AMC. Regardless of command change, organizational change or relocation, we are committed to providing the warfighters with the best available equipment, materiel and services when and where they need it.

When people think about the Army, they usually picture the soldier in the field. But there are tens of thousands of AMC civilians, military servicemembers and contractors who are committed to making sure those soldiers have everything they need to get the job done and return safely. If a soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, communicates with it or eats it, AMC provides it. As the logistics provider for the Army, AMC leverages the industrial capability of the United States not only to equip soldiers today, but also for the future.

AMC is a large, complex organization, fulfilling many roles in keeping the Army "Army Strong." AMC is arrayed in nine major subordinate commands: Army Sustainment Command (ASC); Aviation and Missile Life-Cycle Management Command (LCMC) (AMCOM); Communications-Electronics LCMC (CECOM); Tank-Automotive and Armaments LCMC (TACOM); the Joint Munitions and Lethality LCMC (JM&L); Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC); Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM); Chemical Materials Agency (CMA); and the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC). Army Materiel Command is composed of more than 65,000 military and civilian personnel supported by more than 64,000 contractors at 149 locations in 43 states and 55 countries. As an Army command, we are proud of our accomplishments and have come a long way toward accomplishing our goal of becoming faster, more agile and less bureaucratic. We have made significant changes in recent years, but the past year was one of managing major change while maintaining our focus on the warfighter. While arsenals, depots and field support commands have experienced tremendous surges in requirements (in part because of the Army reset program and the demands of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan), nearly every AMC program has made great strides toward improving processes, expediting production and improving responsiveness.

We now have a persistent face to the field through the Army Sustainment Command, its seven field support brigades (Iraq; Afghanistan; Korea; Germany; Fort Bragg, N.C; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Lewis, Wash./Alaska/Hawaii) and an AMC forward element. Army field support brigade commanders work directly with units in the field to identify their needs and reach back to ASC to address those needs and fix forward whenever possible. ASC is a continental U.S.-based, globally focused theater support command that has greatly improved AMC responsiveness. In addition to field support, ASC coordinates an integrated reset program from field maintenance to sustainment maintenance. It maintains the Army prepositioned stocks program, including configuring sets, storing, issuing of equipment and reconstitution of stocks. It is focused on making sure the Army force generation process is synchronized with logistics support through predeployment training and equipment, left-behind equipment, sustainment, redeployment and reset. It is currently making the transition from the logistics civil augmentation program (LOGCAP) III contract to LOGCAP IV and is building contingency contracting brigades. ASC has 65,000 contractors and manages $25 billion in contracts.

Once ASC identifies the needs of troops in the field, it draws from the skills, knowledge and materiel produced by the Army Materiel Command's four LCMCs: AMCOM, CECOM, TACOM and JM&L. The Life-Cycle Management Command concept brings together the product-focused major subordinate command with the Program Executive Office (PEO) and our research and development laboratories.

The Aviation and Missile LCMC, in partnership with PEO Aviation and PEO Missiles and with the support of the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center, develops, acquires and sustains aviation, missile and unmanned vehicle systems; provides worldwide on-site technical assistance; and maintains airworthiness and safety for all supported systems. AMCOM is focused on supporting the warfighter and sustaining the force. It is currently working at a pace that is four-to-six times that of peacetime conditions. As part of its commitment to the warfighter, it has increased aviation readiness rates from 75 percent in fiscal year (FY) 2004 (the Army goal) to 83 percent in FY 2007. It maintains a worldwide Class IX stock availability above 85 percent. As part of its mission to set the force, it has focused on reset/preset synchronization and has reset more than 2,175 aircraft and preset more than 2,100.

The Communications-Electronics LCMC, in partnership with PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors; PEO Command, Control and Communications Tactical and PEO Enterprise Information Systems- and with the support of Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center- sustains and supports superior full spectrum array of C4ISR (command, control, computers, communication, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems for the Joint warfighter. It manages 132 major defense programs and has reset 120,000 C4ISR items since FY 2004. At the same time, it has fielded approximately 200 software releases. CECOM manages 56,000 national stock numbers (including 6,600 major end items) for the Department of Defense. In support of the warfighter, it has forward deployed 41 depot repair sites, 249 logistics assistance representatives, 453 software engineers and 640 contracting field representatives. It also maintains a worldwide Class IX stock availability above 85 percent. Its commitment to the soldiers is reflected in the operational readiness rates of the systems that exceed 90 percent.