ARTICLE

January 2004

Logistics Reforms Aim to Fix Supply Bottlenecks

by Sandra I. Erwin

A team of logistics experts from the U.S. Transportation Command and other agencies will be heading to Iraq this month, in an attempt to break long-standing logjams in the distribution of supplies to forward-deployed units.

The effort is part of a broader initiative by the Defense Department to improve the delivery of combat gear and spare parts to Iraq, a highly fragmented process that has been plagued by inefficiencies, officials said.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last fall directed Gen. John Handy, the commander of TRANSCOM, and Michael Wynne, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, to work together and fix the problem. Wynne oversees the Defense Logistics Agency.

The team assigned to work in Iraq will set up a Deployment and Distribution Operation Center, and will perform functions that TRANSCOM typically executes from the continental United States, Handy said in a speech to the 2003 Defense Logistics Conference, in Washington, D.C.

The DDOC will “arm the J-4 [logistics commander] in the theater with the things he needs to get the job done,” Handy said. “This is not going to be the 100 percent solution,” but it will be a step in the right direction.

The long-term plan, meanwhile, is to fundamentally restructure the way supplies are managed and transported, said Patricia M. Young, deputy director for strategies and policy at TRANSCOM.

“We want to bring about changes in the distribution process ... bring a little more authority and focus,” she told National Defense.

Rumsfeld made it clear that he wants “one single accountable person for distribution issues,” she said.

Although DLA will continue to report to Wynne and will not be placed under the TRANSCOM chain of command, Handy will supervise the execution of the supply chain, said Young. He will be advised by representatives from DLA and the services, but only Handy will be in charge of “orchestrating” the process, she explained.

The reforms that Rumsfeld mandated are “not necessarily through organizational change, but through putting one person in charge.”

At the core of the logistics problems are the “seams and handoffs” in the system, Young noted.

When supplies are shipped from the United States to Iraq, for example, they arrive in Kuwait relatively quickly, but then sit in containers until they can be sorted out and ground transportation to Iraq can be arranged. The delays have undermined soldiers’ confidence in the system, forcing them to work around the supply shortages often by obtaining equipment from local vendors or cannibalizing parts from other vehicles.

Epitomizing the logistics woes experienced in Iraq are the Army aviation units, which often cannot get spare parts to fix their helicopters, said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Crabb, product manager for Army scout and attack helicopters. During a recent visit to Iraq, the only complaints he heard from aviators concerned “logistics and lack of spare parts,” he said at an industry conference hosted by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement. “Every platform over there is having those kinds of problems,” said Crabb. “We can get the spare parts to Kuwait fast. The problem is moving them to the units.”

The fragmented nature of the supply chain is to blame for this, said Young. TRANSCOM arranges for sea or air transportation to Kuwait, but once the supplies arrive, the responsibility for theater distribution shifts to U.S. Central Command, and TRANSCOM no longer has “visibility” of the location or status of those supplies.

“Instead of everyone managing their little piece of the pie, the key is to bring all the stakeholders together and determine what is the best way to flow end on end,” said Young. “Maybe you need to hold the cargo at the consolidation point longer and sort containers by units, instead of having lots of destinations for one unit in one container.” Another option is to “take readily identifiable packages that indicate what unit it goes to,” and ship those first.

TRANSCOM’s job is to bring all the participants of the logistics supply chain together and figure out how to improve the process, Young said. “People are working hard enough. We have to work smarter.”

Another element of the logistics reform envisioned by Handy is to develop a Web-based system that, like FedEx, would allow customers to track their packages. “The technology is there,” said Young. The problem is the lack of integration between the technologies from each agency.

“What we have seen over time is folks automating their piece of it,” she said. “Now, we want to look across the end to end supply chain, integrate the information so everyone operates off the same sheet of music.”

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