Logistics contributes to cost reduction and efficiency improvement By proactively monitoring inventory levels, Logistics management helps businesses to decrease expenses in a variety of areas, from shipping prices to the amount of storage space required. COURIER, 2020, Vol. In Clausewitzs words, getting the force to the fight at the right place and the right time1 is the true essence of military logistics. Logistics touches every aspect of military strength and is the sum of the capabilities brought to bear by all of the U.S. military services and those of a wide array of international partners.6. During fiscal year (FY) 2017, DLA provided more than $35 billion in goods and services, coordinating the actions of 25,000 military, civilian, and contract personnel who provided food, clothing, fuel, repair parts, and other items across nine supply chains distributing approximately 5 million distinct consumable, expendable, and reparable items. The most important of these was to guarantee free daily rations for the soldiers, amounting to two pounds of bread or hardtack a day. article examines Alexander's implementation of logistics principles and how these same principles can be applied suc-cessfully to the supply-chain management process of organi-zations today. Military logistics involves the interaction of military and government entities with private, commercial, foreign, and multinational organizations worldwide. The same account further reflects that from January 2003 through the end of April 2003, MSC delivered more than 21 million square feet of warfighting equipment and supplies, 260 million gallons of fuel, and 95,000 tons of ammunition to the Persian Gulf area for the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy warfighters involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Integrating simulators and virtual reality capabilities into range design will also help to reduce the logistical impact of home-station training and generate much-needed efficiencies in major range training opportunities while also improving overall warfighting readiness. RAND has long provided guidance and effective solutions to military supply and logistics decisionmakers, resulting in significant savings, improved readiness and combat support, and unit flexibility. It also outlines a range of options to deliver global mobility in dynamic threat and policy environments. The Importance of In-Transit Visibility on U. S. Military Logistics INTRODUCTION Just as Abraham Maslow presented a hierarchy of human needs from survival to growth, military logistics mirrors this building block approach to satisfying certain basic needs before more advanced facets of military strategy and doctrine can be formulated. Logistics became particularly important for being the backbone of the entire supply chain. Efficiencies should be pursued to free resources for use elsewhere, but those efficiencies must never be taken at the expense of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines who have been committed to battle. "The line between disorder and order lies in logistics". Military readiness is the capability of the military force to meet the requests of their designated assignments or missions. Engineering support including horizontal and vertical construction of ports, airfields, and other military support infrastructure. Alan Estevez, former Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and a career Department of Defense Senior Executive Service logistics leader, recently stated, Logistics isnt rocket scienceits much harder!5 Logistics is fundamental to the readiness of the entire Joint forcethose at home, deployed in operational settings, and permanently stationed abroadgiven that it must operate around the world and across every domain of activity in spite of enemy efforts to frustrate its operations. The Importance of Military Logistics The Swiss strategist Antoine Henri Jomini defined "logistics" as "the practical art of moving armies." [8] He listed 18 constituent elements of a wide range: "successive arrival of convoys of supplies. Many logistical challenges will remain unchanged in the near future because of the sheer physics of distributing ammunition and bulk liquids and the requirement to move major ground warfighting equipment and personnel. The United States might look at its support of Ukraine as a potential model for future defense strategy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, The Great Arsenal of Democracy, address delivered December 29, 1940, This was enough military cargo to fill the deck space of 58 Nimitz class aircraft carriers. Reverse logistics is an important aspect of supply chain management, like when you order from amazon and need to return your products which can be a process in itself. Responsiveness can be improved by leveraging industrial-base support from the point of manufacture to the tactical edge forces. The U.S. has only 23 designated Strategic Seaports17 commercially operated and six under military controlthat make it possible to sustain overseas forces daily and keep them sustained during wartime. The report also offers recommendations for improved distribution monitoring. 17. Researchers identified approaches the U.S. Coast Guard could take to improve crew satisfaction with precommissioning assignments on offshore patrol cutters and overall fleet readiness, then evaluated the options using five criteria. The U.S. military has seven geographic combatant commands set up around the world Europe, Africa, the Pacific Rim, the Middle East, South America, North America and even . It is therefore important that logistics correctly assess the short-term consumption expected by combat forces; that is, the "here and now", which are essential to facilitate combat readiness and the . See, for example, The Honorable Mark T. Esper, Secretary of the Army, and General Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, statement On the Posture of the United States Army before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 115th Cong., 2nd Sess., April 12, 2018, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Esper-Milley_04-12-18.pdf (accessed May 30, 2018); The Honorable Richard V. Spencer, Secretary of the Navy, statement on Fiscal Year 2019 Department of the Navy Budget before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, April 19, 2018, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Spencer_04-19-18.pdf (accessed May 30, 2018); Admiral John M. Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations, statement on Fiscal Year 2019 Navy Budget before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, April 19, 2018, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Richardson_04-19-18.pdf (accessed May 30, 2018); General Robert B. Neller, Commandant of the Marine Corps, statement on The Posture of the United States Marine Corps before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, April 19, 2018, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Neller_04-19-18.pdf (accessed May 30, 2018); and The Honorable Dr. Heather Wilson, Secretary of the Air Force, and General David L. Goldfein, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, USAF Posture Statement: Fiscal Year 2019, Department of the Air Force presentation to the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 115th Cong., 2nd Sess., April 24, 2018, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wilson-Goldfein_04-24-18.pdf (accessed May 30, 2018). The problem is made worse by the complexity of dealing with both old and new technologies in a single logistics enterprise. The most junior personnel in logistics today are going to have to come up with creative ideas on how to set and sustain a theater of operations for logistics, resupply and repair in a new world. Mattis, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, p. 6. During the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom, MSC had 167 of its 214 active ships directly supporting the war. In addition, the success of every new system and concept, every new technology and military organization, must be evaluated against the commensurate evolution and revolution in logistics sustainability. Ultimately, change must ensure both speed and reliability of logistics systems that build trust from the tactical level to the strategic level. Supply and logistics operations are important for the world's armed forces, fulfilling the needs of fighting and administrative units. The end for which a soldier is recruited, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole objective of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and the right time. Peter Dye, The Bridge to Airpower: Logistics Support for Royal Flying Corps Operations on the Western Front, 1914-18 Aircraft are complicated machines. The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. Military forces must receive such support regardless of how limited or intermittent their access to the Internet may be, and supporting logistics forces must meet the demand while an enemy is trying to kill the customers, both at home and in the parking lot, and is destroying the delivery fleet at every opportunity. For this to happen, the U.S. government needs the appropriate license rights and actual possession of the data. Unlike commercial firms that can prepare by the calendar, the military must operate without knowing when the date of each event occurs and still have the ability to respond to a sudden change in the latest hot item within hours, if not minutes. This dangerous assumption tends to exclude logistics from the conversation regarding the nations current and future warfighting needs. 2.2 Defense Logistics Agency The Defense It grants broader visibility over the movement of merchandise from construction to consumption, identifying infrastructure and operational practices that help or hinder that smooth, cost-effective distribution. When the instability of funding that results from continuing resolutions and an inability to pass budgets on time is added to these challenges, one can see that the problems confronting the industrial base are magnified at a time when they most need to be reduced so that our ability to supply the force is responsive and resilient. The future fight will require significantly greater responsiveness and diversity in the face of a greater threat. Technologies such as additive manufacturing, improved manmachine interfaces, and advanced robotics will contribute significantly to improved survivability. For example, Secretary of Defense Mattiss recently announced intention to reduce non-deployable personnel is one aspect of force readiness that is affected by the health services component of logistics.17 Large numbers of non-deployable personnel reduce the available strength of military units, and without the full complement of personnel, teams cannot be trained effectively, whether they are ground units, ships crews, or aviation formations. Is the Defense Acquisition System Postured to Solve National Defense Strategy Operational Problems? 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