Mlf 8 5 final

Cases & Containers O Signals Retrograde Commercial Transport Options

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Warfighter Supplier

Brig. Gen.Steven A. Shapiro

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June 2014Volume 8, Issue 5

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Cover / Q&AFeatures

Your single-source solution for material and services.

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Brigadier general Steven a. Shapiro

CommanderDefense Logistics Agency

Troop Support

14

June 2014Volume 8, Issue 5

Departments Industry Interview2 editor’S perSpective4 people12 Supply chain23 reSource center

red hooverVice President and Engineering and Technology Services Division ManagerManTech

MILITARY LOGISTICS FORUM

24

5in one pieceRapid deployment anywhere, anytime, by any transport mode and under any conditions, has been the watchword of U.S. expeditionary forces for more than a decade. To ensure warrior gear gets where it needs to be in one piece, it needs to be packed properly.By Henry Canaday

8commercial optionSFor troop and cargo movement, among other needs, the U.S. military greatly relied on commercial transport companies during the buildup to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military logisticians and their commercial counterparts revisit priorities and plans after Afghanistan and Iraq.By William murray

20Signal retrograde in afghaniStan The logistics of retrograding the theater communications network infrastructure, which had at its peak expanded to 23 strategic technical control facilities along with hundreds of tactical extensions, without interrupting critical network services to support the remaining mission.By Colonel linda Jantzen and lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey tHompson

1Exclusive interview with

vice admiral mark d. harnitchek

DirectorDefense Logistics Agency

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Where can a logistician or maintainer make use of Google Glass—or a Google Glass-like device? With funding from DARPA, Applied Research Associates (ARA) developed ARC4, a not-so-hip-looking version of GG delivering augmented reality (AR) to the operator.

These AR devices share similar characteristics in that they place a clear screen in front of one or both of the wearer’s eyes. Data and symbology are wirelessly overlaid onto the wearer’s real-world view from an operator-worn user interface device. To maximize versatility, ARA developed ARC4 to be compatible with any see-through display technology—including night vision goggles. It is also customizable and configurable for a wide range of mission profiles; the device supports common protocols for network communication and information sharing.

Neither Google nor ARA is working in a vacuum. BAE Systems, for example, has developed its own version called Q-Warrior. Like other systems, it offers a head-up display allowing complete situational awareness for the wearer while at the same time providing information and cues without having to take eyes off of the environment.

Like many new technologies, sometimes the technology of how to do something gets out in front of what you need it for and how you get it to do something you need done.

Like many new gadgets, special operations will be at the front of the line. Logisticians and maintainers will be next, as soon as SOF needs a supply chain to support the new eyes they have. So back to the original question: How can this help a logistician or a maintainer?

For the logistician, warehouse and inventory management come to mind right away. With the ability to integrate an AR device with an asset tracking and visibility network, the possibilities are obvious as the camera scans and reads barcodes, interfaces with a database and provides real-time updates.

Even in its simplest form, maintainers could equally benefit from having information up in front of them hands-free. Having maintenance manuals with illustrations and instructions in front of them—not balanced on their leg or off to the side—so they don’t have to take their eyes off of what they are working on is huge. They would also have the ability to troubleshoot with a higher echelon and have them see exactly what the maintainer is seeing—and have the solution pushed right back down to them.

Heads-up AR solutions are just waiting for logisticians and main-tainers to ask how they can help.

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Major General Kevin G. O’Connell, deputy chief of staff, G-4, U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort Bragg, N.C., has been assigned to commanding general, U.S. Army Sustainment Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Ill.

Yvette Burke has been assigned as the acquisition executive, Defense Logistics Agency-Acquisition, Defense Logistics Agency, Richmond, Va. Burke previously served as the executive director, Aviation Contracting and Acquisition Management, Defense Logistics Agency, Richmond.

Air Force Major General Carlton D. Everhart II has been nominated for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and for assignment as commander, Eighteenth Air Force, Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Everhart is currently serving as vice commander, Third Air Force, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

Air Force Major General John F. Thompson has been nominated for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and for assignment as commander, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Air

Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Thompson is currently serving as Air Force program executive officer for tankers, Tanker Directorate, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Air Force Brigadier General Warren D. Berry has been nominated to the rank of major general. Berry is currently serving as director of logistics, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Air Force Colonel Walter J. Lindsley has been nominated to the rank of brigadier general. Lindsley is currently serving as director of staff, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Navy Reserve Rear Admiral (lower half) Althea H. Coetzee has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Coetzee is currently serving as contingency contracting deputy director, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Washington, D.C.

Navy Reserve Rear Admiral (lower half) Martha E.G. Herb has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Herb is currently serving as reserve deputy commander, Navy Installations Command, Washington, D.C.

Navy Reserve Rear Admiral (lower half) Valerie K. Huegel has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral. Huegel is currently serving as commander, Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group, Williamsburg, Va.

Navy Reserve Captain Keith M. Jones has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral (lower half). Jones is currently serving as commanding officer, U.S. Pacific Fleet Logistics Readiness Center, Headquarters 120, San Diego, Calif.

Major General H. Brent Baker Sr., commander, Ogden Air Logistics Complex, Air Force Materiel Command, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, has been assigned to director, logistics and sustain-ment, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Brigadier General Carl A. Buhler, director, logis-tics, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, has been assigned to commander, Ogden Air Logistics Complex, Air

Force Materiel Command, Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

Brigadier General Evan M. Miller, vice superin-tendent, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo., has been assigned to director, logistics, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.

Brigadier General Duke Z. Richardson, director, logistics and sustain-ment, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, has been assigned to Air Force program executive officer for tankers, Tanker Directorate, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Brigadier General Mark A. Brown, who has been selected for the grade of major general, director, financial management, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, has been assigned to commander, Second Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.

Brigadier General James C. Johnson, director for logistics, Headquarters U.S. Africa Command, Stuttgart, Germany, has been assigned to commander, Air Force Recruiting Service, Air Education and Training Command, Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas.

Brigadier General James C. Vechery, director, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Liaison to the U.S. Embassy, Kabul, Afghanistan, has been assigned to director for logistics, Headquarters U.S. Africa Command, Stuttgart, Germany.

Rear Admiral (lower half) James R. McNeal will be assigned as commander, Naval Supply Global Logistics Support, San Diego, Calif. McNeal is currently serving as deputy commander, Global Logistics Support Command, San Diego.

Rear Admiral (lower half) Cynthia M. Thebaud will be assigned as commander, Expeditionary Strike Group Two, Virginia Beach, Va. Thebaud is currently serving as commander, Logistics Group, Western Pacific/Commander, Task Force 73/Commander, Navy Region Singapore.

Compiled by KMI Media Group staffPEOPLE

Rear Adm. (lower half) James R. McNeal

Rear Adm. (lower half) Cynthia M. Thebaud

Major Gen. H. Brent Baker Sr.

Major Gen. John F. Thompson

www.MLF-kmi.com4 | MLF 8.5

To ensure warrior gear—weapons, communicaTions,

elecTronics, eTc.— geTs where iT needs To be

in one piece, iT needs To be packed properly.

Rapid deployment anywhere, anytime, by any transport mode and under any conditions, has been the watchword of U.S. expeditionary forces for more than a decade, and that’s not going to change. Getting all the gear to remote locations, fast and in fighting shape, is a huge challenge. But vendors have developed a wide range of containers and cases to do the job reliably.

AAR Mobility Systems leads the world in making air-transportable containers, stressed Jeannine Taylor of AAR. It is the sole manufacturer of the ISU Container, whose design meets or exceeds Department of Defense standards for air transportation of equipment and supplies.

With over 40 different configurations available, AAR containers can be easily customized for any mission, including armories, laun-dries, refrigeration, dog kennels, gun rooms, maintenance, all terrain vehicle storage, and more. ISUs can be delivered by land, sea or air in any cargo aircraft in the world.

AAR ISUs are now in their third generation, the 56000 series or Gen X Container. The latest ISUs enable fast load and off-load speeds and lock into aircraft cargo-restraint systems with no pallets or tie-down chains. On arrival, many ISUs convert into workspaces for using equipment.

“Non-militarized or unproven containers require additional pallets or tie-downs to be loaded safely,” Taylor noted. This increases loading man-hours and costs. Some alternatives have locking rails, but have not been tested and certified, posing safety questions.

ISUs have certified lifting rings and rigid space frames so they can be slung externally under rotary wing aircraft. Uncertified rings and frames could cause catastrophic damage to aircraft, container contents and anything beneath them.

The AAR containers keep military goods dry by meeting MIL-STD-810 for water tightness, and they are painted with chemical agent resistant coatings according to MIL-DTL-53039.

AAR’s newest ISU, the 90 FC, is a full cube with the center wall removed to allow for storage and transport of larger items.

Seabox is the military’s largest supplier of smaller modular contain-ers, the bicons, tricons and quadcons that can be linked together on a ship up to 20 feet in length, said Sales Vice President Nick Catanzariti.

These customized shipping solutions come with tracks on walls, shelving, modular cabinets and special doors to suit each shipping need. Doors can be opened and the entire container or one of its inserts, for example a cabinet, can be installed at destination shops.

Seabox racks use a special glide technology so drawers can slide easily in and out, with no ball bearings to get clogged with dirt or grime. Inside drawers have partitions that can be moved to yield dif-ferent configurations, and foam inserts are shaped in outlines of tools and components.

Container modules can be lifted by 10,000-pound forklifts and stacked with dimples matched to prevent sliding. “Each module has

a locking point for a forklift. You do not have to worry about how to stock at the destination; it is all organized at base and just moved to stockrooms,” Catanzariti summarized. There are shelves for larger items such as batteries and engines and special racks for weapons.

Seabox containers can have doors on both sides or roll-up doors if there is no room for swinging a door open—for example, for mid-air access inside a C130. The standard footprint of Seabox containers allows them to ship on affordable commercial vessels without wasting space or paying overage fees for extra room. The inter-modal contain-ers can move by sea, land or air.

Tim Smith, Vidmar sales engineer, sees the Army facing big chal-lenges in sorting out containers and their contents after return from theater. And he sees military shipments as moving increasingly away from ships to air for rapid deployment. To assist that shift, Vidmar spe-cializes in inserts that go inside containers, even if there are no hard points to support them.

Vidmar’s Rapid Deployment Container Insert can handle small tools, bench stock, test equipment, weapons and a wide variety of other equipment. “It fits in many different kinds of containers,” Smith said. “You put it in and then you can pull it out and the container returns to its original configuration.”

The Vidmar Insert provides ready access to its contents, yielding faster retrieval times for mission-critical equipment. It fits any tricon, quadcon or 20-foot container without welds or modification.

It can be deployed with either a pallet jack or a forklift and handles up to 4,000 pounds. Vidmar inserts can hold anything from generators to toolboxes, cabinets or drone units.

Pelican Products offer two brands, Pelican Classic and Pelican Hardigg, a company acquired five years ago. Chief Executive Officer Lyndon Faulkner said all Pelican cases are designed to protect gear in extremely demanding environments. The company offers hundreds of cases built to military specifications. “These can carry missiles, footlockers or trunks for soldiers, helicopter blades, almost anything,” said Faulkner.

Customers could buy similar-looking Chinese or knock-off alu-minum cases, but these may break, crack or admit water, the Pelican CEO said. Pelican cases are made of very robust, injection-molded plastic, are waterproof and airtight, and will not break or crack.

The firm makes cases sized and shaped for special uses and oth-ers in standard sizes that are configured for special uses. Examples of Pelican flexibility are two new cases. The first uses Pelican’s standard tough technology for a line of cases, BioPharma, that can keep con-tents at the same temperature for up to five days. This would be useful in carrying food, a number of chemicals, blood, vaccines and other temperature-sensitive materials.

Pelican has also introduced tough cases for consumer electronic devices such as iPods, iPhones and Samsung Galaxies. Defense

by henry canaday, mlF correspondenT

www.MLF-kmi.com MLF 8.5 | 5

personnel—especially pilots and aircraft maintenance workers, but soon probably more—are starting to use these devices. The Pelican design lets soldiers use the devices while still in the case. Faulkner, who came from Microsoft, understands how fast personal computing tools can spread.

SKB makes injection-molded, single-lid cases; rotationally-molded, single-lid cases; rotationally-molded, double-end, shock-and-vibration isolation rack-mount cases; and thermo-formed, single-lid cases. Robert Wilkes, senior vice president of global operations, said this suite of SKB cases is suitable for protecting any type of gear that needs to be either stored or moved for deployment. “All U.S. military branches, as well as special forces and NATO partners, currently use and deploy with SKB cases.”

SKB manufactures its cases in Orange, Calif. Wilkes said SKB’s rotationally-molded cases are the only ones on the market that have lifetime unconditional warranties. The company’s line of injection-molded cases features a patented trigger-release latch that Wilkes called “undisputedly the best latch available.”

SKB has developed a co-polymer polypropylene for its 3i series of injection-molded cases that Wilkes said is far superior to anything on the market in impact strength. “Because of this special polymer, the SKB case is typically 10 to 15 percent lighter than [that of] our com-petition and has over 2.8 times the impact strength.”

All SKB standard cases come fully loaded with stainless-steel hard-ware, pressure-relief valves and other items that other manufacturers sell as options or upgrades, Wilkes noted. “Another big advantage is that SKB stocks all products, so we are a true commercial off-the-shelf case company.”

SKB constantly releases new case sizes and designs. It currently has five new case sizes in the tooling stage and, right behind them, five more in the design stage. “SKB Corporation is the true alternative to all other case companies and provides a better product to users,” Wilkes argued.

Thermodyne has made rugged military cases since 1958. “We offer over 600 sizes and have over 50 years of tooling on-hand,” noted Product Manager Josh Ackerman. The company offers complete foam customization with no minimums and no cutting cost. It manufac-tures rugged MIL-SPEC-compliant containers and cases from 8 inches all the way up to 20 feet in length. “We’ve worked on everything from sensitive electronic parts for the space shuttle to rugged training sta-tions for the MILES and Javelin programs.”

Thermodyne’s most rugged line of traditional containers is its ShokStop models. These are fully ruggedized containers and offer what Ackerman called “the best hardware protection in the industry.”

Thermodyne also offers a line of Slimline rolling cases with retractable handle and wheels for easy transport.

For rack-mount equipment, Thermodyne makes a complete line of 19-inch Electronic Industries Association shipping racks for 1RU to 32RU (rack units). All Thermodyne racks are built and sealed to military specifications, feature fully shock-isolated frames and are manufactured in the U.S. to International Standardization Organiza-tion quality standards.

Thermodyne also offers ToroCase gun cases in over 25 sizes. These can hold single guns or, in larger models, sets of 10, 15 or 20 guns.

Ackerman said his firm makes custom shipping cases for nearly every application. These cases are built and tested for all modes of ship-ment, from truck and cargo handling to airline check-in and freight. “Every single container is engineered and manufactured for specific customer requirements. We ask our customers how the container

will be used and in what environment. Our engineers work with the customer to determine what is the best solution for them and we build it.” Then every aspect of the build is handled in-house, which allows Thermodyne to keep tight control over lead time and quality.

The company uses a thermoforming process that allows customers to customize the size of their containers without extra charges. “This process also allows us to manufacture a case that is more rugged, yet weighs 20 to 30 percent less,” Ackerman said.

All Thermodyne containers are made with military-grade poly-ethylene, which flexes to mitigate shocks from impact and vibration. Polyethylene is also impervious to gasoline, moisture and aviation fuel.

Thermodyne containers also use aircraft-quality aluminum for reliability and protection. Closure systems use an aluminum tongue and groove to compresses a neoprene gasket seal for an uncompro-mising hold. Latches are made of zinc-coated or stainless steel based on customer needs. Unused latches spring back to a flat position to prevent damage.

Ackerman emphasized that every single Thermodyne case is fully customizable. There are no minimum orders for customization. “Thermodyne will fully customize one single container if needed.” These fully customized cases take just a week or two to build.

Thermodyne has just introduced comfort-grip ergonomic handles to reduce stress and increase grip. It has also launched a line of handheld cases with contoured shoulder straps. Weighing only 4 to 5 pounds, these are rugged enough to be shipped through common carriers.

Ameripack makes and distributes watertight cases, military cases and hundreds of other cases for a wide variety of applications. It also offers custom foam inserts and standard cubed foam and divider systems.

The firm builds its own tools for its rotation-molded packing cases, noted Chief Executive Officer Peter Margin. “We design and engineer for specific customer needs, for military customers and for specific applications.” Typical uses are for electronics, weaponry, radar and satellite-communication equipment.

In addition to its own cases, Ameripack also offers injection-molded cases made by other firms such as SKB. “We are a hybrid,” Margin said. “We build our own rotation-molded cases and sell other manufacturers’ injection-molded models.” Indeed, Margin said his firm is the largest U.S. distributor of injection-molded cases except for the manufacturers themselves.

Ameripack maintains a large inventory of case in its inventory so it can deliver fast, within 24 hours. It also has packing engineers on staff. “Tell us how many Gs you need to withstand on the drop and we can design for that,” Margin said. “We don’t need to go outside.”

The firm also does its own 3-D modeling, so it can share 3-D files with customers and accept 3-D files from customers.

Every six weeks, Ameripack builds tools to make a new case. It has two new shock-mounted rack systems that will come out in a few months. “A lot of work for electronics is coming our way now,” Margin said. “Military customers like these. They are becoming the preferred choices.”

Margin added that Ameripack is also a philanthropic company, both raising and donating to funds to veterans’ groups. O

For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at [email protected] or search our online archives for related stories

at www.mlf-kmi.com.


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miliTary logisTicians and Their commercial counTerparTs revisiT

prioriTies, plans aFTer aFghanisTan and iraq.

by william murray, mlF correspondenT

For troop and cargo move-

ment, among other needs, the U.S. military greatly relied on commercial transport companies during the buildup to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. military tapped into the fleets of aircraft, ships, trucks and ground vehicles that logis-tics companies operate to meet a rising need from the Air Force Air Mobility Com-mand (AMC), Air Force Materiel Command, Defense Logistics Agency, U.S. Transporta-tion Command and other organizations.

Now, with the war in Iraq ended and U.S. military troops greatly reduced in Afghani-stan, commercial transport companies are arguing that they can still provide a vital service to the military in areas such as continental U.S. training and disaster relief, in addition to their bread-and-butter ser-vice—third party logistics service when an “orphan” cargo, a single container, is des-tined for a location not served by the mili-tary’s transport.

Smaller logistics companies that are more dependent on military business appear to be scrambling to overcome current and anticipated revenue shortfalls. Logistics

leaders in the military are finding more sophisticated means to evaluate vendor per-formance, such as in-transit visibility, and they are trying to use commercial-like con-tracting means, such as GSA Schedule con-tracts and blanket purchasing agreements.

As a prime vendor for the Defense Logis-tics Agency (and their largest contractor; see the chart on page 10 of the DLA Who’s Who Supplement in this issue), Supreme sources products from locations all around the globe. “Possessing a global view of the entire supply chain, it is positioned to offer transportation solutions for the agency and military services when the Defense Transportation System (DTS) can’t meet the demands of time defi-nite delivery,” said company Chief Commercial Officer Bob Dail. “Supreme has booked and coordinated transporta-tion for the timely delivery of food, fuel, construction equip-ment and other commodities to frontline troops employing both DTS assets and non-U.S. capability, when required. Our supply chain experts plan these movements in great

detail to ensure onward movement through critical nodes and intermodal operations.”

Supreme routinely coordinates with U.S. flag carriers in the DTS to move its products and supplies to U.S. forces around the globe. “Supreme has employed U.S. air and sur-face carriers, freight forwarders, and ground transport providers to execute its supply chain from sources in the continental United States and other overseas locations to frontline units in remote combat areas, as well as loca-tions in the Pacific, Central America, Africa and Europe,” said Dail. “Further, we have partnered as a third party logistics provider with multiple U.S. surface carriers in the past decade to provide end-to-end transportation

services delivering multiple commodities from the United States to Afghanistan.

“As both a customer of the DTS, and a provider, we are constantly looking for better and more economical ways to support military and U.S. government clients.” The recently completed ground transport route operation from Riga, Latvia to Kabul, pilotdelivers.com / 1-800-HI-PILOT

The battle I wage is against time. And in defense of efficiency. Whether I am operating in support of a strategic deployment or moving materials to a forward militarized zone, I will persevere. I will improvise, adapt, and overcome. I will deliver. Every time. It’s not just my duty. It’s my privilege. It’s my honor. I am

IT’S NOT A JOB, IT’S A MISSION.IT’S NOT A JOB, IT’S A MISSION.

Dave Lange


pilotdelivers.com / 1-800-HI-PILOT

The battle I wage is against time. And in defense of efficiency. Whether I am operating in support of a strategic deployment or moving materials to a forward militarized zone, I will persevere. I will improvise, adapt, and overcome. I will deliver. Every time. It’s not just my duty. It’s my privilege. It’s my honor. I am

IT’S NOT A JOB, IT’S A MISSION.IT’S NOT A JOB, IT’S A MISSION.

Afghanistan (a distance equivalent from Boston to San Diego) was a great example of out-of-the-box thinking that ensured the uninterrupted support to U.S. forces in the face of the worst weather in over 100 years. “It was accomplished by the close collaboration of many players in the DTS,” said Dail.

Commercial transport companies argue that they can provide a cost-effective, just-in-time service through agility and the abil-ity to overcome obstacles, such as Customs requirements. The advantage seems to be with the global logistics companies that are not highly dependent on DoD work and that can therefore better survive the current downturn in DoD logistics business.

Such large commercial logistics compa-nies have the ability to provide strong service with relatively low prices, since they’ve built their logistics networks not for exclusively military use but for a broader audience, which gives the network economies of scale. FedEx, for example, provides DoD customers the same services as its commercial custom-ers to ship packages from Fort Benning, Ga., to Fort Lewis, Wash., or from Aviano Air Base, Italy, to Kadena Air Base, Japan, according to Dave Lange, managing director for the FedEx Express/Aircraft Charters Program.

FedEx offers this service through a blan-ket purchase agreement for domestic air express written with discounted rates off the company’s GSA Multiple Award Schedule contract and the U.S. Transportation Com-mand Worldwide Express 5 contract. FedEx provides both the use of commercial items and exclusive use aircraft to DoD, according to Lange.

“DoD benefits by using the existing infra-structure and services we provide to our entire customer base,” Lange said. “Using an established network lowers the cost to DoD as the contractor doesn’t have to build a unique solution only for DoD.”

A disadvantage to using such a company, one would think, is that military customers probably have less leverage in influencing the enterprise network’s integration of emerging needs. Another disadvantage is that DoD will likely see less competition for its logistics business, as a result of the market pressure on smaller companies that have more of a pronounced reliance on the military market. Less competition in business usually leads to higher prices.

While it’s easy for the military to tap into the commercial logistics industry in times of military buildup and war through means such as the AMC’s Civil Reserve Air Fleet

(CRAF) program, it’s less clear during times of military drawdown how military leaders can best leverage the commercial transport industry.

“The CRAF carriers, both passenger and cargo, provide DoD with a global reach and existing networks, passen-ger and cargo, that would be impossible to duplicate,” Lange said. He sees the CRAF program as offering a tre-mendous advantage to DoD officials. “This allows DoD to leverage our capabilities to support the warfighter any-where in the world with the same level of service and reli-ability we offer our commer-cial customers.

“The use of FedEx Prior-ity Overnight, International Priority or a charter aircraft allows DoD to focus on their core flying capabilities, which private industry does not pos-sess. Thus, DoD is able to have fewer aircrews and airplanes and still maintain its readiness level,” he added.

FedEx and UPS have air fleets that are in the top 10 worldwide, and DoD officials have the advantage of being able to tap into the aerial resources when they need them. “The CRAF carriers fill a vital role in supporting national security and are a key component of DoD’s rapid global mobility,” Lange said.

“One of the biggest challenges going forward will be maintaining a level of readi-ness for the CRAF carriers in times of ‘severe peace’ or low operating tempo,” he said. “DoD and [U.S. Transportation Command] must balance the AMC training requirements while maintaining a viable and ready CRAF pro-gram. AMC and [U.S. Transportation Com-mand] need to take a holistic look at the combined commercial and military networks and provide solutions that are the best value for their customers without sacrificing readi-ness or the reserve fleet. The cost advantage of commercial aircraft is quite pronounced, especially when the long-term costs of main-tenance, overhaul and reduced service life for the organic fleet are fully considered.”

The unique capabilities of commercial transport companies were on full display two years ago in Benghazi, Libya, in the chaos following the February 2011 uprising

against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya’s second largest city. UPS airlifted 197,000 pounds of humanitarian meals to the Mediterranean coastal city on short notice from the United Arab Emirates, according to Lloyd Knight, director of global government operations for

UPS in Alpharetta, Ga. He sees disaster relief as a potential logistics military need that could grow with time.

Knight, who focuses on UPS’s freight forwarding oper-ations, predicted hard times for logistics companies that have a high dependence on the U.S. military, given the drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq and corresponding U.S. military budget cutbacks. “It will be a fight for survival,” he said. “We have a very viable commercial business,” mak-ing UPS more immune from military industry downturns and better able to respond to any emerging military needs, he said.

Similarly, FedEx pro-vides customers and business worldwide with a deep portfo-lio of business, e-commerce and transportation services,

according to Lange. “The power and effi-ciency of the FedEx air and ground system allows us to flex our network in order to maintain high-level service to our custom-ers,” he said. “While DoD may be decreasing their transportation needs, we’re growing with other customers in the health care, aero-space, high tech and e-commerce segments.”

Not only are commercial transport com-panies feeling the need to look for other markets to help them make up for shortfalls in DoD business, so are military planners. Air Force Colonel Edward Koharick, chief of the Enterprise Readiness Center for the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., has been preparing for a lower workload for some time, which has the poten-tial to lead to a reduction in force. “You have to have the workload” to justify the workforce and corresponding overhead at U.S. Transpor-tation Command, he said.

As a result, U.S. Transportation Com-mand officials are looking into new opportu-nities, including responding to contingency needs, such as disaster relief and humani-tarian missions not just in the U.S. but also abroad, perhaps in accord with foreign

Lloyd Knight

col. edward Koharick


partners, according to Koharick, who has served at the U.S. Transportation Command for nearly three years. These opportunities could benefit U.S. Transportation Command’s organic logistics fleet and its commercial partners.

“They are central to our mission,” Koharick said of commercial transportation companies. There is even a private sector rep-resentative at the U.S. Transportation Com-mand’s Enterprise Readiness Center, he said.

In addition to improving customer ser-vice across the enterprise, U.S. Transportation Command officials are using technology to better assess the performance of contractors. “We’ve adjusted our performance metrics over time,” Koharick said. U.S. Transporta-tion Command officials monitor in transit visibility of containers on a daily basis, and they also review the reliability of air carriers, he explained.

Koharick, who has been in the Air Force for 22 years, sees a great deal of competition and collaboration in the civilian supply chain that the Air Force can leverage. With some commercial logistics companies that U.S. Transportation Command has worked with previously going out of business, he antici-pates the military working with a “right-sized air fleet,” or smaller fleet over time, since carriers will seek greater efficiencies in their operations, including lower overhead costs.

“The government needs to manage the requirements and not the process,” UPS’s Knight said. “The more efficient the [requests for proposals] are, the better the coopera-tion” between industry and the military, he said. He pointed to one RFP that was 1,889 pages long as a case point in inefficiency and said that some applications of the federal acquisition regulations can stand in the way of innovation.

“When purchasing com-mercial items, it’s best not to mandate requirements which add cost,” FedEx’s Lange said. “In a recent solicitation, DoD initially wanted an earlier delivery time than the express industry offered. During the pre-proposal conference, industry and DoD discussed the commercial capabilities and it was agreed that DoD would use the existing services and industry would not have to build a separate service for DoD. This is a win-win for all parties.”

The U.S. Transportation Command and AMC “should also look for ways to balance

full aircraft charter user requirements and commercial carrier schedule efficiencies and availability,” Lange said. “Small changes in charter schedule dates or times could pro-vide improved scheduling efficiency overall, lower costs, and prevent unnecessary delays.” Both organizations “can look to industry scheduling best-practices to improve effi-ciencies between the organic network and the commercial passenger and cargo net-works,” he said.

A retired Air Force aircraft load master and flight test personnel, Knight argued that the government should be cautious about cutting conference travel spending in its budgets, since conferences are a good means for industry and the government to work together effectively. “It’s important to have the right people at the right place,” he said, and teleconferencing technology does not suffice. Knight also sees industry part-

ners doing well partnering together on initiatives such as multi-modal contracts, where one company is hard-pressed to meet all the military’s needs with its internal logis-tics network for air, ground, and sea transport.

A logistics company doesn’t have to be as large as FedEx and UPS to weather the storm. Larry Wenrich, vice president of government

services for Pilot Freight Services of Lima, Pa., said that since April, his company’s busi-ness has rebounded from the drastic loss of Stryker armored vehicle-related logistics funding from the Army and Marine Corps

and a decrease in bomb detection equipment logistics orders due to the drawdown from Iraq, which led to a lower threat level from improvised explosive devices. Pilot Freight Services has increased its revenues by focus-ing on meeting the logistics needs of con-tractors, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Founded in 1970, Pilot Freight Services is a freight forwarding company with over 75 locations in North America that offers local pickup and delivery and holds lease space agreements with freight air shipping com-panies to keep its infrastructure costs down, as opposed to companies such as FedEx and UPS, which own and operate large aircraft fleets. Wenrich has served in his position at Pilot Freight Services for eight years, and the company claims to be the largest privately-held U.S. freight forwarding company.

“We’re also shipping a lot more to the U.S. Africa Command,” Wenrich said, a reflection of increased U.S. military focus on Africa, which involves quelling internal disputes, fighting Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, training with friendly nations and nation building in a continent where traditional alliances such as NATO aren’t applicable. “Our domestic business with DoD is also increasing,” he said. Pilot Freight Services holds a contract with the Army’s Program Executive Officer Soldier to ship gear and uniforms for individual soldiers from East Lansing, Mich. O

Larry Wenrich


at www.mlf-kmi.com.

Soldiers from the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division walk out of a 747 airliner at McChord Field. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army/by Spc. Loren Cook, 20th Public Affairs Detachment]


Compiled by KMI Media Group staffSUPPLY CHAIN

Largest Military Installation Solar Array

The Army recently hosted a groundbreaking for the largest solar array on a U.S. military installation at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. The array is expected to provide about 25 percent of the annual electricity requirement for the installation, which is nestled in the mountains of southeast Arizona, about 15 miles from the Mexican border.

Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, said the post is a role model for other installations.

Fort Huachuca will receive the green energy under an existing contract through General Services Administration with Tucson Electric Power, Hammack said. The Army is providing an easement for the solar array to be built on the base, she said.

Since the energy is part of an existing contract, the change from brown to green power will be at no incremental cost to the Army, Hammack said, noting that all around, this is a “smart decision” for the Army and the nation.

“We’re doing the right thing for the mission, enhancing mission effectiveness; it’s the right thing for the environment, it’s the right thing for the community and it’s the right thing for the utility,” Hammack said.

The Fort Huachuca Renewable Energy Project is a joint effort between the U.S. Army Energy Initiatives Task Force , Fort Huachuca, General Services Administration, Tucson Electric Power, and developer E.ON Climate and Renewables.

The project leverages private financing and is expected to exceed 18-megawatts of clean power. The solar panels are to be installed on a 155-acre parcel of land on base.

The panels are expected to offset 58,000 tons of carbon annually, while saving Tucson Electric Power 2 million gallons of water, said Major General Robert P. Ashley, Fort Huachuca commanding officer.

By Lisa Ferdinando

DoD’s Traffic Engineering Program

Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command’s Transportation Engineering Agency (SDDC TEA) manages the Department of Defense Transportation Engineering Program, under responsi-bilities outlined by the DoD Transportation Engineering Program, for military installations worldwide. One of SDDC TEA’s responsibilities is to provide engineering analyses and guidance to reduce congestion along with improving safety and efficiency on DoD installation road networks and access control points.

SDDC TEA’s Traffic Engineering, or TE branch, works closely with installation staff to analyze their traffic problems. The branch then develops and provides solutions to improve access control point design and operation, lane capacity, intersection design, signal operation, traffic management, signing, marking, road safety, crosswalks and pedestrian safety, sign management, parking capacity, and other traffic engineering matters.

The TE branch has completed the development of two new active vehicle barrier safety schemes: high efficiency presence detection and stop control. These schemes provide additional options to installations and can reduce the length of the response zone requiring less real estate and thereby reducing the overall cost of construction and operation of access control points.

Product Director Automated Movement and Identification Solutions Support

DoD has awarded Savi a five-year contract as the sole provider to the RFID-IV program. This RFID-IV award follows the $204 million solicitation issued by DoD in September 2013 to support the Product Director Automated Movement and Identification Solutions (PD AMIS) mission. As the initial RFID-IV contract, it establishes a $102 million ceiling for Savi to provide DoD and other agencies with a comprehensive array of hardware and software products including active radio frequency identification (aRFID) sensors, readers, real-time location

systems (RTLS), satellite communi-cation (SATCOM) and related solu-tions for global asset planning and tracking of personnel, equipment and sustainment cargo worldwide.

“Throughout our 25-year history, Savi has maintained a strong partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense and the dedicated personnel responsible for the sophisticated tasks of automatic identification, transportation and logistics tracking across the armed services around the globe,” said Bill Clark, president and chief executive officer, Savi. “Being selected to fulfill the requirements of RFID-IV reflects

Savi’s long-standing history as the pioneer, innovator and inventor of technologies, products and proto-cols that facilitate the use of sensors to improve operational analysis, efficiency and insight—and reaf-firms our leadership status as the premier provider of both military RFID systems and the enabler of critical asset tracking capabilities on an enormous scale.”

Savi is the only company to be selected as a prime contractor on all four of the RFID-named contracts (RFID-I, -II, -III) and has now been named the sole provider twice (RFID-II and -IV). Over the course

of the first three RFID contracts—which had a combined ceiling of more than $1 billion—Savi won more than 97 percent of all awards, totaling more than 61 percent of the combined ceiling.

There are a number of tech-nology and services providers that have partnered with Savi as subcontractors on the RFID-IV award. Hardware providers include Identec Solutions AG, Intermec by Honeywell, Orbcomm and Ubisense. Technical engineering service providers include Northrop Grumman and Evanhoe and Associates.



2014

supply chain Mover

Vice Adm. Mark D. Harnitchek

DirectorDefense Logistics Agency

No Limits. A global leader in the provision of end to end supply chain solutions in the world’s most challenging locations.

Your Goals.our solutions.

613-012-MCOM_advert_MLF2014_w8.375xh10.875in.indd 1 13/05/2014 7:09 pm

Vice Admiral Mark Harnitchek became director of the Defense Logistics Agency in November 2011. As such, he is responsible for providing the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and other fed-eral agencies with a variety of logistics, acquisition and technical services in peace and war. These services include logistics infor-mation, materiel management, procurement, warehousing and distribution of spare parts, food, clothing, medical supplies and fuel, as well as reutilization of surplus military materiel and document automation and production. This worldwide mission is performed by nearly 27,000 civilian and military personnel.

He previously served as deputy commander, U.S. Transporta-tion Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Harnitchek, a native of Philadelphia, received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Penn State University in 1977 and was commissioned through the Navy ROTC program. In 1987, he received a master’s degree in management from the Naval Postgraduate School, Mon-terey, Calif.

Harnitchek has served in a variety of sea tours including two submarines, USS Will Rogers (SSBN 659) and USS Buffalo (SSN-715); two ships, USS Holland (AS-32) and USS Proteus (AS-19); and the aircraft carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). His shore tours include commander, Submarine Group 7, Yokosuka, Japan; the Navy Ships Parts Control Center, Naval Air Station Oceana, Va.; and the Chief of Naval Operations Staff.

Flag assignments include commanding officer, Naval Inventory Control Point; vice director for logistics, the Joint Staff; Director, Strategy, Policy, Programs and Logistics, USTRANSCOM; and director, U.S. Central Command Deployment and Distribution Operations Center in operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom.

Q: Last fall, you announced that you updated your “10 in five” strategy to reduce cost while improving support to the warfighter. The new goal is $13 billion savings in six years. What are the major aspects of this strategy, and how does it build on the original “10 in five” approach?

A: It’s actually exactly the same as the original approach—the savings number has just gotten bigger by $3 billion. We were very mindful that the message, and our approach, remain consistent year over year. So, other than increasing our goal to save the department $13 billion over the next six years, the strategy to

significantly improve our performance to the warfighter while dramatically reducing costs has not changed. We are doing this by focusing on five core priorities: improve customer service; decrease material costs; right-size our inventory and infrastruc-ture; decrease operating costs; and achieve audit readiness.

Q: Much of your budget is dependent on spending by the ser-vices—your customers. How would you characterize your budget and how do you expect spending to affect operations, upgrades, staffing and your day-to-day operations?

A: We have two big costs here. First is the cost of material, that’s the stuff we buy. The other is our cost of operations. About a year ago we were around $40 billion in sales, and that includes our cost of operations and our cost of materials, so it’s about $35 billion in material and $5 billion for operations. A real direct effort here is to reduce both, and we’re projecting $35 billion for FY14. As our projected sales come down from the highs we saw in FY11 and 2012, one of our challenges is to drive out costs so we can keep our surcharge rate constant. I’ve committed to our customers that we’ll make this happen.

Vice Admiral Mark D. HarnitchekDirector


Supply Chain MoverManaging Inventory and Costs for a Global Supply Network

Q&AQ&A

www.MLF-kmi.com Defense Logistics Agency | MLF 8.5 | 1

defeNSe loGISItCS aGeNCy

No Limits. A global leader in the provision of end to end supply chain solutions in the world’s most challenging locations.

Your Goals.our solutions.

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defeNSe loGIStICS aGeNCy

Brad B. BunnDirector

DLA Human Resources (J1)

Rear Adm. Vincent GriffithSC, USN, Director

DLA Logistics Operations (J3)

Vice Adm. Mark D. HarnitchekSC, USN, Director

Brig. Gen. Mark K. JohnsonUSAF, Commander

DLA Aviation

Col. Allen W. Kiefer USA, DirectorDLA Office of

Inspector General

Col. Joseph E. Ladner IV USA, Commander

DLA Europe and Africa

Rear Adm. Ron J. MacLaren USN, Director

Joint Contingency Acquisition Support Office

Col. Mark A. McCormickUSA, Commander

DLA Central

Fred T. Pribble DLA General Counsel (DG)

David RodriguezDirector

DLA Installation Support

Bobbi L. CollinsActing Commander

DLA Pacific

Brig. Gen. Steven A. Shapiro USA, Commander

DLA Troop Support

Headquarters

Corporate staff

2014

Headquarters

Col. Michael O. CannonUSAF, Director

DLA Disposition Services

Edward J. CaseVice Director

Command Sgt. Maj. Sultan A. Muhammad, USA

Senior Enlisted Leader

Rear Adm. David R. Pimpo SC, USN, Commander

DLA Land and Maritime

Renee L. RomanChief of Staff

Brig. Gen. Giovanni K. TuckUSAF, Commander

DLA Energy

Brig. Gen. Richard B. Dix USA, CommanderDLA Distribution

Ronnie FavorsAdministrator

DLA Strategic Materials

Stephen T. ShermanDirector

DLA Document Services

Raymond ZingarettiDirector

DLA Logistics Information Services

Matthew R. BeebeDirector

DLA Acquisition (J7)

Kathy CutlerDirector, DLA Information

Operations (J6)

Phyllisa GoldenbergDirector, DLA Strategic Plans and Policy (J5)

Rear Adm. Ron J. MacLaren USN, Director

Joint Reserve Force (J9)

J. Anthony Poleo Director

DLA Finance (J8)

Amy SajdaDirector

DLA Small Business (DB)

We feel a lot of pressure to reduce the cost of material and we work closely with our customers and industry to make informed projections about the future demand for DLA goods and services.

Q: Driving cost comes partly from being efficient and maximiz-ing what you do. Part of it comes from negotiating with industry to make sure you can get the best product at the lowest price. Is there a concern within DLA and DoD in general that industry could be pushed to a point where it’s not reasonable to do busi-ness with the government because they’ve driven the cost down so low?

A: When we talk to industry, one of the things we discuss is that none of what we do is an attack on their profit or the industrial base—it’s a joint government/industry attack on cost. You’ve heard of our Captains of Industry meetings. We lay out the strategy, chapter and verse with them in terms of what our goals are, and make them our strategic partners in achieving those savings. The lion’s share of the costs of materials that we’ve taken out have come from suggestions by industry—in fact, I would say that this figure is probably 50 percent and we expect to save about $1.4 billion through FY18. When you make your partners part of the strategy and the execution, you can achieve really miraculous things.

Some of our methods are acquisition-centric; for example, we make heavy use of reverse auctions. If we have an acquisition that is $150,000 or more, we go through the normal acquisition strategy, whether that is a best-value or a low-price/technically acceptable [acquisition], and instead of using final negotiations and a best and final offer sealed in an envelope, if you will, we use the reverse auction process.

It does put a little more pressure on the industry, but if you’re an industry leader, would you want to lose a $10 billion contract over a 2 percent difference in price? If a company is able to see what the competition is bidding, and they know what their margins are, their costs, and they know exactly how high or low they can go, it allows them to intelligently price their offer.

We use reverse auctions across all of our supply chains. How-ever, we found that for our Clothing and Textile Supply Chain, reverse auctions were not an appropriate pricing tool. In this partic-ular supply chain, we realized that its industrial base is very fragile since most of it has moved offshore. So we met with our partners, our Captains of Industry for the clothing and textile sector, and we had a disinterested third party look at reverse auctions. They came back to us and said, ‘You may be getting a great deal on a $70 service dress coat, but you’re putting a tremendous amount of cost pressure on an industry that’s already right at the margins here.’ In the interest of getting great products at a great price but main-taining a robust industrial base, they recommended that reverse auctions probably are not the best pricing strategy for that sector.

As a result, we’ve gone back to all best value and we price it using final negotiations and a best and final offer. This is an example of working with industry—listening to our industry partners, valu-ing their feedback, and when we don’t get it exactly right we do something different.

We’ve probably saved about $2.2 billion in reverse auctions alone—that’s about 18 months of reverse auctions, between 5,000-6,000 reverse auctions. They’ve been great. But most of the other savings, frankly, have come from industry.

For example, we have an OCONUS food service Captains of Industry with our subsistence prime vendors. When we had all of our prime vendors in here a few years ago, one of the things they told us was, ‘You have way too many products in your catalog.’

Here’s a great example: We had 154 different kinds of chicken. So, looking at chicken, are there really 154 ways to describe the parts of a chicken? You might think the answer to that question was no, but we were doing exactly that. We had “wings-spicy,” “wings-peppery,” “wings-Buffalo,” and so on. And while it sounds sort of silly, buying and stocking 154 different kinds of chicken from 26 vendors makes for some expensive chicken!

So, with industries’ suggestion and working with the services, we went from 154 different descriptions of chicken parts to 30, and we went from 26 suppliers to two suppliers. That has saved us, and the services, 20 percent. And each year we spend $121 million on chicken, so 20 percent is significant. If we do this across all our food items—beef, pork, seafood, canned fruits and vegetables—you name it, soup to nuts, we can save a lot of money and get great food to the crew.

Q: That was a Captains of Industry suggestion?

A: That’s right, it came directly from industry and it was free advice. Another suggestion as a result of the Captains of Industry was that we were spending way too much money on military pack-aging. They used the example of a Fram oil filter—it’s the typical orange filter that comes in an orange box—you can go to almost any auto parts supplier and grab one off the shelf—just like the ones we use. However, we were requiring Fram to take their oil filter out of their box, put it in bubble wrap and pack it in a larger cardboard box. That cost the government about 80 cents more per filter. We use a lot of oil filters and 80 cents per filter over a year is real money. Extrapolate that across all of our products that are re-packaged, you’re talking about cost saving of up to $120-150 million a year.

What we’ve done—not for all of our products, but most of them—is go with good old commercial packaging. What industry tells us is that any time you ask them to do something that isn’t done for their commercial customers, it costs more money. Some-times that’s okay, but many times, it’s not. Using commercial pack-aging also helps us become more green. By not introducing a lot more cardboard and bubble wrap into the waste stream we become more environmentally friendly. We have really hit a lot of homers with regard to cost of material—just with ideas from industry.

Q: Let’s talk about acquisition reform. Much of that seems to come from the length of time it takes to award a contract, from whenever that starts to whenever it’s awarded. You talk about a goal of 270 days or less for the process. What are the challenges to that? Can those challenges realistically be overcome in the environment that DLA has to work within?

A: I will tell you, across the board, and not just at DLA but every-where within DoD, it takes us too long to award a contract. This has also been a continuing theme with all of our Captains of Indus-try, in all of our nine supply chains.

So in response, we’re reducing our acquisition timelines by about 66 percent. To accomplish this our goal for automated

www.MLF-kmi.com4 | MLF 8.5 | Defense Logistics Agency




small purchases is 10 days, manual small purchases is in 35 days, large contracts in less than 110 days, long-term contracts for less than $10 million in 140 days or less, and long-term contracts for more than $10 mil-lion in less than 190 days.

We looked at the contracting process and split the activities of that process between non-value-added and value-added. Our goal is to pull as much of the white space out of the process—the time waiting for something else to happen. If you take a hard look at the process in terms of real value-added activity, meaning something which results in a con-tract, it’s a fraction of the total time. Almost all of the time is wait time.

We’ve set very aggressive goals, we’re tak-ing a little risk—not a lot—and we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to reduce our acquisition timeline. There’s really no cosmic solution here; it all boils down to basic busi-ness and leadership. And it’s necessarily all about speed for the sake of speed, but a faster process is more responsive to customer needs and it requires us to carry far less inventory. Like Ben Franklin said, “Time is money.”

Q: Are the contract administrators being given any more authority to push this along? Is there more of an individual mandate that each step of the process needs to move more efficiently?

A: One of things we found was we had volumes of regulations—inter-nal rules that went well beyond what was required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the department—that were slowing down fully empowered, hard-working and smart DLA contracting officers.

So with this mandate to streamline the processes, I trust our con-tracting officers to make the right call with not a lot of oversight and “mother may I” permissions. They will unequivocally do the right thing and they are fully empowered to do a bang-up job.

Q: We talked about Captains of Industry; I’d like to go back to that. You gave some great examples of how that’s worked and what the results of that have been. Are you holding more Captains of Indus-try than you did last year? Do you expect the numbers to grow based on the successes you’ve had?

A: We host a Captains of Industry meeting about every six to eight months with senior industry leaders from one of the supply chains. These executives are all ferocious competitors for our business so they don’t let a lot of secrets out, but we do talk about issues that are common across the supply chains between the government and industry. Then we write down what it is that we have committed to do. And when we have the next meeting, the first things we talk about are things we have fixed—tangible actions we’ve taken to make the relationship better.

Q: To be masters of inventory control supply chain management means you have to be a master of forecasting, understanding the

needs of your customers, what they’re going to want at whatever time. Are the services and DLA on the same page about how to forecast? Do you speak the same language about forecasting, and how do you communicate with everyone about inventory control?

A: We are masters of forecasting. The problem is in military logistics, about half the items we manage are not forecastable. The demand is very infrequent, or it is demanded frequently but in highly variable amounts. So, we may have a demand for 10 one quarter, 100 the next quarter, then none for two quarters. Those types of items are just hard to predict. Add to that the age of our systems, and you’ve got a tough problem.

On the other hand, half of our items are highly forecastable, and DLA and the services do a great job forecasting them. The problem is that, with all our items, it takes too long to buy them. The point is that forecasts, unlike wine, don’t get better with age. So it’s important that the procurement processes support the forecasting processes when those forecasts are relatively fresh and as accurate as possible.

Rand Corporation did some great work and essentially said we’ll get much better inventory performance by spending more time reducing contracting lead times and less time trying to forecast the unforecastable. And they’re right.

The key in terms of buying the right amount of inventory—no more, no less—and having it when customers need it is not all about more and better forecasting. This surprised many who thought, “If we could just forecast better, life would be great—if we just had better metrics, if our models had more arithmetic in them, we’d be much better.” Not so. The real key is a system that is responsive, flexible and fast. So, the key, for DLA anyway, is speed—speed, speed, speed.

Q: And the cycle is not predictable?

A: Right. That’s for our forecastable inventory. For the stuff that’s tough to forecast, rather than continuing to chase the forecast,



Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek and his son Army 1st Lieutenant Kyle Harnitchek greet one another at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan in April 2013. [Photo courtesy of DoD]

we’re going to buy a level of inventory and keep it there—and that’s it. So we’ve actu-ally “de-mathed” the difficult-to-forecast items. That’s the nature of our business and no amount of forecasting goodwill and intent is going to fix it. About half of what we manage here is extremely difficult to forecast, not for lack of trying. That’s just the way it is.

Q: A growing concern, both in and out of the military, is health care cost. Can, and how can, DLA help impact the health care cost to the military?

A: That is our second biggest supply chain, right after fuel, at about $5 billion. One of the biggest changes that has just been wonderful in terms of our ability to drive down cost is the standup of the Defense Health Agency with Lieutenant General Doug Robb in charge. Here you have a physician who understands both the patient care side of the equation and medical logistics as well.

We are General Robb’s agent to help reduce those logistics costs. For instance, we recently awarded a 10-year, $19 billion pharmaceutical distribution contract that includes a discount of 9 percent—that’s about $800 million in real savings over the life of the contract.

Another thing we’re going to do is award a similar contract on a global, vice regional basis. So you’re going to have major health care providers competing for 10 years’ worth of global medical logistics business. I’ll tell you—folks will get their pencils pretty sharp for a 10-year global contract.

Other ones are simply national contracts for pharmaceuticals. We wrote a contract for one pill and saved almost $2 million. That’s

one pill. Instead of awarding multiple contracts, we have one con-tract for one drug. You export that across all of the medical com-modities that we use, the savings there are enormous.

Q: Right now, most logisticians in the military have cut their teeth in a wartime environment. There’s talk about resetting equipment—what needs to be done to reset the mindset and the framework that a logistician operates within now?

A: That’s a great question. There are folks that have grown up since 9/11 in a fully-funded budget and pretty big supplementals, and they’ve become pretty used to that. My service chief, Admiral Greenert, said everybody needs to be much more judicious. That’s a



Vice Adm. Harnitchek addresses the Kentucky Air National Guard, 123rd Airlift Wing, May 19, 2011. [Photo courtesy of DoD]

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MLF_March.indd 1 3/5/2014 11:37:30 AM

big thing and an all-hands effort. So before we spend that next nickel, is that a nickel we ought to spend, or is that a nickel we ought to save or spend somewhere else? If we’re going to make an investment, what is better operationally? Does that investment take cost out somewhere else? If it doesn’t, you probably shouldn’t do it.

Some of this is also education. As you know, in logistics everything touches everything else and there are lots of play-ers in the log nation. So to ensure our folks understand the integrated nature of logistics, we are requiring our folks attain a Defense Acquisition University life cycle logistics certification. This means that we’re transforming our logistics work-force from logistics technicians to logistics professionals. The intent is to train people to understand the big system in which they operate and know how to think their way through complex problems where there is no easy solution. Our workforce reset will increase their understanding of the entire acquisition and product support processes; increase the cost-consciousness of the workforce; help us to reduce redundancy; and enable us to build stronger relationships with our customers to better understand their requirements to control costs.

So whether someone is in contracting, supplier or customer operations or product specialist work, understanding the big picture of acquisition lifecycle logistics is important for them to effectively do their job and execute our mission. I want DLA professionals to understand the whole logistics forest—not just their trees.

Q: Talking about the individual logisticians, especially the young logisticians coming through the chain now, what advice do you have for them to be better logisticians, to be better servicemem-bers in general?

A: I’m heartened by the amazing feats of logistics that the big enterprise has done over the last 12 years, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have worked hard, solved tough problems, achieved miracles, and frankly, made it look easy.

Everywhere in Iraq, everywhere in Afghanistan, time and time again: numerous surges in OEF/OIF; the speedy acquisition and movement of mine resistant ambush protected vehicles in the thousands into Iraq and Afghanistan; the closure of the Pakistan ground lines of communication; the establishment of the Northern Distribution Network; multimodal operations; supply chains in Iraq and Afghanistan that are exclusively commercial. Add to that a litany of natural disasters—the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami and the earthquake in Japan, Hurricane Sandy in the States—and you’re talking about a group of young logisticians that are unstop-pable in terms of intellect, hard work, leadership and the intestinal fortitude to just get things done. There has never been a better or more combat-tested group of logisticians than we have today.

What I tell folks here is that these are pivotal times and the expectations of them are exactly the same as they have been. The only problem is we’re going to have to do with a lot less money. So we’ve simply got it figure out how to do that, and that’s going to require everybody in this big log enterprise to be bold, be confident and hold themselves accountable for delivering the results.

So my advice to young logisticians is the same guidance I give to our folks at DLA. In fact, it’s the same guidance that General McNabb gave us at TRANSCOM when I was his deputy.

• We are living in historic times … doing things we’ve never done before … make some history yourself.

• Push for smart things to do … don’t wait for the requirement … or for folks to ask.

• No one knows this stuff better than you … so act like it.• I trust you to do the smart thing … prioritize, do it your own

way but get it done or ensure it gets done.• This is your time … do big things and make the system

better … if not you, who? If not now, when?• Relationships are key.• Take care of one another.• Keep promises.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A: This has been a pivotal time in military logistics and I want give special recognition to our civilian logisticians. When you look at the big DoD logistics organizations, it’s our great civil servants, the civilians who really know the business, understand it and are the backbone making great things happen. So BZ to our civilian shipmates throughout the DoD log nation. Thanks and good on you! O



Vice Adm. Harnitchek visiting the geographic South Pole on January 27, 2011. [Photo courtesy of DoD]

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SUPREME FOODSERVICE AG $1,956,723,601

MCKESSON CORPORATION $1,722,525,515

AMERISOURCEBERGEN DRUG CORPORATION

$1,462,873,648

REFINERY ASSOCIATES OF TEXAS INC. $1,340,110,462

WORLD FUEL SERVICES $1,119,196,201

CARDINAL HEALTH INC. $1,068,075,862

NATIONAL FUEL INC. $912,696,351

ATLANTIC DIVING SUPPLY INC. $838,596,881

TOTAL RAFFINAGE MARKETING $750,648,559

COMPANIA ESPANOLA DE PETROLEOS SA

$709,307,544

VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY COMPANY

$672,455,775

SUPREME FUELS TRADING FZE $612,197,292

CHEVRON $610,551,842

MOTOR OIL (HELLAS) CORINTH REFINERIES S.A.

$595,966,008

SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL

$582,778,720

S-OIL CORPORATION $578,105,145

KUWAIT PETROLEUM CORPORATION $557,808,235

EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION - MOBIL OIL GUAM INC.

$503,006,106

THE BAHRAIN PETROLEUM COMPANY B.S.C.

$502,963,851

ABU DHABI NATIONAL OIL COMPANY FOR DISTRIBUTION

$436,601,280

EQUILON ENTERPRISES LLC $433,390,953

GAZPROMNEFT-AERO KYRGYZSTAN LLC

$358,322,382

HUSKY MARKETING AND SUPPLY COMPANY

$269,282,981

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $244,745,158

AM GENERAL LLC $242,520,727

HANJIN TRANSPORTATION CO. LTD. $206,657,127

U.S. FOODSERVICE INC. $205,440,352

SYSCO CORP. $194,656,482

VITOL INC. $193,749,384

ANHAM LLC $183,258,347

BRAD HALL & ASSOCIATES INC. $176,307,927

SK ENERGY CORPORATION $173,493,762

WESTERN REFINING COMPANY L.P. $170,741,388

FEDERAL PRISON INDUSTRIES INC. $161,238,493

BAE SYSTEMS $153,079,483

OWENS & MINOR DISTRIBUTION INC. $150,118,129

LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION $135,954,999

SEVEN SEAS SHIPSCHANDLERS LLC $130,479,884

NATIONAL INDUSTRIES FOR THE BLIND

$129,886,640

MAXCOM PETROLI SPA $122,671,009

CFM INTERNATIONAL INC. $122,119,162

PETROLEUM TRADERS CORPORATION

$109,149,156

MANSFIELD OIL COMPANY OF GAINESVILLE INC.

$104,957,459

GS CALTEX CORPORATION $104,034,838

AHNTECH INC. $102,293,036

PAPCO INC. $102,106,401

AMERIQUAL GROUP LLC $101,527,282

PROTECTIVE PRODUCTS ENTERPRISES

$97,634,865

GRAYBAR ELECTRIC COMPANY INC. $96,445,461

CARTER ENTERPRISES LLC $95,207,288

THE WORNICK COMPANY $92,320,439

U.S. OIL TRADING LLC $91,777,433

DMS PHARMACEUTICAL GROUP INC. $89,660,057

PETROMAX LLC $89,653,803

TENNIER INDUSTRIES INC. $82,297,320

PETRO STAR INC. $79,823,971

SOURCE ONE DISTRIBUTORS INC. $79,751,343

HONEYWELL INC. $74,129,960

EATON CORPORATION $73,148,822

SOPAKCO INC. $71,904,765

NISH $70,997,872

NORDIC CAMP SUPPLY APS $70,416,882

SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT CORPORATION $69,619,195

SUPPLYCORE INC. $68,112,150

GOODRICH CORPORATION $68,036,320

BAHRAIN MARITIME AND MERCANTILE

$68,034,408

FOSTER FUELS INC. $66,254,292

KAMPI COMPONENTS CO. INC. $65,637,399

GENERAL DYNAMICS LAND SYSTEMS $64,783,494

BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON INC. $64,415,730

THE BOEING COMPANY $64,369,648

COASTAL PACIFIC FOOD DISTRIBUTORS

$63,941,937

PRATT & WHITNEY $62,338,058

ROLLS-ROYCE CORPORATION $62,079,461

CANADIAN COMMERCIAL CORPORATION

$61,907,207

LABATT INSTITUTIONAL SUPPLY COMPANY

$60,596,602

W.S. DARLEY & CO. $59,931,259

BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES LLC $59,662,065

KUWAIT AVIATION FUELLING COMPANY KSC (KAFCO)

$59,334,599

NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION

$58,651,525

PARKER-HANNIFIN CORPORATION $56,435,562

GT GLOBAL SERVICES S.A. $55,658,500

HYUNDAI OILBANK CO. LTD. $55,419,750

HAMILTON SUNDSTRAND CORPORATION

$53,081,231

AAR CORP. $52,214,286

I-SOLUTIONS DIRECT INC. $51,859,150

WILLE THEODOR INTERTRADE GMBH $51,844,340

MITAN HANDELS AG $51,197,315

OSHKOSH CORPORATION $50,759,988

THEODOR WILLE INTERTRADE GMBH $50,097,466

JACKSONVILLE JETPORT LLC $48,823,762

AMERICAN PURCHASING SERVICES INC.

$48,139,243

NACCO MATERIALS HANDLING GROUP INC.

$47,356,694

KOVATCH MOBILE EQUIPMENT CORP. $46,626,425

AMERICAN APPAREL INC. $45,930,953

ENERSYS ENERGY PRODUCTS INC. $45,655,186

AVFUEL CORPORATION $45,357,712

PROPPER INTERNATIONAL SALES INC. $44,405,947

GENTEX CORP. $43,251,183

PHILLIP INDUSTRIES INC. $42,984,387


www.MLF-kmi.comC4 | MLF 8.5 | Defense Logistics Agency

Compiled by KMI Media Group staffSUPPLY CHAIN

Advanced Battery Manufacturing TechnologiesThe Defense Logistics Agency

has recently issued a small business innovative research solicitation seeking to develop manufacturing and logistics solutions that improve the industrial capability to deliver batteries to the warfighter in a ready to use state with better shelf life, increased safety, and lower cost and lead-time. These solutions must apply innovations to improve the manufacturing or production of batteries, reduce costs associated

with the battery manufacturing process, advance standardization in the battery supply chain, or reduce the environmental impact of battery manufacturing and disposal.

Technology solutions must include advancements in processes or equipment used in the produc-tion of batteries or their compo-nents, such as the anode, cathode, electrolyte, separator material, cell, and battery management system.

Proposed solutions must apply to one or more of the following technical thrust areas: dimin-ishing manufacturing sources and material shortages; reduction of acquisition costs; surge and sustainment; shelf life; technology transition/insertion; automation; and/or Lithium battery safety.

These solutions must result in an improvement in the afford-ability of battery products and services to DLA and its customers,

the sustainment of existing defense systems, and the potential effects on the next generation of defense systems. The DLA is clear that it is only interested in a revolu-tion in the reduction of unit cost metrics and battery product avail-ability. Incremental advancements will receive very little consider-ation. They are also only inter-ested in projects the private sector considers too risky for ordinary capital investment.

Air Cargo ContainerTenCate Advanced Armor USA has signed a

teaming agreement with Air Cargo Containers LLC to manufacture lightweight air cargo containers. The fully-certified, lightweight, composite air cargo carriers have a tare weight of 480 pounds, or about 350 pounds less than competing aluminum containers, a 42 percent weight savings. In addition, it incorporates a

proprietary and patented roll-up door with destruction proof side glides and lock down features for safety in operation.

Air Cargo Containers LLC was granted Technical Standard Order certification for its lightweight-composite AMJ model Unit Load Device in December 2013. It is the first all-composite container to receive this certification

by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. It is constructed of proprietary composite side panels and floor panel, built around an aerospace grade aluminum frame, for lightness and durability as well as improved maintenance characteristics and flame retardant capability. The composite material and assembly of the entire container will be done by TenCate Advanced Armor in Ohio.

Non-Skid Deck Surface

SNSS LLC has developed SilvaGrip, a patent-pending non-skid, peel and stick surface for walkways and decks. The material has been approved for application to U.S. Navy ships.

Silvagrip weighs 3 ounces per square foot and offer a friction coef-ficient of 1, the highest possible. The material is fabricated with sophisticated technical alloys that hold a matrix of sharp ceramic abrasives, with hardness just under diamonds. Silvagrip is very ductile and capable of being shaped or bent, but at the same time gives a strong non-skid wear surface.

The non-skid material is an aluminum/ceramic blend of molten metal and ceramic, applied to a backing with adhesive and a protective paper liner. By pulling the paper liner away, the non-skid material can be applied to decks or walkways.

DLA Finishes its Work in IraqAmerican forces left

Iraq more than two years ago, but the Defense Logistics Agency’s job there is just now ending.

On May 15, the agency stopped providing supplies to the State Department officials who assumed responsibility for U.S. operations in Iraq on December 31, 2011. DLA agreed to supply food, fuel and disposal services until the State Department estab-lished its own contract, which was awarded in July 2013.

“The new vendor has come on board in phases, and DLA has been gradu-ally transferring logistics

support to the new vendor since early this year,” said Navy Captain Jim Liberko, who served six months as commander of the DLA support team in Kuwait, which supports every-thing in the U.S. Central Command area of respon-sibility except Afghanistan.

DLA stopped providing fuel at the end of February, followed by property disposal and demilitariza-tion at the end of March.

“The turnover for fuel was pretty seamless, but before ending our disposal services mission we spent 30 days working side by side with the new contractor, training them on the

equipment and processes,” Liberko said.

In food support, the agency stopped providing fresh produce and nonfood items such as paper plates in March. Dry food items ended in April, and all logistics support to the State Department is scheduled to end in May when DLA stops providing frozen food.

DLA’s support was originally scheduled to end in March 2013, but was extended so the agency could provide State Department officials with operational logistics plan-ning as well as acquisition and financial management assistance.


Brigadier General Steven A. ShapiroCommander

Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support

Warfighter SupplierManaging Diverse Supply Chains for the Global Warfighter

Q&AQ&A

Brigadier General Steven A. Shapiro became commander, Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, on August 1, 2013. DLA Troop Support annually procures more than $13 billion worth of food, clothing and textiles, construction and equipment, pharma-ceuticals, medical supplies and equipment, as well as industrial hardware items for America’s warfighters and other customers worldwide. He leads this global mission, which is performed by approximately 2,400 civilian and military personnel.

Shapiro entered the United States Army as a commissioned officer on May 24, 1985, at the rank of second lieutenant. His mili-tary education includes the Ordnance Officer Basic and Advanced Course, the Army Command and General Staff College, and the Army War College.

Prior to coming to DLA Troop Support, Shapiro served as the deputy commander of the 1st Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. While assigned to the 1st TSC, he was forward-deployed with the unit to Kabul, Afghanistan.

Shapiro’s previous assignments include: director of the Mate-riel Enterprise Integration and Retrograde Operations Center, Afghanistan; deputy chief of staff, G4, United States Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany; chief of staff, United States Army Materiel Command, Fort Belvoir, Va.; commander, Letterkenny Army Depot, United States Army Aviation and Missile Com-mand, Chambersburg, Pa.; G3, 3rd Corps Support Command, V Corps, United States Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany; commander, Combat Equipment Battalion, Luxembourg; chief, Ground Maintenance Branch, later chief, Readiness Operation Division, Materiel Management Center; support operations offi-cer, 1st Corps Support Command; support operations officer, 51st Maintenance Battalion, 21st Theater Army Area Command, United States Army Europe and Seventh Army; Germany logistics operations officer, later support operations officer, 29th Support Group (Forward); chief, Supply and Maintenance Division, later logistics operations officer, later support operations officer, 29th Support Group, United States Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany; support operations officer, 1st Corps Support Com-mand; support operations officer, 51st Maintenance Battalion, 21st Theater Army Area Command, United States Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany; logistics operations officer, later support operations officer, 29th Support Group (Forward); chief, Supply and Maintenance Division, later logistics operations offi-cer, later support operations officer, 29th Support Group, United States Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany; S1, 46th Sup-port Group (Corps), 1st Corps Support Command; commander,

659th Maintenance Company, 189th Maintenance Battalion, 1st Corps Support Command; logistics support officer, later adjutant, 189th Maintenance Battalion, 1st Corps Support Command; maintenance platoon leader, 15th Engineer Company, later bat-talion maintenance officer, 536th Engineer Battalion, United States Army South, Fort Kobbe, Panama.

Shapiro’s decorations and badges include: the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with Oak Leaf Clusters, the Meritorious Ser-vice Medal with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Commendation Medal with 4 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Achievement Medal with Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Parachutist Badge.

Q: Tell me about the organization, about the diversity in the product lines you carry, the diversity in the clients and the types of missions you support. Give us a baseline understanding.

A: DLA has five distinct supply chains, each very unique. When DLA was organizing, they had to find a PLFA (primary level field activity) to do what I would term ‘other,’ and that became Troop Support.

We have Subsistence Class I, everything from MREs and first strike rations up through the unitized group ration and A-rations that you’re used to seeing at your dining room table.


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relationship with the military proves that we have the resources and know-how to deliver when

it counts. We won’t let you down, and more importantly, we won’t let down the troops who

rely on the supply chain. We pride ourselves on being the mission critical link to success for our

military yesterday and today, and we’ll be there for our troops tomorrow.

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We support dining facilities, both in CONUS and OCONUS. In Afghanistan, for instance, we support approximately 100 separate dining facilities with deliveries of fresh food, vegetables and hot rations.

We handle clothing and textiles, meaning we buy the uniforms and all the OCIE (organizational clothing and individual equipment) that goes along with that for the services. We’re very heavy into the cut-and-sew industry and have built some very strong relationships with fabric manufacturers. We are always talking with them and looking for innovation.

Running the gamut from sandbags, force protection items, met-als, lumber, bulldozers and trucks is our construction and equipment supply chain. Again, we handle these items across all of the services.

Within Class VIII, medical supplies, we buy everything from ban-dages to MRI equipment. One item might cost under a dollar while another can cost millions of dollars. Under Class VIII, we also acquire all pharmaceuticals for the services.

The nuts and bolts of our business are in the industrial hardware we manage. There are almost a million different stock numbered items, including nuts, bolts, washers and other fasteners.

In addition to our five supply chains, we have two forward pres-ence sites, one the Pacific in Hawaii, where we work with PACOM, and a forward site in Germany, where we work both with the EUCOM and with AFRICOM.

Q: As commander of DLA Troop Support, what’s the measure of success? How do you stand up and measure success and the areas where you might need improvement?

A: In a recent presentation I gave the workforce, I have a slide entitled “What Winning Looks Like.” I think it’s important that we have this conversation with them. The number one thing that we remind ourselves of every time we have the chance is that the units are customers all over the globe, and we need to make sure that they are getting what they need, when they need it and where they need it. That’s number one.

Then after that is quality and schedule. We have to either get it at cost or below cost from what we told the customer. It has to be the highest quality, and it has to be there on time.

Something else of great importance is for us to shorten the amount of time it takes to procure items. We buy about $14 billion worth of goods for the services. The longer we take to contract for the needed items, the longer our customers deal without it and the higher our inventory costs are. We’re doing what we can to reduce the amount of time it takes to award contracts.

Another success measure that’s very foundational here, some-thing that cuts across everything, is that when I leave here I’d like to have a bench of professionals who are sitting on the bench waiting to replace the person above them. I want to build the bench here, so when we get into executing our succession plan we have qualified people who are ready and qualified to manage the next job.

Q: How are you doing that? Are you doing that with in-house edu-cation, in-house training, skills development in how to be better contractors and logisticians?

A: There are two parts to that.On one hand, there are the hard skills; we do quite a lot of

training for those in-house. We have acquisition and logistics

forums where our acquisition workforce or logistics workforce attend classes to stay current with our processes or hear guest speakers. These usually happen quarterly.

We’re also looking externally for training, not necessarily for the contracting expertise or logistic expertise, but for those leader-ship attributes that are necessary to raise young leaders to take over in this organization—not just in five months or five years, but 10-20 years from now.

There are a lot of executive training opportunities that OSD and DoD have, and we are looking to take advantage of those. We are also looking for other opportunities like partnering with universi-ties—again, not necessarily in the technical aspect of our mission, but in those leadership skills, softer skills that folks need so they can run and lead an organization.

Q: Especially with an eye on the current budget climate and what’s anticipated to be the budget climate for several years, what are some of the initiatives that you have going on to help you reduce your customers’ expenses and, as you said, time on delivery and so on?

A: We’re doing several things to help our customers in that regard. For example, we’re working national contracts, which are contrac-tual pricing agreements with manufacturers, so that when our vendors go out looking for products, they’re getting the best price available.

For instance, we recently competed for chicken that resulted in a set of pricing contracts. What this does is when our subsistence prime vendors are told to deliver chicken to a specific location, we guarantee that they’re getting the lowest price.

We’re doing the same thing for pharmaceuticals. Before a brand-name drug goes from brand name to generic, we actually have a national contract in place so that we can get the best generic price out there. This is the kind of thing that is going to save our customers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five to 10 years.

A few other things that we’re working on—again going back to medical, we’re working with the Defense Health Agency on standardization. Right now, doctors have a large menu of items to choose from, but working with the medical professionals in DHA, we’re helping them narrow that list. So instead of buying 15 differ-ent types of syringes we can narrow it down maybe to five, and for those five get a better price because we can buy in bulk.

We recently worked with one of our medical partners to help us with standardizing what we buy, and then we’re hoping to come back and get better pricing because of that.

Reverse auctions are huge. It’s almost like that loan commercial you see where the banks come after you, instead of you going out and looking for the banks. We’ll put a product line out there and announce a reverse auction. When the bidding starts, the offered price will move downward as companies bid what they provide the product for. The price will continue to move down until we reach the point where we award the contract—to the lowest bidder. And these companies are already pre-screened for quality and capability.

Over the last several years, we probably done over 150 reverse auctions and this has saved us tens of millions of dollars.

Q: What are the core requirements that you expect of your suppli-ers when they deal with you?


A: Just a few things, but first and foremost are ethical standards. You want to have cost, quality and scheduling when dealing with your suppliers, but if a supplier can’t meet the ethical standards as outlined by the government in the FAR, or in normal business practices, we don’t want to do business with them.

With that at the top level, then it really becomes a conversa-tion about cost, quality and schedule. Can they do it for the cost advertised or below cost at the quality in the specification, and can they do it on time?

The last thing is communications and innovation. We rely on commercial solutions here for some of what we do; if a commer-cial partner has a better idea on how to do business, we bring them in. There’s a program run up at DLA headquarters called Captains of Industry, and when the focus is on subsistence or our other sup-ply chains, we help run those events.

Industry leaders are invited to come in and talk to us about the innovative ways they are approaching business in their particular fields. From those interactions we hope to be able to incorporate what we learn into future solicitations and improve our processes with each and every transaction.

Q: Looking out from where you sit right now, what do you see on the horizon for DLA Troop Support? What are the next steps from where you are right now?

A: Again, number one for me personally is the continuation of the building of the bench. I have an off-site here in early June, and one of our main topics will be the next generation of leaders.

Above and beyond that, it’s the integration of new ideas. Some of these have come from Captains of Industry and some directly from our commercial partners.

One example is what we call integrated food service. Our sub-sistence supply chain works rations for the services. They deliver to the dining facilities, and then the dining facilities feed the sol-diers, sailors, airman and Marines, here in CONUS, overseas and certainly in Afghanistan.

The integrated food service concept would be a contract vehicle where we don’t just contract the food, but we contract the food preparation and service to the servicemembers. This will combine food delivery with food preparation, so instead of having one contractor hand to another contractor handing to a soldier, we will streamline the entire process.

Another great example is GSA. DLA took over about 5,000 stock numbers from the GSA, and all but a handful came to Troop Support. With this, GSA and the USDA Forest Service became two new big customers of ours. The net result is that more customers help flatten out the cost recovery rate.

Another big issue on our plate is the Afghanistan drawdown. I have a conversation scheduled every week to discuss this. Our challenge there is [figuring out] how to build down what we pro-vide there so there is not a pile of excess at the end of the process.

There was some NDAA language about going to a more com-mon utility or combat uniform; we assume the decisions will be made at OSD within the next year. This would be a pretty big deal for us. But for now, we wait like everyone else.

Q: Tell me what happens at the command when you’re called on to react to something that is unplanned, that is out of the norm—such as a humanitarian disaster like the typhoon in the

Philippines, or when there is a manmade event that the U.S. responds to, like the events in Ukraine recently.

A: I’ll talk about each of those a little bit separately. I have an operations center here with an operations officer, currently a Navy captain. Normally he works his regular shift, but when there’s a disaster, we man our ops center 24 hours a day. We most recently did that for the typhoon in the Philippines.

When DLA headquarters deploys a forward team we will embed LNOs with that team. That keeps the communications very open and it’s a status that we can pull back from quickly as the require-ment dictates. We did that for the Philippines, we did that for Hurricane Sandy.

We have a fairly wide breadth of products that allows us to sup-port any emergency, either through FEMA or directly, depending on the chain of command.

We have MREs, we have humanitarian daily rations, bottled water, fresh fruits and vegetables, blankets, cots, gloves, coveralls, to name a few. We had to load up the USNS Mercy team after the Philippines with Class VIII medical supplies.

Hurricane Sandy was different. There we provided a lot of water pumps and power generation. Because of what happened along the eastern seaboard, we were powering buildings up. Not only did we send generators to New York, we sent people with them, so it was almost a power generation kit. We were able to bring the generator there and hook it up to the building’s power and light the building.

For Ukraine, again we do have a team in Europe which helped when the requirement came in to ship MREs to Ukraine. The day after receiving the requirement, we had trucks with 25,000 cases of MREs on their way. About three days later they arrived at their destination.

Q: Does that mean that with your suppliers, there surge capabili-ties you have as opposed to having things sitting on a warehouse stock room? Is there also surge capability you can draw on from them?

A: Just last week we had 18 of our suppliers up here in Philadel-phia, and we were doing a ROC—rehearsal of concept—drill. We were rehearsing what would happen if a natural disaster happened in the United States and how it would affect our suppliers. How would they be able to react in the affected area, and then how would they support a large humanitarian operation right here in America?

What I had found out is that contractually we have surge requirements in those contracts where we’re supposed to have surge requirements. With those contracts, we have the capabili-ties and duplication that we need. Our suppliers have things like mobile pharmacies, warehouses and access to all sorts of inven-tory. The food people, you have U.S. Foods here and Sysco, and they both talked about their distribution warehouses throughout the continental United States and the relationships they have with the food producers of America.

It’s amazing the access that we have to multiple supply chains, to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of suppliers.

Q: You’ve referred in the past to the Seven Deadly Sins of Sus-tainment. Can you go into a little bit of detail for that?


A: It goes back almost 10 years ago when, as a colonel, I went to a manufacturing conference in Florida. A speaker got up and talked about the Seven Deadly Sins of Manufacturing. That was the kind of catchphrase that I remember—Seven Deadly Sins stuck with me. When we were in Afghanistan getting ready for the drawdown and it became central to our effort, we had to deal with turning down the spigot of things coming in so we could reach that tipping point of where more is leaving Afghanistan than coming in.

It took us three to four months to get to that tipping point. Dur-ing that time there was a lot of conversation about what was needed and what wasn’t, so that we could start pushing things back, and I remembered back to the manufacturing conference. I sat down with my boss and talked about Seven Deadly Sins of Sustainment: We shouldn’t lust after capabilities that we no longer need, we should be turning that off. We shouldn’t envy what the other guy has in the next FOB over; we should set a common standard so that across the board it’s equal.

We have great young soldiers and servicemembers with great ideas and we have to have mechanisms and forums for them to come in and talk and share their ideas. Some won’t be used, but some will. But it’s that communication. If you have a level of wrath inside you and you don’t want to listen to folks, you’ll never get it done. Gluttony: Always wanting more and more is not the way to go. You want reverse gluttony, you want less and less.

So that’s how we set up for Afghanistan—it was really for my people to have a prism to think about certain things, how do you think about things.

When I got here to Troop Support, I had a town hall and gave my Seven Deadly Sins speech, if you would, and basically when you talk to your contract workforce here, to me it went back to looking at the requirements across the board, and a little bit about ethics.

What I told them was that they’re out there buying things for the customer, but they could be more informed. Nobody knows more about our business than the people in this room do. When you see something wrong you’ve got to say something. I talked about the Seven Deadly Sins and that you just have to be able to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and be happy with what you see.

The Seven Deadly Sins aren’t hard-fast rules—they’re just a prism that I ask employees to look through when they’re thinking about their next purchase, or how much of the next purchase they want to buy. That’s all that is. And hopefully they’ll remember it because people get the Seven Deadly Sins. It’s more than a pep talk, and I hope it will stick with them.

Q: An interesting aside, what’s something interesting or some-thing that most people don’t know about Troop Support and what they do?

A: A couple of different things actually.First of all, we have the flag room, and we have ladies in there

who are known as the “flag ladies.” Every presidential and vice presi-dential flag used by the White House is hand-embroidered here in Philadelphia. We’ve been doing this for years. They also make unit colors and pennants; some are hand-sewn, some are machine-made. We do all things flag for the government.

We have a very large ecclesiastic requirement, so inside our clothing and textiles supply chain, not only do we do uniforms, but we do Bibles, Qurans, and rosary beads, for example. I just received final word that everything for Passover is now in the hands of units

in Afghanistan, and that’s not just the food portion, but it’s the Seder kit, if you would, including all the books and plates that go along with that.

The last thing I’ll say, and I found this one to be the most fascinating, is uniform shade. It’s important that the uniforms we provide are within shade tolerances set by the services—that way, all the uniform components match, and present a professional appear-ance. You wouldn’t have thought it would be that complex—some of the most complex conversations I’ve had since I’ve been here about the shade and the digital uniform. You can go to the shade room, and we have about a one-hour tour, and you sit in a room that’s probably about 10 feet by 15 feet and you do nothing but look at different shades and talk shades, a one-hour conversation to get the 30,000-foot view of all things shade.

When you look at a soldier’s tan T-shirt, or a Marine’s brown or green T-shirt, there may or may not be shade variation in that uniform or in the digital uniform that we wear over that.

Our people run a shade council, and so when we’re talking about the color of the uniform, it’s not just what you see with the eye, but it’s how it’s measured by the machines that make the fabric. We are the “keepers of the shade” for Department of Defense, perhaps more precisely, “keepers of the right shade.”

Q: Working with industry, you talked about Captains of Industry and your everyday dealings with industry. Why is that critical? How has what you’re doing succeeded and where can you go from here with that concept?

A: Whenever possible, I like to give credit to our industry partners, so when somebody says, “Hey, we had a great Christmas meal,” first of all I say, “Thank you, we appreciate the accolades, and I’d like to thank our industry partners who actually made that possible.” We do a solicitation, we write the contracts and we monitor, but our suppliers are out there really making it happen. They’re out there just as much, hooking and jabbing to make it happen for our customers.

Having that open line of communication with our vendors is very critical, and the closer you are to the pointy end of the spear, the more critical that becomes. So, like our vendors in Afghanistan, I make it a point to [contact] them weekly. While nobody knows our business better than us here in DLA Troop Support, in many respects our vendors have that same level of understanding.

Another for example is, with our fabric manufacturers who are making the fabric that is in the military uniforms that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are going to wear. I will often go to them and look at the innovations in the material from a flame-resistant perspective, or from making it lightweight, or maybe we could have two different digital patterns on a uniform. Could we make a reversible jacket that will go with each pattern? But I also listen to those manufacturers, hearing what they have to say in how they approach the manufacturing process, which might help drive costs lower.

So I think that whole innovation piece would not happen with-out free and open communication, not just between us and the sup-pliers, but bringing these customers into the conversation.

Q: You mentioned the drawdown and your Afghanistan drawdown meetings that you have weekly. In general, how does that affect your day-to-day operations with this drawdown, the intensity that


it’s going at, and the intensity that could come about sometime later this year?

A: Our biggest commodity in Afghanistan is rations, and they’re going to be consumed in place.

It’s incumbent upon us to keep a close watch on this. Tracking the current head count, the number of base camps closing and the number still remaining is important so we don’t have too much food sitting in a camp that is closing or has been reduced in size. We look at the numbers for the next week, but also are projecting one and two months out.

For us, it’s more of a planning thing and it’s staying ahead. I think that we’re doing quite well with that right now—we’re talking to the right folks. The theater has a very good retrograde plan, and all we’re doing is staying linked.

As the drawdown advances, it will make our subsistence work-load go down over the next several months, and that goes back to the integrated food service conversation: How do we keep some of that work on board, and again, save the services money at the same time?

Q: You had talked about how important ethics are when you’re dealing with your industrial suppliers, and that reminded me of some other conversations I’ve had with Admiral Harnitchek and some others about counterfeit parts; that scenario in the electron-ics field is a very big deal. Is counterfeit products, ones that aren’t

up to standard but are delivered as being up to standard, is that an issue that’s of concern to you and an issue that you have to spend a fair amount of time monitoring and keeping track of?

A: I actually had a meeting about that last week, and I’ll tell you, from our perspective, we don’t see that as a problem in Troop Sup-port. There are other supply chains in DLA, and you talked to Admi-ral Harnitchek about it, he does watch that fairly closely. We watch it, but right now, we don’t see it as a problem here in Troop Support. Of course, our folks are monitoring quality and contract perfor-mance in their normal course of business and that plays into it.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add in closing about the men and women of DLA troop support or anything else about its mission?

A: We have some great professionals who come in every day; they know their job, they understand the customers, they understand the warfighter, they understand the suppliers, and they do a fantastic job for all those parties, for the government and the taxpayers and the customers. I’m very proud to be here.

Last year, with the sequestration, was rough. What I don’t see is any lasting effect of that right now. I think the workers here in Phila-delphia and throughout DLA, and probably throughout DoD, come in every day and just try to do the right think for the warfighter. It’s been a great year for me to be here. O

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keeping warFighTers connecTed during phase 4 operaTions.by colonel linda JanTzen and lieuTenanT colonel JeFFrey Thompson

United States Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) is in the midst of a massive retrograde and redeployment effort as combat operations in Afghanistan are transitioned from U.S. and NATO forces to Afghan security forces. As forward operating bases close or are transferred to Afghan or other government agency control, the theater communi-cations network infrastructure, which had at its peak expanded to 23 strategic technical control facilities along with hundreds of tactical extensions, has to be scaled back without interrupting critical net-work services to support the remaining mission.

With lessons learned from Iraq and recent experience de-com-missioning and moving a modular technical control facility from Afghanistan to Kuwait, the 160th Signal Brigade and their mission partners in Afghanistan began the planning process to successfully retrograde the network. The term “retrograde in contact” has been used to describe maneuver forces transitioning from combat opera-tions to train, advise and assist roles, even as the enemy continues to engage them on a regular basis. From a network perspective, the term describes the Signal community’s efforts to dismantle the infrastruc-ture while ensuring communications remains live and accessible wherever it is required to continue to support the maneuver plan.

At the same time, high value information technology (IT) equip-ment has to be accounted for throughout the packing, shipping,

receiving and storing process, and people with the right skill sets have to be on hand to accomplish the myriad of tasks needed to migrate services, and de-commission and dismantle a modular tech-nical control facility. All of this, collectively called Signal Retrograde Operations, requires input and cooperation between communications providers and integrators, IT engineers, battalion/brigade/regional command and corps signal staff, property technicians, resource man-agers, and contracting officer’s representatives, transporters, custom-ers, commanders and battlespace owners.

A review of lessons learned from Iraq in 2011 refreshed everyone’s memory, but the situation in Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan today is different in many important ways. In Iraq, unanticipated political events forced tens of thousands of U.S. personnel to leave the country in a short period of time, giving communications providers very little time to shut down gracefully. Compounding the problem was the fact that there were multiple communications providers, including multiple tactical signal elements, with user-owned servers and con-nectivity under the control of different units, and an expeditionary signal battalion under the 160th Signal Brigade that was operating and maintaining the theater S-Iraq network. Many users in Iraq did not know how their communications was provided, nor how or with whom to coordinate for continued service throughout the retrograde.


USFOR-A started the planning process early, triggered by the president’s announcement of a reduction in boots-on-the-ground to 34,000 by February 2014. III Corps led the effort upon its arrival in April 2013, bringing maneuver units and all functional task forces together to produce a retrograde operations order, Operation Drumbeat. Meanwhile, CENTCOM authorized ARCENT to establish the CENTCOM material readiness element as the lead for retrograde logistics in Afghanistan. Ultimately, the details of how to collapse the network, de-commission and ship strategic signal assets like modu-lar technical control facilities and deployable KU-band earth termi-nals (DKETs) back to Kuwait were left up to the Signal community.

Early in 2013, the 335th Signal Command (Theater)(Provi-sional) convened a TCF closure planning session in Bagram. 335th SC engineers had published a notional communications architec-ture based upon decisions made by CENTCOM and USFOR-A as to the geographic footprint, operational and sustainment forces, and other functions that would endure following Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) transition to Resolute Support Mission (RSM) by the end of 2014. The signal planning session brought together the Regional Command CJ6s (1ID and 3ID at the time) along with CENTCOM, ISAF Joint Command and USFOR-A CJ6 and the 160th Signal Brigade’s headquarters element in Afghanistan known as Task Force Signal.

Discussions at the TCF Closure session made it clear that a single focal point would be needed to continue to plan, coordinate, execute, track and provide a common operational picture of network retrograde operations. Because no amount of planning could prevent the inevitable changes and conflicting information from various headquarters, staffs, mayors, battlespace owners, contractors, etc., there had to be one place to receive the information coming from all levels at higher headquarters down to the lieutenant or sergeant first class on the ground at the TCF, de-conflict it, garner decisions, issue orders and inform the appropriate stakeholders. That “one stop shop” was the Signal Retrograde Operations Center-Afghanistan (SROC-A), stood up at and staffed by task force signal headquarters in Bagram.

Upon being briefed on the signal retrograde concept for Afghani-stan, Major General Steve Smith, then commanding general of 335th SC(T)(P), asked Colonel Linda Jantzen, 160th Signal Brigade and task force signal commander, “Who is your BRAC coordinator?” The term BRAC, for base realignment and closure, was a vivid analogy to the congressionally mandated process of closing and transferring DoD bases, which last occurred in 2005-6. The choice was clear for who soon would be known as the Signal Retrograde Operations Center-Afghanistan (SROC-A) Director. As the former Joint Network Control Center-Afghanistan (JNCC-A) Director, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Thompson had expertise in all of the technical and logistical lines of effort that the SROC-A would be managing. His task was to centralize control of the signal retrograde process, create templates and TTPs, and apply lessons learned to make the process effective, efficient and repeatable as personnel constantly flowed in and out of theater. SROC-A established a future operations capability that freed up the JNCC-A to focus on operations and maintenance and optimi-zation of the remaining network.

The specific lines of effort (LoE) established for the SROC-A are:

• Battle Tracking LoE provides asset visibility, identifies decision points and priorities for shared resources. Maintains master battle rhythm calendar to deconflict the various coordination meetings and working group sessions.

• Network Transition LoE ensures continuity of network capabilities for customers remaining on a FOB after the TCF is shut down, migration of services to enduring hubs, and an orderly transition to the objective RSM architecture. Uses on-location joint site surveys to identify user requirements and the right contingency package for sites in which a TCF will have to be de-commissioned and removed. This LoE ensures maximum use of existing infrastructure while phasing out excess capacity for use elsewhere.

• Property Accountability LoE ensures all unit and contract property is accounted for and properly transferred from the shipper to the receiver, whether the asset goes into storage in Kuwait or is re-purposed to another unit or elsewhere in the network. This is a complex process given all the property types TF Signal has to deal with, from organizational (organic or deployed unit property) to theater-provided to government-furnished to “found on installation” equipment. All equipment had to first be placed on the correct property book based upon its final disposition.

• Shipping LoE involves multiple personnel, from the direct signal support team on the ground to the contractors responsible for operating and maintaining the facility, and still other contractors who have the ability to dismantle a modular TCF. This line of effort is also responsible for container management, blocking and bracing material, and transportation movement requests.

• Logistics and Sustainment LoE ensures life support is in place throughout the de-commissioning and migration timeline. It also coordinates for force protection, class I support, material handling equipment, fuel and power support, etc., as necessary. Coordination with mayors/garrison staff is critical to ensure support for each of the other LoEs is available.

• Contract Management LoE has oversight of information technology personnel and services contracts managed by Task Force Signal. Each contract has different rules of engagement. For example, all strategic TCFs are operated and maintained by the 160th Signal Brigade’s OMDAC-SWACAA contract. When a TCF comes out of system, the slots for personnel who operate and maintain that facility must be cut from the contract. Smaller sites are supported by soldier teams or another contract, which allows the O&M personnel to be re-allocated to another site or mission. Leased transmission services such

Careful planning means that the collapse of the Afghan communication network will be a controlled and deliberate process under a single C2 structure. [Photo courtesy of DoD]


as microwave line of sight (MLoS) from Afghan Wireless Communications Company, fiber circuits from Afghan Telecom and satellite links from Salvare must be terminated in a timely manner to avoid additional cost to the government.

Key to the success of signal retrograde operations in Afghani-stan thus far have been several factors that were lacking or non-existent during the Iraq retrograde, the most salient one being time to plan and prepare. But other factors are perhaps even more important to understand, because they may influence how we build, operate and maintain operational base communications networks in the future.

1. Robust transmission pipes. Instead of each site hosting its own data and services, users can pull from neighboring sites with little latency due to the large bandwidth of fiber and MLoS between sites. The user experience is critical on an operational network. Remote hosting of network services such as DHCP, DNS, directory services, etc., provides the foundation to begin migration of application services. Transparency to the user is created by maintaining network services without changing or reconfiguring user desktop settings. Robust transmission paths enable greater bandwidth throughput, alternate pathways (e.g., fiber, MLoS and SATCOM), and traffic shaping to give precedent to higher priority traffic. Migration of remote network services is phased over time to ensure dependable delivery before reaching end of mission on local services. Phasing of network service begins with a small pilot group from the signal community.

After testing and validation from the pilot group is completed, the remaining user community on the local FOB is usually migrated overnight. Local networks services remain running in a warm status during migration but the services are provided off site by a neighboring enduring location. The applications (i.e., email, SharePoint) that are dependent on a solid network can now be migrated off site. Migration of applications is determined by user precedent (i.e., general officers or VIPs), alphabetic grouping of common user group and finally the enclave to be migrated. The larger user community migrates first in alphabetical order to control any misconfiguration impact at a manageable level.

The VIP community is migrated last after all the “bugs” have been worked through and mitigated. Migration of applications off site creates an enterprise service environment to centralize services and reduce hardware and personnel at local TCFs. The operational environment drives all scheduled network changes. The operational environment will also dictate which network enclave (e.g., NIPR, SIPR or CX-I) is migrated first or last. Overall, the robust and redundant paths in Afghanistan enable enterprise service delivery and remote network management that will allow a huge reduction in the signal footprint.

2. Centralize, standardize and optimize. Task Force Signal is the sole signal command and control element for all echelon above division (EAD) signal units supporting USFOR-A, combining resources provided by USFOR-A, ARCENT and NETCOM under one signal brigade. This consolidation of network O&M allows for sharing of scarce resources and flexibility to shift those resources to where they are needed. It

also ensures unity of effort and a single point of contact for the majority of, if not all, communication issues and actions within Afghanistan. A single point of contact to coordinate large retrograde efforts with multiple lines of effort is critical on an operational network. The reduction of personnel manning levels is a forcing function to streamline C2 across all war fighting functions.

Communications support under one command structure creates the conditions for equitable and informed decision resource disposition. Sharing of resources enables fewer “have-nots” with regards to communications capabilities. This decreases or eliminates the “have-nots” with regards to communications capabilities, and the ability to cover gaps in service created by departing units, end of contract period of performance, etc. Simultaneously, the more the network can be standardized and optimized for remote management, the smaller the footprint required to maintain it. As Task Force Signal headquarters in 2012, the 11th Signal Brigade created the Network Transition and Optimization Plan, NTOP, to do just that. It is a process whereby signal planners and engineers come up with network optimizing objectives, tasks are assigned through the orders process, and progress is reviewed through regular NTOP sessions hosted by the JNCC-A.

3. One network versus two. The afghan.swa network is a child domain of the SWA theater network, not a completely separate domain like the S-IRAQ network. With the departure of the JNCC-I, the SWA Cyber Center and the 54th Signal Battalion had to quickly absorb responsibility for an entirely separate network. S-IRAQ served its customers well, so long as there was a robust NetOps and O&M capability dedicated to running it. But it could not easily be scaled down or gracefully handed off to a separate provider. The top level architecture stack for S-IRAQ had to be physically relocated to Kuwait and turned over to the 54th Signal Battalion.

In Afghanistan, customers can be seamlessly migrated from a strategic node to a tactical extension of the SWA network, and NetOps functions continue uninterrupted even as the regional network control centers and eventually the JNCC collapse into one regional network operations and security center operated by the 25th Signal Battalion. The already strong NetOps working relationship with the SWA Cyber Center (SWACC) under the 11th TTSB grew tighter with both SWACC and JNCC-A under the 160th Signal Brigade.

The collapse of the Afghan communication network will be a controlled and deliberate process under a single C2 structure. The retrograde lines of effort created within SROC-A and TF SIGNAL ensure a controlled and repeatable process giving predictability to users, and transparency to stakeholders in Afghanistan. The TF Sig-nal commander, Colonel Linda Jantzen, stated, “Signal retrograde operations represents successful collaboration and cooperation of the entire signal community in Southwest Asia. The SROC-A sim-ply provides a rally point for that collaboration. We have a process that has been ‘Forged in Fire’ and have an outstanding team to implement it!” O


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Red Hoover is vice president and divi-sion manager of ManTech’s Engineering and Technology Services Division (Mission Solutions and Services Group). Hoover is a retired U.S. Navy captain who was com-manding officer of Space and Naval War-fare Systems Center (SSC) Atlantic during the period when all mine resistant ambush protected vehicle C4I integration was con-ducted by the command.

Q: How would you describe your company’s focus, goals and abilities to meet the needs of the military customer?

A: ManTech’s investment in people, pro-cesses, tools and facilities demonstrates our commitment to providing quality services to our military customers. For example, Man-Tech University offers employees free profes-sional development courses to expand their technical knowledge and has coordinated accreditation for the Project Management Institute (PMI) professional development. ManTech also maintains CMMI ML3 and ISO 9001 certifications and has infused these frameworks into our engineering processes.

ManTech recently opened a 12,000- square-foot facility just minutes from Joint Base Charleston. This facility hosts a software integration lab, conference spaces, antenna test area, and high bay integration lab to accommodate MRAP-size vehicles, small watercraft and tactical operations gear.

Q: What innovations do you expect to bring online that will make your operations more efficient and better position you to compete in today’s military marketspace?

A: Efficiency is essential to competing in a challenging marketplace. Our innova-tive processes have helped realize cost and schedule efficiencies for the acquisition community while maintaining exceptional performance. ManTech’s ConstantView tool provides program and project manag-ers with near real-time cost and schedule information and a customer-facing portal to enhance project status communications.

In the military marketplace, traceability to requirements is a priority. Our systems engineering process, known as Archi-tecture Supported Systems Engineering Technique (ASSET), streamlines multiple tasks, leverages requirements and reduces development schedules by as much as 70 percent. AgileTek, our innovative approach to software development, combines CMMI and Agile as best practices to prioritize requirements supporting software develop-ment and testing.

Q: What do you do to better understand logistical requirements from the military’s perspective to be able to deliver a solu-tion that takes into account best industry practices and meets the stated needs of the military?

A: Our processes ensure we define opera-tional requirements from the warfighter’s perspective, including all phases of logistics. Human factors, manpower and training are all crucial in systems engineering during the requirements phase. We collaborate with requirements officers to ensure these details are accounted for. Sometimes, we go onboard the ship or in the field, interview sailors and Marines, observe exercises, and ask questions that help define and validate requirements are accurate. We focus on the user and what they need to accomplish the mission.

Q: What challenges have you forecasted for the coming 12 months and how have you positioned yourself to address those?

A: Our approaches help provide solutions more efficiently. Though military budgets are shrinking, the job still needs to get done. Our processes define ways to meet the needs of our acquisition community in a challenging fiscal environment. From a contracts perspective, ManTech holds several large prime vehicles combined with various small business partnerships. We are successful in the multiple award contract environments, and our processes have helped define solutions that work well in our markets. We have great col-laboration with our small business team members—providing them significant opportunity for success.

Our processes are not just specific to Navy or DoD; they can be tailored for other federal and state agencies. Our work helps PMOs justify their system solutions and procurement decisions. For making purchases or developing a system or appli-cation, our processes document and justify the action.

Q: Are there examples that illustrate your capabilities in meeting the needs of the defense customer?

A: Our ASSET and AgileTek processes have been implemented and proven on several projects. Leveraging our MRAP vehicle integration experience, we sup-port the U.S. Navy’s SSC Atlantic Digital Integration Facility. We are defining a common C4I architecture for the family of amphibious vehicle platforms for the Marine Corps. By looking at specifica-tions for the entire family of vehicles, we can leverage requirements, architecture and trade studies across multiple plat-forms. Each platform will be tailored, but ASSET has helped define common architecture and requirements up front and avoid repeating similar efforts across the vehicle platforms. The architecture will document measurable and testable requirements, human factors, and design specifications and encourage reuse and leveraging of common data elements. O

Red HooverVice President and

Engineering and Technology Services Division ManagerManTech

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Military Logistics Forum


Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce(RHP-Rock Island Profile)

O

July 2014 Vol. 8, Issue 6NEXTISSUE


FeaturesLife Cycle OptimizationThe maritime environment is harsh on heavy steel and delicate electronics. Managing product life cycle is a challenge.

Educating the LogisticiansGood logisticians are smart logisticians. A strong curriculum is the foundation.

Renewable Energy GoalsWhat will it take for DoD to reach its efficient and renewable energy goals, and do so affordably?

special sectionDump Trucks, Construction and Material Handling EquipmentImportant for infrastructure development and supply movement, these specialty vehicles are critical.

BOnus DisTRiBuTiOnDefense Energy Summit

JeFF BurBachDirector Directorate of LogisticsU.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Insertion Order Deadline: July 2, 2014 • Ad Materials Deadline: July 7, 2014

u.s. ARMy susTAinMEnT COMMAnDA special pull-out supplement featuring:

• Exclusive interview with U.S. Army Sustainment Command senior leadership

• Two-page organizational profile of U.S. Army Sustainment Command and its programs and offices

• Command’s top contracts for 2013• LOGCAP update

A handy reference guide with a long shelf life.

Exclusive Interview with

Documents

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