importance of military logisticsimportance of military logistics

Military readiness is the capability of the military force to meet the requests of their designated assignments or missions. 1. 101, Issue 10 (October 2017), https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/2017/10/21st-century-logistics (accessed May 29, 2018). Amateurs think about tactics, but professionals think about logistics. (ARL Magazine) One of the most important areas of every army is logistics. 17. James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Militarys Competitive Edge, U.S. Department of Defense, p. 7, https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf (accessed May 29, 2018). While significant force-protection requirements affected the deployment of military capability to Kuwait for combat operations in Iraq, the U.S. and partner-nation forces did not have to fight their way to the fight in Kuwait. The military transport drone, called the Joint Tactical Air Vehicle or JTARV and developed at the Army Research Laboratory, is compared to the "Amazon on the battlefield". It has the ability to improve the operational excellence which is necessary to grow and expand your business. While 10 percent of the cargo was delivered by other means, primarily aircraft, understanding the magnitude and significance of sea-based sustainment is critical to understanding what it takes to deploy and employ the U.S. military. You simply cannot mount an attack or defence without a functioning logistics system. Having greater logistics capability than the enemy is a force multiplier. In preparation for combat operations in Iraq, logisticians had six months to deploy the force and its associated sustainment. Data Rights Relevant to Weapon Systems in Air Force Special Operations Command, Strategic Airlift in Africa: Understanding Challenges and Opportunities for the Movement Coordination Centre Europe (MCCE) and Member Nations. He was the director of the Military Logistics Program in the RAND Arroyo Center from 2011 to 2016 and has worked extensively in supply chain management, logistics, and data analytics. Logistics is nearly absent from the recent testimonies by military leaders, members of congress, and industry.4 While all of the testimonies highlight the need to modernize the U.S. military in order to regain our technological advantage, few specifically highlight the need for modernized logistics capabilities. The ability of the system to support the joint force in the event of major conflict is at best untested and could be problematic. At the tactical level, one need only look at the various elements of readiness reporting reviewed by senior leaders to discern that the fundamentals of logistics directly affect the majority of elements that define readiness across the servicespersonnel, equipment, and supply readinesswhich in turn directly affect the ability of the services to meet the recurring needs of ongoing deployments and generate the forces needed for war. 3. These challenges become infinitely harder when considering the vastness of the Pacific or the intricacies of meeting challenges across the depth and breadth of Europe. Technologies such as additive manufacturing, improved manmachine interfaces, and advanced robotics will contribute significantly to improved survivability. article examines Alexander's implementation of logistics principles and how these same principles can be applied suc-cessfully to the supply-chain management process of organi-zations today. 1021, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/McDew_04-10-18.pdf (accessed May 29, 2018). The U.S. joint force's ability to move materiel and people across oceans and continents is unique among militaries. The military supply-chain can be divided into three distinct chains, note military logistics experts. Lovelace February 27, 2023. Researchers identified approaches the U.S. Coast Guard could take to improve crew satisfaction with precommissioning assignments on offshore patrol cutters and overall fleet readiness, then evaluated the options using five criteria. If you believe and have prepared your followers, the . At the same time, Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force oilers pumped more than 117 million gallons of fuel to Navy combat ships for bunkering and aircraft fuel. The shift in our military focus to competing in an era of great-power competition demands an even greater understanding of logistics and highlights the breadth of the requirement to support the entirety of the force in innovative ways, from training in the United States to deploying far from home. 29. Fact Sheet, Civil Reserve Air Fleet, U.S. Air Force, July 28, 2014, http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104583/civil-reserve-air-fleet/ (accessed May 29, 2018). For this to happen, the U.S. government needs the appropriate license rights and actual possession of the data. It should be noted, however, that in the years since these tremendous accomplishments, the size of the force available to execute these missions has shrunk considerably. Is the Defense Acquisition System Postured to Solve National Defense Strategy Operational Problems? Logistics MCDP 4 40. Responsiveness can be improved by leveraging industrial-base support from the point of manufacture to the tactical edge forces. Six months may seem a long time, but the volume of activity was immense. Every military has planned for operations its systems of logistics cannot support. To remain a vital contributor to military success, logistics must adapt continuously so that it bridges old systems and capabilities while embracing new technologies and concepts. With a single command, the soldiers needed can be supplied by the drone wherever they are. Military logistics follows the same logic, being divided into-strategic logistics, operational logistics and tactical logistics , . That was more than 78 percent of the total MSC active fleet of 214 ships that dayships dedicated to supporting the US forces. It's impossible to overstate the benefits of business logistics systems or the importance of distribution logistics. The third foundation, the morale of his troops, was directly affected by the first two.15 Slims ability to innovate in planning, organizing, and sustaining his logistics enterprise was critical to his logistics success. They are delivered from the sea by means of modern connectors, platforms, processes, and concepts with the flexibility to enable multi-domain fires and maneuver. In its simplest form, logistics is important because it is needed to supply raw materials, goods and equipment to both the maker and the consumer. Additionally, U.S. and partner-nation forces had significant time to deploy military capability, ultimately using a single point of entry with mature facilities and infrastructure and Internet access. Because of their logistic importance, fabrication and assembly plants, highway networks, ports and canals became a primary focus. The U.S. has only 23 designated Strategic Seaports17 commercially operated and six under military controlthat make it possible to sustain overseas forces daily and keep them sustained during wartime. Many of its theories and applications have been efficiently put into practice in the business world. Logisticsthe transfer of personnel and materiel from one location to another, as well as the maintenance of that materielis essential for a military to be able to support an ongoing deployment or respond effectively to emergent threats. FORT DETRICK, Md. 4. Military logistics has been part of the history of mankind and has evolved to become a science of application to different processes of the Operational Forces. Military units cannot perform their mission without the equipment needed to do so. Additionally, two of the three Maritime Prepositioning squadrons supporting the U.S. Marine Corps were unloaded at the Ash Shuayba Port in Kuwait. Drawing upon decades of experience, RAND provides research services, systematic analysis, and innovative thinking to a global clientele that includes government agencies, foundations, and private-sector firms. Military 80 Penn State program trains Marines on battlefield logistics DC Velocity DECEMBER 18, 2018 In assessing the true value of logistics, however, one needs to distinguish between efficiency and effectiveness, even though the former certainly affects the latter. Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND, and Ph.D. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Ph.D. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School, and Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND. Nevertheless, changes that positively influence the agility, survivability, responsiveness, and effectiveness of logistics systems can and must be made. In a time of constrained fiscal resources, this means doing differently with less. Raison D'etre They are more intricate when you have . The span of that bridge was literally a ship every 72 miles from the US to Kuwait. Logistics owns the great privilege of . Although many of industrys best practices and technologies are relevant and even vital to the modernization of military logistics, the agility, survivability, responsiveness, and effectiveness of military logistics require another level of integrated innovation in technology and operational concepts. It grants broader visibility over the movement of merchandise from construction to consumption, identifying infrastructure and operational practices that help or hinder that smooth, cost-effective distribution. The most junior personnel in logistics today are going to have to come up with creative ideas on how to set and sustain a theater of operations for logistics, resupply and repair in a new world. The Movement Coordination Centre Europe commissioned RAND Europe to conduct a scoping study to understand constraints of operating in Africa, as well as barriers to the efficient coordination of airlift and other logistic support in the continent. Secondly, the introduction of complex systems and machines will transform the way militaries will organise. After the Cold War, U.S. logistics planners moved away from a focus on effectiveness to a focus on efficiency in the sense that little is left idle for significant periods and that commodities are delivered at minimum cost. Improvements in logistics effectiveness require improved integrated capabilities and authorities that allow logistics challenges to be resolved at the lowest levels, leveraging shared awareness, and focused on effectiveness. Broyles leads research on improving repair, Kenneth Girardini is a senior operations researcher at the RAND Corporation. U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) provides daily examples of what it takes to keep U.S. forces and their sustainment moving around the world. During fiscal year (FY) 2017, DLA provided more than $35 billion in goods and services, coordinating the actions of 25,000 military, civilian, and contract personnel who provided food, clothing, fuel, repair parts, and other items across nine supply chains distributing approximately 5 million distinct consumable, expendable, and reparable items. 3. From the farthest tactical edge to the economic system of the nation, military logistics has far-reaching implications for the nation and the military element of national power and therefore. For example, Secretary of Defense Mattiss recently announced intention to reduce non-deployable personnel is one aspect of force readiness that is affected by the health services component of logistics.17 Large numbers of non-deployable personnel reduce the available strength of military units, and without the full complement of personnel, teams cannot be trained effectively, whether they are ground units, ships crews, or aviation formations. The Military Ensures Our Freedom and Safety Around the World From the battlefields of the American Revolution to the front lines of Eastern Europe, American service members have been ensuring the freedom of America and its allies for centuries. U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Transportation Command, About USTRANSCOM, https://www.ustranscom.mil/cmd/aboutustc.cfm (accessed May 29, 2018). The combination of innovation and new technology is therefore critical to maintaining the competitive logistical advantage that U.S. forces have enjoyed since World War II. All you can think about . Such facilities must also be made resilient in the face of cyber challenges, now a common feature of modern conflict. The essence of logistics is an integrated approach to all its constituent activities, which reduces costs and increases the efficiency and effectiveness of the logistics system in supporting. In late March 2003 MSC reached a peak of 167 ships in the Steel Bridge of Democracy, carrying the torch of freedom to the Iraqi people in the words of Rear Admiral D. L. Brewer III, Commander, Military Sealift Command. How do these provisional units currently source personnel and equipment requirements? Lieutenant General Michael G. Dana, USMC, 21st Century Logistics: Designing and Developing Capabilities, Marine Corps Gazette, Vol. In coordination with USTRANSCOMs distribution functions, the actions of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) as supplier for the military are equally staggering in scope and scale. Now imagine doing this in an environment devoid of modern infrastructure in a manner that defeats an adversarys desire to prevent our use of air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace to project military power, all in consonance within the complex interrelationships and intricacies that support current collective defense arrangements. Simply stated, supply readiness is the ability to have the right types and amount of equipment available for a ground unit, a ship, or an aviation unit. Logistics can be seen as the bridge between deployed forces and the industrial base, which produces the material and weapons deployed forces need to accomplish their mission. bilities outside the military logistics system. They also coordinated the loading of another 10 MSC ships at Tacoma, Wash., and San Diego, Calif., which resulted in the movement of over 1 million square feet of military equipment for the U.S. Marine Corps 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the U.S. Armys 101st Airborne Division. However, the concentration on the military mission with regard to effects, while logical from a military perspective, is cause for a gravely misleading perception among civil actors. , operational logistics and tactical logistics, operational logistics and tactical logistics, operational logistics and tactical,... Mount an attack or defence without a functioning logistics system Defense, U.S. Transportation Command ( USTRANSCOM ) provides examples! Differently with less, logisticians had six months to deploy the force and its associated sustainment US! Accessed May 29, 2018 ) appropriate license rights and actual possession of the.! 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