Logistics Evolve at the Speed of War: New Technologies Improve Troop Support
By Matthew Harrison
Date Posted: 2/1/2007
Today’s military fronts are far cries from the historic trenches of the
The Department of Defense’s Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics division is quietly dedicated to increasing supply chain productivity with new technologies and packaging designs, but pallets continue to do the grunt work.
RFID Saves Military Money, Time, and Lives.
When people think of technological innovation and war, their minds typically shift to advanced air superiority fighters like the F-22 Raptor. But what good is a next-generation aircraft if its armaments get sent to the wrong airfield or are damaged in transit?
With the hopes of preventing
Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Supply Chain Integration Alan Estevez has been a proponent of integrating passive, read-only RFID into military supply chains. In 2004 the DoD decided to implement standardized RFID technologies into global defense logistics.
“The desired end state for the DoD supply chain is a fully integrated, adaptive entity that uses state-of-the-art enabling technologies and advanced management information systems to automate routine functions and achieve accurate and timely in-transit, in-storage, and in-repair asset visibility with the least amount of human intervention,” wrote Estevez in an article for Army Logistician.
RFID Journal notes that the DoD currently spends nearly $120 billion annually on maintaining its supply chain. The Pentagon estimates it will spend nearly $500 million on RFID technology, but net savings are predicted to be over $1.7 billion dollars in accidental re-orders and misdirected shipments over the first seven years of its implementation. The DoD believes it can save billions of dollars by reducing the costs of human labor and human error. In fact, the DoD is so concerned about the success of RFID integration, it recently approved a $7.2 million contract for the Wright Brothers Institute Inc. of
According the DoD, this new facility will act as a “solution center” to stimulate the rapid transition of RFID technologies. The solution center is expected to allow government end users, contractors, and defense industry suppliers a means to collaborate on the utilization and implementation of RFID technologies for a more effective overall logistics strategy. The solution center will be completed by October 2007. This takes place only months before the DoD estimates that its entire supply chain will be RFID enabled.
Estevez claims that implementation can cut inventory value in the Marine Corps from $127 million to $70 million because of the decline in unnecessary reorders. Average delivery time fell from 28 to 16 days, and the supply backlog of shipments dropped from 92,000 to 11,000.
“Marines can see where critical items are, and that changes the dynamic,” Estevez said in an interview for RFID Journal. “The dialog [between forward operating bases and the logistic hub] has changed from ‘Where's my stuff?’ to ‘Why isn't my stuff moving?’ to ‘I want you to put my stuff on the next truck because I can see it's there.”
Growing Pains
Like any emergent technology, DoD’s passive RFID implementation has been a roller coaster ride of experimentation with intermittent successes.
Based on an initial implementation analysis completed in early 2006 by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, records indicate that only 35-60% of the first generation Army RFID enabled tags were readably reliable during the summer of 2004. Out of 8,000 tags originally created for the
Results from the
RFID fared much better during its trial initial implementation by the U.S. Navy at the Fleet Industrial Supply Center Ocean Terminal in
The majority of RFID tag readability was consistently between 75-95%. Although the report reveals that on four days, 0% of tags were readable, only one out of the last ten days of the project resulted in tag readability below 100%. The report claims that “dead tags” from manufacturers had a failure rate of nearly 20% in 2004, but it also says manufacturers have greatly improved the performance of their RFID chips since then.
Sources working for the DoD said that RFID was successfully implemented in accordance with 2006 project goals. Continental defense supply centers are RFID operational thanks mainly to improved technology, better management strategies, and expedient data collection and analysis.
The DoD has also found ways to negotiate once cumbersome obstacles, like tagging metal containers. Foam backings are now used whenever there is a potential for interference because of the container’s material. The increased separation negates possible interference, thus allowing RFID scanners to get perfect reads.
RFID tags are attached at the supplier level. On a unit load, for example, the RFID chip trapped in the shrink-wrap. Sometimes cases containing bundles of smaller items will be tagged, but tags are not attached to individual items. At distribution centers, most of the goods arrive through dock doors and on conveyor belts, so RFID scanners primarily are mounted on fixed infrastructure.
Just about everything that can fit on a unit load is RFID-tagged in the continental
The next phase of RFID implementation will extend overseas. Coalition forces already use technology approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
