Navy relies on technology to streamline supply operations
MANAMA, BAHRAIN-Using the latest technology, the Navy has sharply cut the time it takes to move supplies into the Persian Gulf region from what it was during the 1991 Gulf War.
"We have tried to be very innovative about how we have approached logistics," says Navy Capt. William Elliott, who oversees logistics for the Navy's 5th Fleet, based here. Elliott oversees nearly 500 largely uniformed personnel who provide fuel, ammunition, spare parts, mail, food and other cargo for about 100 Navy ships in an area stretching from the Horn of Africa through the Persian Gulf.
Elliott says relational databases allow the 5th Fleet to track inventories and the movement of supplies on ships at sea, in 5th Fleet warehouses spread throughout the region and at Navy and Defense Logistics Agency supply depots in the United States. As a result, he says, the 5th Fleet has cut the time it takes for supplies to get into the region from 30 days to 10 days.
In the past, the 5th Fleet did not have shared databases and, as result, could not always determine the best place from which to order goods. Now, 5th Fleet officials can easily determine how best to get particular items to where they are needed. For example, a spare part needed by an aircraft carrier could be located on another carrier and be transferred in a few days, as opposed to shipping the part all the way from the United States. If the parts must come from the United States, logisticians can check warehouse inventories to ensure the parts are in stock.
Ellliott says shared databases allow all orders to be placed through 5th Fleet, avoiding the problem of having multiple orders from various ships traveling around. He said real-time computer chat systems and e-mail have also made it much easier to coordinate orders among the fleet, to share supplies and to anticipate shortages.
"We are constantly trying to stay in the technology loop to help how we manage and procure," Elliott says.
Elliott says improved systems have contributed to cutting the time it takes to move spare parts into the Operation Iraqi Freedom theater of war by more than 40 percent.
The way in which the events of the war have unfolded has had little effect on logistics operations, Elliot says. "Whether you are at war or peace, how you operate does not change. You just do more of it when you go to war."
Several months ago, the Navy used computer models to project the level of supplies it would need for a naval force of the size of the one currently assembled in the Gulf. Elliot says those models have proved to be accurate within 5 percent.
Ordnance, which the Navy must ship into the region because it has no storage agreement with any Middle Eastern nation, have been moved over in much smaller numbers than in 1991. Elliot says the high accuracy rate of smart bombs means fewer of them need to be used than less-accurate munitions. (In some cases, one precision-guided bomb can do the work of 10 dumb bombs). In Operation Desert Storm, only about 10 percent of the bombs dropped were smart munitions. In this war, more than 90 percent are.
Despite the technology upgrade, Elliot says, there are still plenty of ways the supply chain can break down. One of his top concerns, he says, is that the 8,000-mile air bridge from the Gulf to the United States-made up of cargo planes and helicopters-could be brought to a halt by a crash.
"It's hard to say I worry about one thing. I worry about everything," says Elliott, noting that he has spent every night since March 19 on a cot in his office.