Just-in-Time War

In August, the military's top logisticians gathered at U.S. Transportation Command headquarters at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois to figure out how to get troops, equipment and supplies to the Persian Gulf faster and more efficiently. Despite the lightning-quick dash to Baghdad that opened the 2003 Iraq War, military commanders complained of equipment shortages, slow-moving supply lines, and uncertainty about which units and equipment were moving in and out of the Middle East.

The Pentagon took the first steps toward improving supply-chain management last fall by naming TRANSCOM to oversee how everything from soldiers to socks goes to war. In the past, the military services managed their own supply lines for service-specific items, such as weapon systems and spare parts, and the Defense Logistics Agency oversaw the movement of common items, such as fuel and medical supplies. Because logistics were handled separately, the services often did not know what equipment they were getting until it arrived. For example, an Army commander ordering spare parts for a tank would not know until the part arrived that his order had even been processed.

"What we've done is get more information shared among the people making decisions," says Rear Adm. Marc Purcell, director of strategy, plans, policy and programs at TRANSCOM. For example, with TRANSCOM in control and information moving more freely, troops are moving more quickly into Iraq. In the early days of the war, Army troops flew to Kuwait on commercial airliners and then waited 72 hours for Air Force cargo planes to fly them to Iraq. Lack of a single, shared system for tracking troop arrivals accounted for the delay. Now, with the Army and Air Force sharing arrival information under TRANSCOM's direction, troops head to Iraq within 24 hours of their arrival in Kuwait. Purcell says the goal of the August meeting of TRANSCOM was to find similar ways to synchronize and speed troop and supply movement.

The Defense Department also has begun work on a new logistics system. "Today's logistics models are based on the wars we thought we were going to fight," says Navy Capt. Linda Lewandowski, who oversees logistics in the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation.

Lewandowski envisions a sense-and-respond logistics system reliant on battlefield sensors, satellite networks and computer databases to automatically determine when supplies are running low, which facilities should replenish them, and when and how they should be delivered.

Last summer, Lewandowski's office awarded a $3.9 million contract to Synergy Inc., a Washington technical services contractor, to create a prototype sense-and-respond system. To build the model, the company is turning to commercial, off-the-shelf technology, including Oracle databases and software used by Wall Street firms to buy and sell stock. So far, Synergy has completed six technical assessments of the software, and the Marine Corps began testing a rudimentary version in simulated battles this summer.

With the new system in place, an embattled tank commander running out of ammunition could request it, or a sensor on his weapon might signal that rounds were low. The logistics system might direct a tank unit that's not in battle to divert some of its supplies, or send an order right to a contractor to move more ammunition. Lewandowski says sense-and-respond logistics goes beyond simply delivering goods; it offers commanders greater flexibility during battles by giving them greater control over their supplies. If a battle were being waged in stages, the new system would allow commanders to receive supplies as needed rather than all at once, she says.

Donald Zimmerman, Synergy's chief executive officer, says sense-and-respond logistics is modeled on a philosophy popularized by IBM that calls for anticipating customers' needs rather waiting for their requests. "You can't assume demand with the asymmetrical enemies we now face," he says, "so your logistics system must be agile and nimble."