Life-Cycle Management - Army Logistics University - U.S. Army

ALOG NEWS
AMC UNITS IN EUROPE MERGE
The Army Materiel Command’s (AMC’s) Army
Field Support Command merged its Combat Equipment
Group-Europe and AMC Forward-Europe in
November, forming the AMC Field Support
Brigade-Europe. The new unit will deliver the full
spectrum of logistics power projection and support
to forces in the field.
“Adopting a brigade structure aligns us with the
expeditionary Army units we support in Europe and
beyond,” said Colonel Max Lobeto, commander of
the newly formed brigade. “Our mission is
unchanged: AMC Field Support Brigade-Europe
provides an essential and enduring link from America’s
arsenal to units and troops in the field.”
More than 300 people form the core of the
brigade, and several hundred host nation service
providers and contractors provide capabilities ranging
from mechanical repairs to logistics assistance.
Representatives of AMC’s major subordinate commands,
such as the Army Tank-automotive and
Armaments Command and the Army Aviation and
Missile Command, provide expertise and equipment
directly to soldiers in the field.
Pre-positioned equipment and repair capabilities
are prominent features of the new command. Field
support battalions—formerly called combat equipment
battalions—in Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
and the United Kingdom will deliver
combat-ready equipment to the battlefield as they
have for the past 20 years.
DLA–TRANSCOM PARTNERSHIP
SEEKS TO REDUCE FRUSTRATED CARGO
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), in
partnership with the U.S. Transportation Command
(TRANSCOM), the Department of Defense
(DOD) Distribution Process Owner, has taken on
the task of eliminating frustrated freight that often
occurs with vendor shipments to locations outside
of the continental United States. This effort, called
the Direct Vendor Delivery (DVD) Processes Initiative,
is one of several initiatives designed to
improve end-to-end distribution within DOD.
Collaborating with DLA and TRANSCOM on the
DVD initiative are the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, the Joint Staff, the U.S. Joint Forces Command,
the DOD Government Purchase Card (GPC)
Project Management Office, the military services,
and the General Services Administration (GSA).
Problems ranging from illegible, incomplete, or
missing military shipping labels (MSLs) to poor
coordination among contractors, GPC holders,
and their transportation support offices can cause
delays or “frustrations” along the transportation
supply chain and sometimes result in shipments
that never reach the intended recipients. However,
an analysis conducted in 2004 of frustrated
cargo destined for locations outside the United
States showed that incorrectly prepared MSLs
account for 98.8 percent of the problems.
Although policies and procedures already in effect
provide guidance on shipping information
requirements, the problem appears to lie in a lack
of knowledge, misuse, or avoidance of these procedures
among users.
To solve the problem of neglected transportation
requirements, a DVD Processes Initiative Team developed
a document titled “The GPC Guide to
Overseas Shipments,” which was issued last July
to GPC holders. The goal of the guide is to ensure
that proper shipping information is included on
MSLs in order to facilitate in-transit visibility of
GPC shipments.
According to the guide, cardholders must coordinate
with their installation transportation office,
transportation management office, or supply support
activity, as applicable, before an item is
ordered from a vendor to obtain the correct information
for the MSL. If a package arrives at a consolidated
control point, such as a Defense
distribution depot, without a complete shipping
label, the package must be taken “off line” for
research and manual processing, which slows
down consolidation and shipping and detracts
from support provided to the warfighter.
A 120-day pilot was conducted last spring
to test the capability of specific automated systems
to manage and reduce frustrations of GPC
shipments and provide in-transit visibility.
Lessons learned from this pilot will be used to test
other automated capabilities for managing GPC
transactions from vendors who do not use GSA
and DOD order-management systems. The data
obtained will help the DVD team to reduce frustrated
shipments in order to improve support to
military customers.
(ALOG NEWS continued on page 44)
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