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

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RAPID FIELDING INITIATIVE
SPEEDS GEAR TO TROOPS
In response to the rapid deployments of the past
few years, the Army Chief of Staff created the Rapid
Fielding Initiative (RFI), which quickly provides
soldiers preparing for or engaged in military operations
with the best weapons, clothing, and equipment
available. Although most units receive an RFI
issue before deploying, some soldiers still are
missed. In such cases, an RFI team from the Program
Executive Office (PEO) Soldier at Fort
Belvoir, Virginia, travels to the field to arrange
delivery of equipment to the soldiers who did not
receive the RFI issue at their home stations.
A Rapid Fielding Initiative team member fits
a soldier in Afghanistan with an advanced
combat helmet.
After visiting soldiers in the field, the RFI team
sends the soldiers’ measurements and sizes back to
the RFI warehouse in Kuwait. There, a duffel bag is
filled with each soldier’s gear based on his sizes.
The bag then is sent back to the soldier’s unit for
issue. The items issued vary by the type of unit, but
most soldiers get improved T-shirts, belts, socks,
silk-weight long underwear, goggles, hydration systems,
improved knee pads, fleece jackets, and overalls.
Some are even issued multifunction tools and
other tools they use as part of their military occupational
specialty.
PEO Soldier officials believe that the initiative
not only addresses actual operational concerns and
provides additional capabilities to soldiers who need
them most but also creates the knowledge and infrastructure
to accelerate fielding efforts, thus increasing
the Army’s credibility with soldiers in the field.
In addition to the teams visiting overseas locations
such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait, three
RFI teams are traveling to each installation in the
United States to issue RFI items to active-duty and
Reserve component soldiers. The teams will continue
to visit each continental United States installation
during the next few years, with the goal of
completing Army-wide RFI by 2007.
ARMY BUSINESS INITIATIVE COUNCIL
APPROVES LATEST ROUND OF INITIATIVES
The Army Business Initiative Council in
November approved its ninth round of initiatives
for Army implementation or submission to the
Department of Defense. The seven initiatives
included the following—
• Assess the processes that affect the design
of parts and components for integration into
performance-based logistics. The goal is to improve
the reliability and availability of systems
and subsystems by improving the performance of
components and parts.
• Conduct a pilot project for delivering electrical
power at four to six installations using strategic partnerships
with commercial vendors. The vendors
would install, own, operate, and maintain powergeneration
facilities at the installations and provide
power at rates significantly below the prevailing
market rates most installations now pay.
• Create an interface for Army Knowledge
Online (AKO) with the Defense Enrollment Eligibility
Reporting System (DEERS). This will make
the DEERS database the single definitive source for
authenticating AKO users and supplying them with
basic entitlements and benefit information.
• Establish a single sign-on capability under AKO
so users can access personal Defense Finance and Accounting
Service and TRICARE information without
using multiple passwords and identifications.
• Develop a prototype that links existing manpower,
personnel, and budget databases and tools to
better align personnel with authorized manpower
end strength and work-year authorizations as adjusted
by major Army commands or installations.
MARCH–APRIL 2005