ATA0201: Commercial Practices as Applied to Total Asset Visibility (TAV)

ATA0201: Commercial Practices as Applied to Total Asset Visibility (TAV) Project Review Thomas G. Yeung, M.S.I.E. 1 September 2004

Investigators • Principal Investigator: • Scott J. Mason, Ph.D., P.E. (UA) • Co-Principal Investigators: • Justin R. Chimka, Ph.D. (UA) • Major Michael A. Greiner, Ph.D. (AFIT) • Graduate Research Assistant: • Thomas G. Yeung, M.S.I.E. (UA)

Project Description • The Air Force requires the ability to track all materiel in an efficient and timely manner • Because of current limitations in the tracking of palletized items, total asset visibility, as is common in the commercial industry, is not available to the Air Force • Corporations such as Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, and Federal Express have the ability to track widely distributed assets on a real-time basis • Wal-Mart employs Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) with a number of suppliers

Objectives • Milestone A – Preliminary Investigations • Milestone B – Identification of Air Force Improvements • Milestone C – Automatic Identification Technology • Milestone D – Recommendation of Commercial Best Practices

Motivation • “Asset blindness” during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (Taylor 2001) • Over 40,000 military containers shipped to the Middle East • 20,000+ of these had to be opened, inventoried, resealed, and reinserted into the transportation system due to unknown contents and consignees at receiving • At the end of the conflict, 8,000+ containers and 250,000+ Air Force pallets were unopened with unknown contents • “It’s all about total asset visibility… I personally opened containers just to see what was inside.” • John Coburn, retired four-star General, US Army, Materiel Command, as quoted by Hyland (2002)

Joint TAV (JTAV) 2020 Vision • The ability to provide users with timely and accurate information on the location, movement, status, and identity of units, personnel, equipment, and supplies • Seeks to utilize this information to improve the DoD’s logistics practices • Three asset categories: in storage, in transit, and in process

JTAV 2020 Focus • Main focus is an integrated data environment • Concept must collect data from various databases that store information on the three types of assets (in storage, in transit, and in process) • Information processed/merged into a form easy to understand for the user • Primary challenge is the number of databases to be connected • Each database is a small portion of visibility for a particular category, function, or agency within the DOD

Project Objective • To investigate the commercial best practices of supply management, identifying opportunities and plans for applying these best practices to the Air Force’s supply chain systems

Preliminary Investigations Objective • Conducted investigations into AF’s current supply management processes • Reviewed open literature and available military handbooks and/or data • Studied previous white papers • Interviewed pertinent personnel at AFRL, AFIT, and other promising locations

Preliminary Investigations • AF Supply Manual (AFM 23-110) thoroughly studied and reviewed • Gives detailed knowledge of AF supply policies and procedures, current technology implemented by AF • Other AF documents reviewed • Combat Oriented Supply Organization Policy (ACCI 23-251) • ACC Regional Supply Procedures (ACCI 23-252) • Deployed Agent Operations (AFP 65-1100)

Preliminary Investigations • Hill AFB supply personnel interviewed • Provided detailed representation of how the supply chain actually functions at an AF installation • Open literature on JTAV and AF supply operations reviewed • Armed Forces Journal International • Army Logistician

Identification of AF Process Improvements Objectives • Used results of preliminary investigations and knowledge of current commercial applications to improve AF supply management process • Improvements are AF processes, procedures, distribution and warehousing approaches, and/or current deployment of enabling technologies • Provided ideas for courses of action to be undertaken to lessen/remedy some of the issues currently facing AF’s processes

Identification of AF Process Improvements Accomplishments • Opportunities exist to improve AF supply chain visibility • AF lacks implementation of automatic identification technology • Barcodes and RFID technology not implemented • Paper documentation prevalent • AF lacks single, consolidated DB that provides real-time visibility • Currently 10+ different DBs serve small niche of supply chain • CAMS (base-level), SBSS (other bases), WebCats (DLA warehouses), WinMASS (for MICAPs) • DBs not kept accurate or current due to lack of auto ID technology

Identification of AF Process Improvements • AF lacks an identification number scheme capable of identifying individual items • National Stock Number (NSN) currently implemented by AF not capable of accommodating individual item identification needed for advanced Auto-ID technology • AF currently has line-item, not end-item (i.e., serial number) tracking capabilities

Automatic Identification Technology • Auto ID infrastructure of Product Markup Language (PML), Electronic Product Code (EPC), and Object Naming Server (ONS) explored • EPC could provide a serial number for every individual item in the AF • PML used to electronically transmit information about physical objects • ONS converts EPC codes into information that can be used by supply personnel

Automatic Identification Technology • Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) investigated • Implementation of Active v. Passive RFID • Applications include • Area Monitoring—real-time inventory information • Spot-Level Locating—identifying the exact parking location of trucks and aircraft, or the specific storage rack of a pallet within a distribution center • Electronic Manifests—complete list of a container’s contents may be stored electronically on an attached tag • Tracking can be done at multiple levels of hierarchy • Security—RFID tags can provide security through electronic seals that monitor breach of cargo containers

Implementation • Extensive research has been reported in the fields of Automatic Identification (Auto-ID) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) along with other current commercial practices and technology involving asset visibility. • RFID combined with an effective database system will give the Air Force complete visibility into its supply chain. • The AF will have the ability to locate materiel anywhere in the world in real time.

Commercial Best Practices • Wal-Mart • Forefront of emerging technology • Dominating market position • Set date of January 2005 for RFID implementation • 100 top suppliers will have to be online with RFID to track pallets of goods throughout the supply chain • The AF, like Wal-Mart has the force in the market place to make these kinds of demands on its suppliers.

ATA0201: Commercial Practices as Applied to Total Asset Visibility (TAV)