Defense slips on Logistics Roadmap

The U.S. Defense Department’s Logistics Roadmap “falls short” of meeting the goal to provide a comprehensive and integrated strategy to address the military’s logistics problems, a congressional watchdog said in a report released on Monday.

   The Defense Department issued its logistics improvement plan in July 2008. The roadmap includes the military’s goal to implement an “item unique identification” (IUID) and passive radio frequency identification to “address weaknesses in asset visibility.”

   The Government Accountability Office report noted that the department’s roadmap falls short in several areas, including:

   • Failure to identify the scope of logistics problems or “gaps” in logistics capabilities, information that could be used by the military to help establish priorities to improve logistics and correct these gaps.

   • Lack of “outcome-based performance measures” to enable the Defense Department to assess and track progress toward meeting goals and objectives.

   • Failure to clearly state how the military intends to integrate the roadmap into its decision-making processes or who within the department is responsible for this integration.

   Since 1990, the GAO has considered the Defense Department’s logistics management problems among its list of “high risk” government programs. The department spent about $178 billion on its supply chain in fiscal year 2007.

   “Until the roadmap provides a basis for determining priorities and identifying gaps, incorporates performance measures, and is integrated into decision-making processes, it is likely to be of limited use to senior DOD decision makers as they seek to improve supply chain management,” the GAO said.

   The GAO report pointed up the Defense Department’s “initial steps” to implement IUID and passive RFID technologies used to identify and track equipment and supplies, but said the department has failed to collect information on implementation costs and performance-based outcome measures to help it quantify the return on investment associated with these two technologies.

   “Without this information, it may be difficult for DOD to gain the support needed from the military components to make significant commitments in funding and staff resources necessary to overcome challenges to widespread implementation of these technologies,” the GAO warned.

   Defense Department officials told the GAO that they realize these weaknesses and plan to remedy them in follow-on efforts. The department has also started to conduct gap assessments for individual aspects in the roadmap and hopes to complete them by July 2009.

Source: American Shipper