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Figure 1. Framework for long-range logistics planning |
Document created: 26 August 04
Air University Review,
July-August
1970
Brigadier General Peter R. Delonga
Strategy must have a logistics base. In the short run, logistics affects the deployment and employment of forces. In the long run, a logistics base must be developed to support strategy.1
Air Force Logistics Doctrine
The goal in discussing planning for the 1980s is not to forecast developments in hardware or to outline the value of each of our printed plans, but to depict the challenges and decisions our logistics leadership must face during the 1970s.
Our Air Force is composed of highly trained and motivated personnel, who have numerous viewpoints and methodologies. It is our task on the Air Staff to draw from these individuals to continually redefine objectives, review the basic organization, and establish an operational framework.
Logistics planning responsibilities cut horizontally across the functional lines of procurement, supply, transportation, and maintenance in the development of logistics doctrine, concepts, objectives, and plans.
Long-range planning addresses organization, operation, and human problems and is directed toward the establishment of objectives, concepts, policies, and organizational relationships. These are “soft” problems in that they are influenced by their environment and are difficult to quantify. The end objective of long-range planning is to ensure that the logistics system of the future will create and sustain the military force effectively and efficiently.
If long-range logistics planning in this “soft” context is to contribute to the Air Force, it must be designed to present meaningful data, not only on future weapons, strategy, and tactics but also on economic, organizational, and human considerations. What we seek is a tie-in between our current way of doing business and the future requirements of the operational forces. In doing this, we must consider both our strengths and our weaknesses. It is from this analysis that courses of action are developed and decisions are made that determine the future role and structure of the logistics organization.
Our long-range planning is guided by three fundamental considerations. First, the reason we plan is to make the operational unit more effective and efficient. Second, people are the most vital resource we have, and our plans must be designed to encourage their attributes and not discourage them in our preoccupation with advanced automated systems. Third, there are no “sacred cows” that restrict challenging concepts and policies affecting logistics.
In his book On Thermonuclear War, Herman Kahn states that every five
years c so there is enough of a change in technology to produce changes in the
art of strategic war. Since World War II this five-year cycle has five times
made an impact on corresponding doctrine equal to the strategic and tactic
evolution between the Civil War and World War I, or between the two World Wars.2
We have been slow to realize that in this era of technological explosion we have become slaves to the weapon systems designer. Traditionally, we have set the system design a operational concepts in concrete, then worried about logistics planning to support it. Consequently, we placed the logistics manager a position of reaction rather than action: often had a costly, second-best situation. In today’s environment we must be careful not to go too far, too fast, in fielding a weapon we cannot maintain or do not really need.
To reinforce this statement, let’s review a few events as they appeared prior to 1960. The predominant aerospace doctrine was “massive retaliation,” and our logistics concepts and objectives were designed on foundation. Within five years we were thinking more of flexibility and mobility.
In 1960 the Air Force was in the pr of adapting the F -4 to meet the needs of the Tactical Air Command. Designed primarily for carrier operations, the heavy and bulky support equipment for the Phantom was not the optimum for TAC’S mobile mission. The C-130, destined to play such a vital role in our new strategy, was just coming into being in limited quantity. The game of logistics catch-up is further illustrated by the introduction of the C-141 in 1965, well after this country had committed itself to a strategy flexible or gradual response.
As for our logistics base, in 1960 the Defense Supply Agency was in the planning stage. The maintenance capabilities Air Force operational units were designed on the concept of maximum self-sufficiency at main operating bases. We were in the process of consolidating individual unit supplies into the base equipment management office, utilizing punch-card accounting machines. At this time computer system design was decentralized, and a few of our major operating commands were introducing computers as accounting tools in their base supply accounts. Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) was implementing an improved management concept for airborne power plants. Information provided by the users, coupled with a computer data bank, saved millions of dollars because the engine manager knew engine location and condition and thus was able to reduce inventories worldwide. Use of computers as accounting devices was becoming commonplace; by 1967 AFLC had nearly 400 functionally oriented and individually designed computer systems. Many of these systems would interface while performing their routines. The full magnitude of this can be appreciated when one realizes that a change in anyone of the input systems requires changes in the output systems, to ensure compatibility of data.
Now as we plan for the eighties, logistics is being challenged as never before, and in turn we must “rock the boat” more often, challenging today’s methods of doing business.
Improvements in transportation have throughout military history changed the employment and deployment of forces. The latest of these improvements, the C-5A, will have a tremendous impact on military operations. This aircraft, with its great lift capacity, will enhance the flexibility and mobility of aerospace forces. It will also have spin-off effects on air cargo flow patterns, the transportation network, air terminals, inventory distribution policies, and maintenance concepts.
The current method of performing the maximum amount of maintenance (“self-sufficiency”) at each base is being examined to determine its effect on force flexibility, mobility, and cost. We have tested a bare-base concept that emphasizes air-transportable equipment and structures that can be deployed, then redeployed and reused. The results of the initial bare-base demonstration indicate that the concept may have DOD-wide application.
Supply system design has been centralized and the Univac 1050-II base supply system has been introduced to 150 bases throughout the world. In the early 1970s AFLC will implement an Advanced Logistics System (ALS), which tackles the interface problems of the numerous functional systems. This system will revolutionize logistics management by providing the wholesale logistics manager with current information and improved support.
The Assistant Secretary of Defense has formed a DOD Logistics System Policy Council. The membership will include the service Assistant Secretaries for Installation and Logistics, the service Deputy Chiefs of Staff for Logistics, the J–4 of the joint Staff, and the Director of the Defense Supply Agency. This council represents a precedent-setting action from which policies will emanate that will no doubt be far-reaching. These policies should provide the basis for increased compatibility and interface for logistics management by the services and within DOD.
Although past experience should be considered in planning for the future, it should not intuitively dictate solutions to future problems. The environment of the 1970s–80s will be different from any we have ever experienced. The quantity of mass media devoted to discussing national objectives, budgets, socioeconomic factors, foreign military intentions, human values, etc., is convincing evidence that nothing will be “sacred” in the new age we are entering.,
Events of the past decade point to these basic factors which will influence the future:
(1) In all probability, fewer dollars will be available for defense;
(2) the clear demarcation line between pure operational and pure logistics considerations will become less evident;
(3) maintenance of an acceptable support responsiveness with decreasing funds will require new management techniques and accelerate the fading of traditional functional logistics boundaries of procurement, transportation, supply, and maintenance (today the policies of anyone function have a strong intrafunctional impact); and
(4) continuing advancements in information technology will contribute to a further collapse of the traditional organizational structure and have a profound impact on how managers manage and commanders command.
a conceivable future
The need for long-range planning has never been more critical than it is today. In the future, logistics planning must be progressive and dynamic.
In the last third of this century logistics planning will consider the use of reusable intercontinental rocket-propelled vehicles for resupply of a unit in any part of the world. Vertical and short takeoff and landing (VTOL and STOL) intertheater aircraft will interface with the strategic carrier, Military Airlift Command aircraft, then deliver the equipment and supplies directly to the user without rehandling. Increased capacities of airlift vehicles will permit increased air movement from an economical viewpoint, and shipment by air may well become routine for almost everything. Air transportation will be competitive with sea cargo when opportunity cost benefits gained by reduced inventories and pipeline time are considered.
In weapon system design it is feasible to include sufficient redundancy of components for the subsystems to operate maintenance free for extensive periods of time. Aircraft and missiles will have total built-in testers and miniaturized components so reliable and maintainable that the organizational maintenance function will only be “remove and replace.” Continual improvements of communication networks and high-speed data processors will provide instant supply visibility. There will be a “single logistics information system,” from which the manager will select only the data needed to develop conclusions and recommended actions.
Contingency planning will be accomplished by selecting force packages from a data bank and testing closure times over various routes, taking into consideration airfield capabilities and overfly limitations. The most advantageous operational plan would then be tailored to the circumstances and transmitted to each unit in a matter of minutes.
long-range logistics planning
In an article entitled “Are Technological Upheavals Inevitable?” Maxwell W.
Hunter II states that “technological progress is a closely spaced series of
revolutions. The best time to prepare for the next revolution is to begin
immediately after the last, by projecting basic objectives far enough ahead so
that they will serve as relatively fixed goals.”3
It is our challenge in Logistics Planning to prepare for the next revolution by taking a hard look ahead at the means of today and plan for the “how, where, when, and why” of tomorrow. One method of doing this is to develop a framework for long-range logistics planning. This fundamental approach might be called “bread and butter” planning in that we must use a systematic and clearly defined method of developing objectives and concepts. (Figure 1)
Figure 1. Framework for long-range logistics planning
In 1968 we took a major step in the development of this framework by compiling and publishing Air Force Logistics Doctrine. Logistics Doctrine is designed to complement and serve Air Operational Doctrine, and its principles comprise the fundamental philosophy of the logistics system. This was the first attempt by any service to publish such a set of guidelines. Although we do not consider this first attempt to publish doctrine the ultimate, it has already served a useful purpose. It has introduced a common logistics dialogue within the Air Force, and, more important, it establishes fundamental principles upon which to build the logistics system of the future. Future planning will be influenced by this document.
Air Force Logistics Doctrine states that the objective of the logistics system is to help create and sustain a military capability in support of national objectives in the full spectrum from peace to total war. The logistics system is the link between the national industrial capacity and the combat forces. (Figure 2) The conventional breakout of supply, procurement, transportation, and maintenance is depicted by the four processes they perform. This view of logistics4 illustrates the flow of resources from the nation’s industrial base through the various logistics processes to final disposal. The diagram also shows the importance of the horizontal interrelationships of functions, which are critical because of monetary constraints, increased information and communication capabilities, and the requirement for greater responsiveness.
Figure 2. The logistics system
Another document which is used as a guide to our long-range planning is USAF Planning Concepts (U). This publication has been developed to provide a projection of the Air Force long-term objectives. It enables the Air Force to develop and recommend logical and consistent concepts, strategies, and capabilities. With Logistics Doctrine and USAF Planning Concepts forming the base line, it is possible to analyze our current way of doing business and develop logistics concepts responsive to the needs of the future.
operational analysis
Concurrent with the increased technical requirements of our weapon systems, there has been a quantum increase in the demands made on our logistics system. Consequently our logistics base has become the employer of approximately one-third of the military and civilian personnel and is responsible for managing nearly fifty percent of the annual operating budget. In periods of declining funds, operating and maintenance costs take on the characteristics of fixed costs. To the Air Force this means less investment money to modernize the force.
Our challenge in determining the logistics operating policies for the future is to further reduce distribution and maintenance costs without sacrificing responsiveness. Command action and logistics management literature have emphasized opportunities for economies in the acquisition phase of weapon system procurement, and rightly so. Reducing operational cost through the use of integrated logistics support (ILS) techniques is an essential element of cost reduction in the long-term sense. Another opportunity is to reduce cost in the 1.7 million items of supply used and maintained by the Air Force.
Innovation and creative thinking by our management personnel are needed. We must not consider the Advanced Logistics System or any other system as the ultimate, but we must begin planning for the next revolution now.
A Study of Future Requirements for Automation of the Logistics System at Base Level (STALOG) is being accomplished. This study represents the first step of a major effort to determine the best concept for future logistics operation at base level. It concerns not only those logistics functions supervised by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Materiel, but also their interface with all other support activities. The study will consider several alternatives. For example, one alternative would have the logistics functions on a base using one dedicated computer, with a utility computer for the other support activities. Another alternative would examine all logistics and the other support programs operating on a single computer system.
Planning is also under way to exploit the use of the computer as an adjunct to management in several areas. These efforts include Maintenance Management Information and Control System (MMICS); Transportation Integrated Management System (TRIMS); Customer Integrated Automated Procurement System (ClAPS); and other systems development projects in the areas of munitions, clothing sales, fuels, and commissary.
I do not intend to imply that the only major advances in logistics operation will be achieved by introducing bigger and better automated systems. Managers will still be required to use analysis techniques, imagination, and judgment in making decisions concerning selection of transportation mode, warehouse location, inventory control objectives and policies, investments in equipment, and maintenance concepts.
The large increase in airlift capacity programmed for the mid-1970s dramatically highlights the need to examine Air Force requirements for mobility support forces. The Mobility Support Forces (MSF) Studies Program was established by the Air Force in late 1968, to develop, demonstrate effectiveness, and implement new mobility support concepts for the full spectrum of logistics. This program consists of fourteen specific studies to determine manpower, equipment, facilities, and management systems needed to perform mobility support functions at air terminals, aerial ports of embarkation and debarkation, and contingency air terminals that are a part of the airlift system. Failure to consider these essential elements of the air transportation network will negate the capacity and greater utilization rates of these advanced carriers.
The Air Force has been recognized as a major innovator in logistics management. The elimination of overseas depots and reliance on air resupply, maintenance data collection, and concurrency in the system acquisition process rank with computers and systems design as revolutionary logistics concepts. However, through the years we have essentially retained the traditional breakout of functional tasks under the headings of supply, transportation, procurement, and maintenance on both the wholesale and retail sides of the house. In the next decade revolutionary changes to the traditional logistics organizational structure must be made if we are to take advantage of automated and advanced communications systems.
On the wholesale side of logistics it is conceivable that all system support management could be consolidated at one central location and tied to various storage points by high-speed communications systems. At the other end of the spectrum, system management responsibilities can continue to be located at the various Air Materiel Areas. Other organizational options could vary between these two extremes. Further centralization of the total wholesale structure would introduce some extremely difficult personnel, sociological, and economic questions.
At base level, automating of logistics processes under a concept like STALOG will further erase the boundaries that separate traditional functions. If the alternative selected from the study effort is the use of a single automated system by all logistics, the organizational structure that emerges could be a combined line-staff organization under a single Deputy Commander for Logistics. This organization would include four functions: planning and analysis, acquisition, distribution, and maintenance tasks. At the other end of the alternative spectrum, the interface of all logistics functions with the other support activities could result in a base organized under two Deputy Commanders—Deputy Commander for Plans and Operations and Deputy Commander for Support. Regardless of the organization, the logistics structure must enable the flexibility and mobility of the force it supports and must be responsive to the requirements of a widely dispersed force such as fighters, bombers, and airlift aircraft. An essential element of a future Air Force logistics management structure must be the improved coordination of logistics planning between the Air Staff, AFSC, AFLC, and the operational commands. Under the integrated logistics support concept,5 this coordination is especially critical. It is during the initial phases of weapon system development, not the acquisition phase, that critical conceptual decisions are being made which ultimately affect support capability and cost. The inclusion of logistics considerations in the design phases will represent logistics action rather than reaction. The result will reduce total life cycle cost.
human analysis
People are our most vital resource, and we must consider their needs and ambitions in our planning. Failure to do so increases the probability that we will be unsuccessful in attaining our objectives. In personnel development we must consider not only career progression but man-machine relationships, specialists-generalists concepts, and education and training as well.
With the changing of the draft laws, the Air Force will encounter increased competition with industry in selecting and recruiting young people. This competition will take place after graduation, not after he has been in the military for a few years. To be competitive, we must offer a more rewarding and challenging career.
The young officer or airman who will enter the Air Force in 1980 was born in the early 1960s. To him Munich, World War II, Korea, Hungary, and Vietnam will only be history he has read about. We expect he will be well educated, motivated, and full of ambition. Further advances of technology and education of the 1970s will be a part of his growing up, and what to us appeared to be major innovations in science, space, management, etc., will to him be obvious evolutions. We must not lose this valuable resource because we failed to provide clear visibility of his Air Force career opportunities.
In a recent survey appearing in Fortune,6 it was concluded that money and position have become less effective factors in attracting good men to industry. These traditional motivating forces have been replaced by job satisfaction, responsibility, and challenge. The new officer or airman of today grew up in a postwar industrial boom and never knew depression. To provide motivation, three of four industrial corporations interviewed by Fortune are revising their organization, with the objective of increasing job satisfaction and allowing more executives to run a small piece of the company show.7 This is controlled decentralization of authority, with the design purpose of motivating people.
In the Air Force, motivation and retention have traditionally been a major topic at almost every meeting of logistics managers. To develop a meaningful program, we have initiated a permanent Logistics Career Development Working Group at the Air Staff level which includes representatives from each major air command. An adjunct to this was the establishment of a Logistics Retention and Career Development Research Project. Participants in this study are the Air Force Academy and the Human Resources Laboratory. Their objective is the assessment of logistics as a career. This task will be accomplished by the review of current programs, past and ongoing research, and determination of future study requirements. Our longer-term goal is to initiate, a coordinated logistics manager/personnel program designed to improve career development and retention.
Any program designed to improve career development will deeply involve the newly assigned officer or airman’s immediate supervisor. Studies have shown that a young man’s first manager probably will be the most influential person in his career, his career pattern being largely determined by the attitude of his first supervisor.8 This initial supervisor must have the ability and willingness to establish job standards, provide a satisfying challenge, and create a realistic opinion of his Air Force career opportunities.
One of the major issues raised by increased automation is the relationship between man .and the computer. In designing systems we must not lose sight of two essential points: (1) the ultimate objective of every system is to help the operational unit support the mission effectively and efficiently; and (2) man’s attributes, values, and aspirations are vital elements and must be primary considerations in the design of any new system.
Automation has traditionally been viewed primarily as a means of data storage, processing, reduction, and readout. An additional role the computer can perform is that of a decision-maker when the variables can be specified quantitatively along with clearly stated decision rules. Man’s role will continue to be directed toward the selection of performance criteria, establishing goals of the organization, looking for opportunities, making nonprogrammable decisions, and maintaining the operation. Man must realize the potential these machines offer and direct his time and interests away from the routine administrative tasks and programmable problems. The manager’s attention must be directed toward the selection of best solutions from alternatives. The machine is only one tool he will use to make the selection. Experience, judgment, and innovation are other necessary decision factors.
From a management viewpoint, automation will increase his requirement to be well versed in human skills and to intelligibly communicate the organizational objectives as related to the subordinate needs. The manager must not become inundated by tons of data but rather must develop information systems from which he will select only what he needs to know.
As a young person moves in his career from “doing” to “managing,” his exposure will graduate from the narrower specialty to the broader viewpoint much earlier than before. The officer and airman entering the military in 1980 will continue initially to receive specialty training, but this first exposure to his specialty will also include the horizontal interaction of the various tasks with other components of the organization.
There will be a greater requirement for educational subjects to expand the individual’s viewpoint at the middle management level. This trend will reduce the emphasis being placed on specialty training in favor of broader courses for field-grade and senior noncommissioned officers.
Top management must be equipped to participate in a variety of military-political-social problems. Training and education will come from institutions that are able to present this broad view. We will view educational institutions as a source of innovation in management techniques, relying upon them for ideas to ensure that our management force does not become intellectually obsolescent.
In the past, the image of long-range logistics planning involved the mechanics of logistics; what the fourth-generation computer would have in storage capacity, what our overhaul capabilities for aircraft and missiles would be, and how many tons of cargo require shipment. All of these are essential questions and must be studied, I agree. However, the crucial questions which must be addressed in the design of an effective logistics system for the future are: What are the human considerations? What will we have for an organization? How will it operate? What sort of people will we recruit and how will they be educated? And what will the top managers need to know five-ten-fifteen years from now?
Hq United States Air Force
Notes
1. In this article “logistics” acts as the bridge between the national industrial capacity and the combat forces, along which material and equipment flow. In this context logistics includes the function of procurement, supply, maintenance, and transportation as an integrated whole.
2. Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), Lecture III.
3. Maxwell W. Hunter II, “Are Technological Upheavals Inevitable?” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 47, No.5 (September-October 1969), p. 82.
4. U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Memorandum of Agreement on Basic Principles of Logistics, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, 12 December 1967, p. 5-2. This document prescribes the basic principle for use as guidance by Army Materiel Command, Navy Material Command, Air Force Logistics Command, and Air Force Systems Command in the conduct of joint studies, negotiations, and internal operations. It also presents an excellent view of the logistics flow framework.
5. U.S. Department of Defense, Assistant Secretary of Defense (Installations and Logistics), Development of Integrated Logistics Support for Systems and Equipments, Department of Defense Directive 4100.35, 19 June 1964.
6. “What Business Thinks: The Fortune 500-Yankelovich Survey,” Fortune, LXXX, 7 (December 1969), 115.
7. Ibid.
8. J. Sterling Livingston, “Pygmalion in Management,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 47, No.4 (July-August 1969), p.87.
Brigadier General Peter R. DeLonga (B.S., Slippery Rock State College) is Assistant for Logistics Planning, DCS/S&L, Hq USAF. After earning both U.S. and RAF wings (1944), He served in the China-Burma-India Theater, flying 86 combat missions. Since graduating from Air Force Institute of Technology (1948), his assignments have included Aviation Psychologist, Aeromedical Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; Operations Officer, 40th Troop Carrier Squadron, during Berlin Airlift; Supply Officer, Aircraft and Armament, Hq USAFE; in Aircraft and Missiles, DCS/M, Hq USAF; DCS/Materiel and Technical Operations, Ballistic System Division; Chief, Spares Management Division, Hq AFLC; and Vice Commander, 6200th Materiel Wing. Philippines. General Delonga is a graduate of Advanced Management Program, Harvard, and of Air Command and Staff School.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position
of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or
the Air University.
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