Inventory management gears up for process improvements

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WASHINGTON (AFNEWS) --  Maximizing weapons system availability and performance means smart management of safety levels and inventories. To do this, Air Force officials strive to optimize inventory levels and cost without sacrificing support to the warfighting commanders.

"Based upon the fact that we are maintaining systems that have exceeded their expected lifetime, in harsh environmental conditions and at extraordinary operational rates, materiel management has become increasingly complex," said Maj. Gen. Gary McCoy, Air Force logistics readiness director. 

"If you add to that the long lead times it often takes to get parts, the diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages and the governmental funding cycles, the difficult task of accurately forecasting demand is essential," he said. 

Since 1991, the Air Force has flown an average of 2.3 million flying hours per year. Today's Air Force has 29 percent fewer aircraft which are 42 percent older on average than those flown at the time of the first Gulf War. These trends led to decreasing Mission Capable rates and Aircraft Availability rates in the 1990's.

However, from 2000 to 2006 the MC rate improved 3 percent and the AA rate increased 3.4 percent.

"The single most important initiative that drove improvement in MC and AA for our inventory was robust funding of spare parts beginning in 1999," said General McCoy. "Since 2000, our supply rates improved 34 percent. Having the right parts is essential in keeping our aging aircraft and equipment operational."

Air Force officials plan to build on this accomplishment and on other recent improvements in logistics support through the eLog21 campaign plan. eLog21 brings an enterprise-wide perspective and a focus on the more highly integrated and responsive supply chain needed in a net-centric global environment. The transformational initiatives that are part of eLog21 will result in the Air Force meeting availability goals at the lowest possible costs.

The eLog21 campaign characterizes the Air Force's level of commitment to boldly transform logistics processes to better support the warfighter. In a net-centric global environment, a more highly integrated and responsive operational support chain, relying on an enterprise wide perspective is required.

"The overarching goal of the eLog21 campaign is to realize a 20 percent improvement in equipment available to warfighters, while also delivering a 10 percent reduction in cost of operations and support," said Mr. Grover Dunn, logistics transformation director. "All other logistics goals will tie directly to these two primary goals, ensuring that the enterprise goals drive logistics performance at all levels of the Air Force."

eLog 21 will rely on integrated processes to drive total effectiveness and efficiency across the logistics enterprise. With integrated end-to-end business processes, orders can move from the flight line to the source of supply in minutes rather than days, and parts can be directed and redirected to the most urgent need with near real-time visibility.

"By focusing on process redesign, improving performance, enhancing skills, streamlining IT systems and ensuring our logistics are managed as a single, global enterprise; eLog21 will ultimately change nearly every logistics process, activity and system in use by Airmen today," said Mr. Dunn.

Air Force officials are aggressively pursuing this enterprise-wide logistics process transformation with the impending launch of four major eLog 21 initiatives, all of which will have major impacts on the way Air Force logisticians manage the supply inventory: 

Global Logistics Support Center-- the GLSC will be the Air Force supply chain management process owner, providing enterprise planning, global command and control and a single focal point, all in support of the full range of military operations. 

Repair Enterprise for the 21st Century -- RE21applies Lean principles to better size, integrate, allocate and manage repair activity across the Air Force, and is an integral part of the GLSC capability. RE21 leverages global visibility of all repair assets, centralized funds management, strategic sourcing and partnerships with industry to support the entire Air Force supply chain and optimize support to the warfighter. 

Centralized Asset Management -- CAM will provide an enterprise view of financial management, resulting in increased flexibility, reduced programming/planning effort, less rework, minimal reprogramming actions where possible, open book management and collaboration. 

Expeditionary Combat Support System -- ECSS will replace 400 existing outdated legacy systems through use of commercial off-the-shelf-based technology solutions and application of commercial best practices.

One application, Advanced Planning Software, will be integrated with the ECSS. The APS will consider Air Force requirements, funding constraints, storage costs and economic order quantities to determine the right level of inventory to purchase, store and discard. Automating this process will eliminate some of the variability and errors that our current manual processes contain.

These initiatives are expected to decrease the level of supply inventory the Air Force is required to maintain without negatively impacting weapons systems availability or support to the warfighting commander.

These critical initiatives will be built on a foundation of continuous process improvement, common sense and business process reengineering tools such as Lean, Six Sigma and Theory of Constraints, said General McCoy. 

"All are vital to achieving the overall eLog21 campaign goals...increase equipment availability to the warfighter and reduce annual operation and support costs," he said.

"Air Force logistics warriors are taking dramatic steps to make our logistics operations more agile, responsive and cost effective," said General McCoy. "The eLog21 focus is enhanced combat capability and better use of all our resources through AF-wide visibility, collaborative planning and global management of supply, maintenance, distribution, support planning, all linked to the operational requirement. 

"Air Force logistics processes must and will be integrated, enterprise-wide efforts focused on delivering capability to the warfighter -- right stuff, right time, right place," he said. 

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