ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. -- Senior logisticians from Army commands around the world gathered here for a Materiel Management Summit, Feb. 10-12. Hosted by Distribution Management Center, U.S. Army Sustainment Command, the summit facilitated conversation-driven briefings and focus groups designed to improve Materiel Management across the Army.
"This is the first time we've had a Materiel Management Summit here at Rock Island, and it was actually quite fitting," said DMC commander, Col. William Krahling. "It was fitting because ASC as an entity has a huge global reach."
"We wanted to get the logistics community together to come here to Rock Island and talk about Materiel Management," he said. "Materiel Management for all logistics professionals are things concerning supply chain, transportation, maintenance, those types of things that really sustain our forces. We've been very busy at war for a long time. We continue to be busy, so we really need to be able to take this time and bring people in here that are connected to that process and ask 'Are there any gaps? Are there any issues, or best practices that help support our forces?' "
Army commands attending the summit include: Headquarters, Department of the Army, G4 (Logistics); HQDA, G8 (Resource Management); Combined Arms Support Command; U.S. Army Forces Command; U.S. Army Europe; U.S. Army Pacific; Surface Deployment and Distribution Command; U.S. Army Transportation Command; 8th Theater Sustainment Command; 21st TSC; 593rd ESC; 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command; U.S. Army Materiel Command, G4 and G8; U.S. Army Sustainment Command; Joint Munitions Command; U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command and U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
"These things are extremely important," said Mark Wheeler, U.S. Army Europe, G4 (Logistics). "When you're face to face, looking each other in the eye, you learn so much more. You're able to pick up so much more about what you need to know, and figure out what you need to do it right."
Topics covered during the summit included: a Materiel Management overview from the Combined Arms Support Command regarding sustainment doctrine; a general officer discussion panel including U.S. Forces Command, U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Army Europe and Army Central Materiel Management; and a discussion panel focused on Materiel Management roles, relationships and responsibilities for expeditionary sustainment commands, Army field support brigades, Corps level logistics and sustainment brigades.
During nearly every panel and group discussion, "gaps" were mentioned regarding communication between Army organizations and workflow function.
"One of the largest gaps that we found was really kind of a lack of recognition with some of the roles that we play functionally within the big picture across the Army. In some cases, we're so busy when we're deployed, it's almost easy to be able to draw the lines between each of the functional logistics things that we do to support our forces," said Krahling. "But sometimes when we're at home, and we're working through training and getting our forces ready to go, gaps begin to appear as we try to get back to a kind of normalcy that we're used to. To put it simply, how do we operate at home, and how we operate forward?"
About 22 hours of discussion and briefings about issues facing Materiel Management led up to an afternoon of suggestions and recommendations for improving identified Army logistics problems on the final day of the summit.
"I've been very excited to find we all recognize common problems," said Krahling. "This was a great time for us to be able to bring this group together because everybody has a piece of that puzzle, of how we're going to solve this overall problem. I think we've got a pretty solid plan to be able to move forward, and I believe we have something to offer to make sure our forces are ready and they continue to get support."
Krahling mentioned a desire to plan another Materiel Management gathering by September.
"If you want to institute change, or you want to reinforce best business practices, you've got to every once in a while get the group together to be able to talk about issues and solutions," he said.
The summit closed with a final out-brief to ASC commanding general, Maj. Gen. Kevin O'Connell. O'Connell heard recommendations from summit participants, and offered feedback in a very conversational environment.
He also handed out coins to DMC personnel who supported facilitating the summit by setting up the various rooms, assisting guests, and operating audio-visual needs at several panel discussions and presentations.
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