Members of the 835th Transportation Battalion use a new booking process for the first time in the Pacific saving time and money as they supported Amphibious Landing Exercise 2011.

The Phiblex ran Oct. 14-22.

According to John Fisher, chief of the cargo booking section at the 599th Transportation Brigade, this was the first use of U.S. Transportation Command policy 24-7, which came into effect in May.

Fisher said this policy allows the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command to submit a proposal for shipping equipment using the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command if a unit is shipping ammunition or otherwise needs to maintain unit integrity during a shipment. "Unit integrity" means all of the unit's cargo and equipment is guaranteed to be transported together on the same ship.

"The ship arranged by MSC may either be a charter or an MSC ship. This new policy gives units and bookers an alternative to the one-time-only booking process," Fisher said.

In the case of the 835th shipping III MEF's equipment, the charter was awarded to the Motor Vessel Combi Dock III, a ship registered in Antigua and Barbuda.

"By utilizing MSC (24-7 process), the requirement to book all the cargo offerings into the booking system was eliminated, which saved a lot of time and effort for the 835th cargo booking office," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Walker, commander of the 835th. "MSC was able to source a foreign flag vessel, MV Combi Dock III, for the deployment and redeployment, which is the reason the cost was significantly less than originally expected."

Deployment and distribution support teams from the 835th handled all aspects of the load-out and discharge during deployment and redeployment phases of Phiblex.