FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, commanding general of the U.S. Army Materiel Command, briefed an audience of Army leaders, international soldiers and industry on AMC's perspective concerning an array of topics at the AUSA Winter Symposium here, Feb 24.
I. BRAC
"11,000 of my 70,000 employees are being BRACed, that is one out of six of my employees affected by BRAC," Dunwoody said.
Our goal is to transition without a single lapse in support for our men and women that are deployed in theater, continued Dunwoody.
A transition this large shifts one of AMCAca,!a,,cs centers of gravity to Huntsville, Ala.
"Huntsville is our center of gravity. It [Huntsville] has LOGSA [the Logistics Support Activity], AMCOM [U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command], Army Contracting Command, Expeditionary Contracting Command, my own command, and USASAC," Dunwoody elaborated. "Now thatAca,!a,,cs a fundamental change for us and we have to adapt on how we are going to do business."
II. War
"War can never be business as usual," Dunwoody said. "When you've been at this for ten years it can become routine."
"These conferences serve as a great opportunity for us to renew our commitment to support our deployed men and women,"Dunwoody said.
In the past ten years of war, the Army has transformed to adapt and support deployed operations.
"Many of our institutional processes are geared toward a Cold War tank instead of the ARFORGEN model. And we need to get after that, that means we have to fundamentally look at things differently now," Dunwoody said.
III. A new way to do business
In the past, the Army has unintentionally created piles of items necessary to support the warfighter and these piles were throughout organizations and the Army.
"We did not have the capability to see ourselves collectively," Dunwoody said.
"We saw ourselves in stovepipes and we're working to get after that by designating Army Materiel Command as the lead materiel integrator."
"What we [AMC] will do is manage these piles and manage the distribution of equipment based on priorities from the department [of Army] and from the acquisition community," Dunwoody continued. "This will allow us to see ourselves better, help us, and inform us on where we need to invest in buying and what I need to invest in repairing."
IV. Foreign military sales
Foreign military sales are an avenue in which the Army sells new and used equipment to our allies.
"This is truly a growth industry. It's grown from 9 billion to 14 billion in just the past few years," Dunwoody said.
Dunwoody expressed that foreign military sales is a win-win scenario for the Army.
"In the past, it was believed that foreign military sales had to be new equipment. In reality, we've gotten so good at recap and reset that we can take equipment and make it like new and that allows the customer to buy it cheaper," Dunwoody said. "Not only are we getting rid of overhead costs, maintenance costs, storage costs, we're now getting that stuff out to our partners."
V. Challenges and/or opportunities
A continuing challenge among Army leaders is lightening the load that warfighters carry in deployed operations.
Afghanistan is a land locked country surrounded by mountains and two percent of the roads are paved, explained Dunwoody.
"Every opportunity we get we need to focus on lightening the Soldiers load," Dunwoody said.
Dunwoody said that conditioned based maintenance was an opportunity for the Army to invest in itself to reduce costs in the future.
"It's time to invest so we can reduce costs to production, reduce cost to maintenance, and sustainment," Dunwoody said.
VI. The future
Despite nine years of war, challenges, and changes, Dunwoody expressed her confidence and optimism in the community and future.
"We can wring our hands or we can roll up our sleeves. What I've seen from this community is that we will roll up our sleeves, and we will get after it," Dunwoody said.
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