Brig. Gen. Michelle M. T. Letcher, commander of the Joint Munitions Command, and other JMC senior leaders, brief Gen. Gus Perna, commander of Army Materiel Command, on JMC's continued efforts to support munitions readiness. (Photo credit: Tony Lopez...
ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill.-- On Nov. 28, the Joint Munitions Command conducted its quarterly review with the Army Materiel Command Commander, Gen. Gustave "Gus" Perna. The review was part of Gen. Perna's visit to the Rock Island Arsenal.
Brig. Gen. Michelle M. T. Letcher, commanding general of JMC, led the brief and focused on how JMC is operationalizing AMC initiatives.
"This was an excellent brief," said Perna. "I'm excited to see all of the great work coming out of this organization."
Key topics of the meeting included the JMC 2019-2020 Campaign Plan, reform initiatives, and the Operational Business Review.
--Campaign Plan--
The brief began with a review of the JMC 2019-2020 Campaign Plan. "To enable successful mission execution and vision achievement, the team and I have developed the campaign plan, which operationalizes JMC to support AMC and Chief of Staff of the Army priorities and global munitions requirements to ensure warfighter readiness," said Letcher.
JMC has updated its mission statement to better align with the Army mission as part of a Joint Force providing sustained readiness. The new mission statement is: "Provide the Joint Force with ready, reliable, lethal munitions at the speed of war, sustaining global readiness."
JMC also updated its vision to "Provide lethality that wins!"
The campaign plan is organized along three lines of effort that are nested with the AMC lines of effort: strategic readiness, future force, and Soldiers and people. While the last quarterly update focused on a number of strategic objectives primarily related to strategic readiness, this quarterly update focused on the future force. Specific strategic objectives examined in depth included reforming the munitions organic industrial base and total force integration.
"Through the lens of centralized planning and decentralized execution, we remain laser-focused on readiness and reform," said Kara Stetson, integrated management system manager.
Each of the strategic objectives has an assigned champion who collaborated with subject-matter experts to develop action plans in order to execute these objectives. The action plans contain measures of performance and measures of effectiveness. A battle rhythm for review is established and includes metric dashboard updates provided to JMC and AMC senior leadership.
"I expect performance to promise at 100 percent; get above the line of mediocre performance. We have to be so good at what we do that we are the number one choice," said Perna.
--Reform--
Letcher implemented a monthly battle rhythm event with the JMC installation commanders and staff to track key initiatives and metrics for reforming and executing mission requirements. Key execution measurements include increased output, overtime management, storage reform execution, and demilitarization execution.
"JMC made a commitment in our budget to achieve a 20 percent increase in effectiveness and efficiency as part of our 2020 budget," said Nate Hawley, director of supply planning.
"This is part of the operational approach to do our mission. Hold yourselves accountable to the output," Perna said.
Reform on resources led to a decrease in operations contract costs; a 10 percent reduction in travel costs; and a 35 percent reduction in overtime costs. Total force integration, cost center standardization, and other best business practices have driven down costs across the board.
JMC is using the National Guard and Army Reserve units to perform work for its Organic Industrial Base; this saves money and provides training opportunities for Soldiers. There are currently 33 missions total, three of which are related to storage reform.
Gen. Perna encouraged JMC to use the National Guard and Reserves for even more missions next year.
When discussing demilitarization, Gen. Perna said he expects JMC to be in charge, lead the way through it and continue to find efficiencies. Demilitarization is a great opportunity for reform in execution to improve Army readiness.
--Operational Business Review--
For the OBR, each of JMC's installation commanders briefed the execution status of their current workload.
"We are in good shape overall for our financials. Of note, the good news for workload is that we are not under a Continuous Resolution, and this has allowed us to send some funding to sites ahead of plan, helping AMC obligation rates. We are slightly ahead of our overall revenue goal year to date and are on track to meet end of year carryover goals," said Letcher.
JMC must focus on "quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and safety," said Perna. "We need to be ready to do today's mission and the mission in 30 years."
The next quarterly brief in February 2019 will focus on the Soldiers and people line of effort.
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