LEMONT, Ill. -- Approximately 90 key leaders from the Army's Ammunition Enterprise Triad met during the first week of February at Argonne National Laboratory to discuss the future of ammunition readiness. Brig. Gen. Stephen "Steve" E. Farmen, commander of the Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Management Command and the Joint Munitions Command explained that "readiness is the number one priority" for the Army and that all members of the Triad must work together to ensure warfighter readiness. As Farmen stated, meetings like this foster the ability to "achieve unity of effort without unity of command."
The Army's ammunition mission is coordinated through an enterprise management effort known as the Ammunition Enterprise Triad. Agencies involved in the process include the Program Executive Office Ammunition; the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center; and, the Joint Munitions Command. PEO Ammo's mission is to develop, equip, and sustain lethal armament and protective systems enabling joint warfighter dominance. ARDEC's mission is to empower, unburden, and protect the Warfighter by providing superior armaments solutions that dominate the battlefield. JMC's mission is to provide Joint Forces with ready, reliable, and lethal munitions at the right place and time to enable global operations.
"The triad is a three-legged stool. You can't sit on it if all pieces aren't solid, functioning, and aligned," said the Program Executive Officer Ammunition, James "Jim" Shields.
Shields and John F. Hedderich, director of ARDEC, emphasized that as budgets draw down, those in the Triad need to continue to work smarter to ensure the Army meets the warfighters' needs. In order to do that, all parts of the team must work together.
"This is about trust and teamwork," said Hedderich.
Topics discussed at the meeting included organizational overviews for each branch of the enterprise; governance of the Triad; the draft Ammunition Industrial Base Strategic Plan; modernization of the Organic Industrial Base; capacity utilization; production investments in the industrial base; the Enterprise Integrated Logistics Strategy; the Organic Industrial Base Review metrics; technology trends in armaments that will impact the industrial base; and customer survey results. The meeting also included several workshops on developmental opportunities, information release processes, efficiencies, and new initiatives.
Shields said he found the workshop portion of the meeting extremely valuable.
"I could have sat and thought for a month and not come up with one tenth of what they came up with in those workshops. That exercise shows how we can work smarter."
Farmen also found the meeting to be beneficial.
"This meeting gave us a better understanding of our organizational structures, an idea of how we can move out together to attack the challenges facing the enterprise, and best practices we all can employ," he said.
At the end of the meeting, Shields and Farmen agreed that the Triad is working on a strategy where it can manage enterprise challenges collaboratively in order to better support the joint warfighter. "We are not dealing with things in isolation. Collaboration is import…We bring the power of the enterprise to bear on how to solve problems and get things done," said Farmen.
Shields said he had a "new appreciation for the work that goes on in the areas that are not in the PEO's realm of responsibility. It is important to see how we all do business, and how we overlap and integrate."
Based upon the success of the meeting, future sessions are being planned.
"There is nothing better than coming together, looking each other in the eye, and talking through the tough issues. The theme of this event was our common purpose, ensuring ammunition readiness through trust and teamwork. That's what makes us Ammo STRONG!! If we bring the power of the enterprise to solve a problem, there is nothing out there we can't solve," said Farmen.
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