The Joint Munitions Command operates a nationwide network of facilities where conventional ammunition is produced and stored, providing joint forces with ready, reliable, lethal munitions at the right place and time to enable global operations. About 90 percent of the ammunition produced by JMC is expended for joint warfighter training.
"Team JMC's vision is to be Department of Defense's ammunition logistician, synchronizing global operations," said Brig. Gen. Stephen E. Farmen, commander of JMC.
"Our lines of effort hinge on providing munitions at the point of need in support of our common purpose, the joint warfighter. This translates into a commitment to our Chief of Staff of the Army's number one priority: readiness."
JMC's role in readiness is to integrate the ammunition enterprise to produce an adaptive, resilient industrial base capable of sustaining critical capabilities, meeting current mission requirements and surging to deliver lethality in an age of uncertainty, Farmen said.
In order to support warfighter readiness, JMC maintains several critical processes to ensure training ammunition is in warfighters' hands, whenever they need it.
MUNITIONS READINESS REPORT
The premier metric used to track munitions readiness is JMC's Munitions Readiness Report. The report is used by JMC and the ammunition community worldwide. The MRR is a Web-based, ammunition enterprise decision support tool designed to rate munitions readiness as a measurement of ammunition availability and serviceability, relative to ammunition requirements. JMC began developing the MRR after 9/11, implemented it in late 2002, and has been improving and refining its use ever since.
The MRR is a critical enabler for budget development and performance readiness analyses, program objective memorandum acquisition and maintenance decisions, consumption trends tracking, and joint munitions readiness reporting. It is a standard methodology for determining munitions readiness, calculated for current asset posture and at six-month periods, for a 24-month time frame. It is a user-friendly, visual assessment of munitions' warfighting readiness and areas of risk.
The MRR offers future-year inventory and readiness outlooks that compare worldwide inventory to current war reserve and training requirements. It is a broad report and rating system, a tool for senior Army decision makers.
The report is used at the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Materiel Command, Program Executive Office Ammunition, and by JMC ammunition managers. The MRR supports ammunition-related budget and logistics decisions, life cycle and inventory management, and joint munitions planning.
The MRR groups munitions into 12 "families" according to size and type of munitions. The report allows readiness to be assessed quickly, based on a traffic-light color code. Green represents the highest level of readiness; amber, a lower level of readiness; and red indicates non-readiness. With this coding system, focus can easily be directed to munitions with compromised readiness.
CENTRALIZED AMMUNITION MANAGEMENT AND AMMUNITION SUPPLY POINTS
JMC ships millions of rounds of training ammunition to 85 Ammunition Supply Points at military bases across the country. In the continental U.S., the ASPs are divided into five geographic Centralized Ammunition Management regions, each supplied by a primary JMC depot where ammunition is stored. Each CAM region includes many ASPs, which in turn supply training ammunition to units at forts, camps and bases in their areas.
Logistics specialists use the National Level Ammunition Capability resupply tool to analyze the amount of ammunition the ASPs ask for, depending on the amount trainers in their areas request, and the amount that has been left over from previous requests and is in storage. The NLAC reduces the quantity of excess ammunition stored at ASPs, while still providing an adequate supply of training ammo.
"The less excess ammo the Soldiers at the ASPs have to store, manage and inventory, the more time they have to devote to other duties," said Ryan Senkbile, an ammunition logistics management specialist in JMC's Material Management Operations Distribution Division.
The tool has been modified in the last few years to also reduce the number of shipments between ASPs, saving JMC and taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But Senkbile said if an ASP has an unexpected need for ammo, JMC can fill a request within a week.
U.S. Army Sustainment Command oversees 37 ASPs, including in Alaska and Hawaii. Nick Castillo, an ASC ammunition logistics management specialist, is co-located at JMC headquarters at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, in order to work alongside Senkbile, his counterpart.
"Working together, we can provide one voice for the entire ammunition logistics community. We capture impacts and policy that apply to both sides of the training ammo supply: the wholesale side, which comprises the bulk storage at the depots, and the retail side, dealing with the ASPs and the bases," said Castillo. "Our coordination has helped to standardize processes at all ASPs."
Looking at the wholesale side, the shipment of training ammunition from depots is constant. Brad Rutledge, chief of shipping and receiving at McAlester Army Ammunition Plant (MCAAP) in Oklahoma, said that MCAAP ships 25 to 30 truckloads of training ammo a day to ASPs in the southwest CAM region. Because MCAAP is the Department of Defense's premier bomb- and warhead-loading facility, it also ships training bombs and missiles to ASPs outside of its own CAM region.
"The training ammo is shipped 14 days in advance of the date the ASP needs it," said Rutledge of the shipping process. "Trucks are ordered 48 hours ahead of shipping, and the ammo is pulled from storage the day it's shipped. The ammo is packed and loaded on trucks, in vans or flatbed shipments; a Quality Assurance Specialist (Ammunition Surveillance) verifies the lot numbers, stock numbers and quantity of items, and the truck doors are security sealed before a truck heads to an ASP."
On the retail side, 23 ASPs in the southwest CAM region, including Fort Sill, Oklahoma, receive training ammo from MCAAP. When a shipment of training ammo arrives at Fort Sill, it is posted to an electronic tracking system. Older and small lots are issued first, and issue continues from a single lot until it is gone, and is then pulled from the next lot.
Units drawing training ammo from Fort Sill include those from the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Forces Command, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, U.S. Army Reserve, the National Guard, U.S. Marine Corps and ROTC.
Some ASPs also provide training ammo to allied forces, which may train inside or outside the continental U.S.
After training events, units turn in leftover ammo. Live ammo is inspected and, if useable, repacked, while residue from spent ammo is recycled or disposed of safely and in an environmentally regulated manner.
"JMC's entire process of providing ammunition, including training ammo, begins and ends with the warfighter," said Rhonda VanDeCasteele, director of JMC's Munitions and Logistics Readiness Center.
"Hundreds of dedicated employees at JMC headquarters, at its depots, and at the ASPs, work diligently to supply training ammo to ensure warfighter readiness."
Social Sharing