This year, Army logisticians in the G-4 reviewed numerous initiatives and proposed policy changes, and we evaluated them using three key criteria: "will they help us build, manage, or sustain readiness?" The results are several strategic enhancements --- from how we train, to how we organize, to how much equipment we stock, to how we get Soldiers their individual kit -- that are helping develop a more expeditionary-focused logistics force. While much work remains, we have made good progress in our ability to project and sustain an expeditionary Army.
BUILDING READINESS
What encourages me most is that the effort to build expeditionary capabilities are leader-led. Partnering with the Combined Arms Support Command and the Operational Force, we established a Leader Development Campaign to ensure logistics leaders are well versed in their functional areas, as well as in understanding how logistics can impact and shape any phase of an operation.
Our expeditionary capabilities atrophied during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were not needed because of the mature logistics architecture and the fact that contractors handled many of the maintenance and sustainment functions. Leaders are helping the force regain skills to execute logistics from fort to port, port to port, port to foxhole, and beyond through exercises at home stations, rotations to our training centers, and engagements with joint and international partners. Collectively our focus is on executing core logistics missions to standard, missions that provide the basis for everything else we do in supporting the warfighter.
This year, we expanded our use of the Army Prepositioned Stocks Program, our go-to-war assets positioned afloat and ashore around the world. Units used equipment from these stocks while participating in regionally aligned force rotational exercises to further strengthen U.S. presence and allied partnerships around the globe.
We also initiated plans to use the stocks in support of the European Command's expanding mission requirements to deter Russian aggression. Over the next few years we plan to build several more training activity sets for humanitarian and sustainment assistance in Southeast Asia and Africa, and in support of special operations in the Middle East.
We expanded our Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise (EDRE), a program that exercises the entire deployment chain and allows us to test the deployment system and ensure the readiness of units and the installations that support them.
The Army executed four deployment exercises, including the first Sealift EDRE (SEDRE) in more than a decade. From March to May, the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division conducted a SEDRE from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, through the Port of Jacksonville, Florida, to their Joint Readiness Training Center rotation at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. In the future, our intent is to continue incorporating EDREs as part of brigade deployments to the combat training centers. This will enable the Army to fully test its rapid expeditionary deployment capability to meet global combatant commander requirements, which is especially important as the Army is now more CONUS-based and must develop the ability to project forces rapidly.
There is no bigger logistics game-changing technology to improve readiness than the Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-Army), which is replacing legacy information systems. Last year, we completed fielding the system at the Army's 281 warehouses, modernizing their supply operations. With the great progress we made this year, GCSS-Army is now in 40 percent of our supply rooms, motor pools, and property book offices, and will be in all of them by next year as we reach our goal of 140,000 users worldwide.
This is not just another computer in the room, it is a huge enabler to those who have been using it. It combines maintenance, property accountability, and unit supply systems into one solution. It saves time and allows leaders to see their organizations.
GCSS-Army also moves us away from the "canned" reports of our legacy information technology systems to a new, self-service model. With it, we can better measure and report on our business operations. We are now challenging our logisticians to move away from a class of supply mindset to one that cuts across supply classes and focuses on end-to-end processes and functional capabilities.
We also are prioritizing readiness into our sustainment funding, ensuring that as the Army budget declines we mitigate risks to readiness. And we are committed to improving Operational Contract Support (OCS), including the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, which provides a rapid way to supplement military forces anywhere in the world.
Last year, the Army designated CASCOM to shape the future of OCS. The goal is to ensure contract support is an integrated military capability, taught throughout our Professional Military Education and exercised in our training events. The key to OCS integration is recognizing that all staff sections have a role in OCS planning and that contractors are part of Total Force readiness.
MANAGING READINESS
The success of logistics commanders to improve Army readiness also hinges on our management practices. Are we organized with the right roles and responsibilities? Do these organizations create the best interactions and synergies to make us more effective and efficient?
Mission command is key, and as sustainment leaders we often have to look past a solid or dashed line on an organization chart, and focus on all the critical relationships to fight and win. As a mentor once told me, "You don't have to own it, to control it."
In my view, when support elements are integrated with maneuver forces, we are at our best. As integrated elements, the sustainment community delivers flexibility when plans change, adaptability when operational variables shift, and can remain synchronized at the point of requirement to sustain combat power over time.
To make it work, sustainment commanders need to partner with organizations that they may not own, but they can influence. They have to understand who is providing the capabilities and how they fit into the big picture. That is why we have encouraged commanders to look outside of their organization and build relationships with organizations like Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)-Disposition Services, Army Field Support Brigades, and Logistics Readiness Centers.
Currently, we are finding that materiel management gaps are degrading commanders' abilities to responsively manage, direct, account, and retrograde major end items at home station and deployed. To address any gaps, sustainment brigades will be authorized a dedicated major end items materiel management function within the support operations section. This change will integrate and synchronize major end item assets for units operating in the division area; coordinate supply transactions, receipt, and distribution; facilitate retrograde of items; and integrate new materiel across the division both at home and in deployed environments.
Recently, thorough studies also were conducted to determine wartime and doctrinal requirements for personnel and cargo parachute rigging with the goal of increasing readiness, safety, and mission command. As a result, changes are being made to expand rigger support at the corps, division, and theater levels, as well as to improve support for separate Airborne Brigade Combat team operations. Additional supervisors and inspectors will enhance unit readiness, oversight, and safety.
SUSTAINING READINESS
We made a big push this year to identify assets to divest, or laterally move. Divestiture is not about saving money, it is about getting rid of assets the Army does not need, so we are not consuming time, space, or any other resource.
Experience has taught us that laterally transferring equipment or divesting it poses significant challenges across the force. Many of the challenges are administrative in nature, while others reflect a lack of capability at installations.
The G-4 staff worked closely with commands, Army Materiel Command, and DLA to streamline the process. Fort Hood, Texas, and Fort Bliss, Texas, were the first installations to execute operations using the new process, and they had excellent results. For example, at Fort Bliss 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division turned in almost 7,000 pieces of equipment during one week in April.
The keys to success were primarily due to the units' decisions to operationalize the events and place significant command emphasis on clearing out excess. They executed detailed rehearsal of concept drills and established command cells at critical locations to manage the operations. As we move forward, we must continue to provide this level of effort if we hope to build readiness through lateral transfers and rid the Army of obsolete equipment.
In 2016, we also continued our Campaign on Property Accountability, which has executed $416 billion in property book transitions. Equipment on-hand readiness is dependent on knowing what we have, where it is, and then getting it to where it is required. The Campaign has helped re-establish a culture of supply discipline, bringing all property to record and eliminating excess.
Behind the scenes, the Army's Organic Industrial Base is helping us sustain equipment readiness and providing significant surge capability. This year, our five maintenance depots and three manufacturing arsenals sustained critical equipment readiness requirements, including: UH-60 Blackhawks, PATRIOT and Avenger missile systems, Abram and Bradley tanks, combat and tactical wheeled vehicles and communications equipment. The depots also supported 876 Foreign Military Sales work orders, which included M1A1 tanks and associated components for Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
The G-4 drove several initiatives to help them operate more efficiently, including aligning workloads to the designated Centers of Industrial and Technical Excellences; reassessing their capabilities and capacity requirements; and enhancing public-private partnerships to optimize use of our critical artisan skill sets.
Every Soldier cares about his or her uniform, but few know the complex mechanics in getting uniform items approved, programmed, purchased, distributed, stored, introduced, and issued to one-million Soldiers. Unfortunately, right now the process is slow. We carry too much inventory. And our facility and operating costs are too high.
So the G-4 is looking to modernize the process. The goal is to reduce from more than 200 to just five core Soldier equipment menus, as well as to reduce the number of central issue facilities across the Total force. We also are looking at alternative capabilities and web-based systems to provide clothing directly to units and Soldiers when and where they need it.
Along the same lines, we are looking to modernize our garrison dining operations. Dining facility utilization has declined sharply over the last decade because operations have not been updated to account for changing Soldier demographics, to satisfy Soldiers' desires for selection and taste, to meet nutritional requirements, and to meet commander mission requirements. Our goal is to bring food service operations to a 21st century performance standard, where we reduce infrastructure, incorporate mobile services, and provide healthy meals that Soldiers desire -- all while lowering costs.
PREPARED FOR THE FUTURE
No question, all of these initiatives will serve us well as we build, manage, and sustain a more expeditionary force. As leaders we must continue to adapt and drive readiness, while preparing for the future so when the Army is called, it will be prepared to fight and win.
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