In the 15 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center indescribably changed the world as we knew it, our U.S. Army has evolved and adapted to meet the ever-changing needs and requirements of the 21st century. From budget spikes at the peak of conflict to budget cuts during times of fiscal uncertainty, from heavy deployments on fixed battlefields in Iraq to expeditionary forces battling the Ebola epidemic in Africa, our Army has prevailed.
As we maneuver in an increasingly complex global environment, leaders across the Army are laser-focused on assuring Army readiness. While U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) ensures units are properly manned and organized, and U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) ensures Soldiers are recruited and trained, it's the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) that ensures our formations are always well-equipped and sustained. Providing every piece of equipment, clothing, gear, and food a Soldier requires, AMC guarantees our Soldiers remain the best-equipped fighting force in the world.
PROVIDING MATERIEL READINESS
Above all, AMC provides materiel readiness to the Joint Force and supports Unified Land Operations (ULO). As the Army's Lead Materiel Integrator (LMI), AMC ensures our forces have the combat-ready equipment needed to execute their mission.
While AMC continues to receive, store, maintain, and issue Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) across the globe, this year also saw the expansion and growth of Activity Sets. Activity Sets consist of strategically positioned sets of equipment that rotational units can quickly draw for use in training and exercises. In close coordination with the Army G-4 and the Combatant Commands (COCOMs), we are in various stages of developing Activity Sets in every COCOM, from Africa to Europe to the Pacific. APS and Activity Sets provide commanders and units the flexibility and speed to respond to contingencies, train with allies, and participate in multinational exercises, significantly strengthening international partnerships and relationships.
AMC's Security Assistance enterprise also shapes the operational environment and builds partner capacity in support of COCOM engagement strategies. Through Foreign Military Sales (FMS), AMC provides our allies a "total package" of equipment, spare parts, training, publications, technical documentation, and maintenance support. With 38 teams in more than 20 countries, AMC's U.S. Army Security Assistance Training Management Organization, or US-SATMO, conducts training with allies, ensuring their ability to repair and maintain equipment, and ultimately operate jointly with U.S. forces on the battlefield. Through FMS and other Security Assistance initiatives, AMC works to increase interoperability with allies, providing a solid foundation and lines of communication for U.S. military participation in joint training and exercises.
In addition to on-site support to the COCOMs, AMC is also working to integrate and synchronize logistics activities across the Army. The Materiel Common Operating Picture (M-COP) integrates data from authoritative sources to visualize Warfighter materiel requirements and provide materiel sourcing recommendations to commanders. The M-COP has allowed commander's to gain predictive readiness and an unmatched view of materiel across their units.
At home station, AMC's 79 Logistics Readiness Centers (LRCs) support Soldiers, providing logistics, munitions, transportation, and supply support and services to our CONUS-based forces at Army posts, camps, and stations. Continued modernization efforts have yielded state-of-the-art facilities across the LRCs. From the modernized, more efficient Central Issue Facility (CIF) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to the new, tailor-made Subsistence Supply Management Office (SSMO) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, upgraded LRC facilities are managing installation-wide logistics and sustainment support, providing a single hub on the installation for Soldier and unit access to the Army sustainment base.
Each year, we mature our LMI role, improving our ability to provide predictive readiness to Warfighting formations to better plan for future operations. Through enhanced capabilities and systems like the Logistics Information Warehouse and Decision Support Tool, we effectively provide materiel managers visibility of future and known requirements. AMC remains the readiness instrument for Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multi-National synchronization of materiel support.
GLOBAL LOGISTICS, ACQUISITION SUPPORT, AND TECHNOLOGY
To optimize life cycle sustainment, better support the Chief of Staff of the Army's top priority of readiness, and posture the command for the future, AMC initiated a Mission Command alignment in February 2016. The alignment included two major initiatives: empowering Life Cycle Management Commands (LCMCs) to provide portfolio-based sustainable readiness, and strengthening Army Sustainment Command (ASC) as AMC's single entry point for synchronizing, integrating, and prioritizing readiness capabilities across our Army at the installation level.
To strengthen the portfolio-based approach, three Research, Development and Engineering Centers (RDECs) and three Contracting Centers realigned operational control (OPCON) under their respective LCMC. Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM LCMC) gained OPCON over Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) and the Redstone Contracting Center at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM LCMC) gained OPCON over Communications Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) and Aberdeen Proving Ground Contracting Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM LCMC) gained OPCON over Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Warren Contracting Center at Detroit Arsenal, Warren, Michigan.
The alignment empowers LCMC Commanders to establish and manage Army priorities and resources within their respective portfolios. LCMCs will be better optimized at a single point for cradle-to-grave sustainment, from acquisition, fielding, upgrades and maintenance, to final disposition, significantly reducing costs and redundancies. This alignment also provides Industry and corporate leaders with consistent and direct access to an Army senior leader to address issues and concerns, and facilitate coordination within the respective portfolios.
To further solidify a single AMC "face-to-the-field," Army Sustainment Command (ASC) gained tactical control (TACON) over Contracting Support Brigades (CSBs) and Logistics Assistance Representatives (LARs). The alignment provides Brigade Combat Team (BCT) Commanders with a single point of entry into AMC's portfolio of capabilities, increasing the command's responsiveness to warfighter needs and requirements, while leveraging the contractor oversight and expertise of the Army Contracting Command (ACC).
Across AMC's expansive portfolio of capabilities, including contracting, research and development, and maintenance and reset, AMC provides cradle-to-grave life cycle management and sustainment.
ASSURING THE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE
Our U.S. Army Soldiers must always be equipped to fight and win decisively, despite facing uncertain environments and ever-changing global threats. AMC ensures this decisive edge through a comprehensive Science and Technology (S&T) and Research and Development (R&D) program that represents 75 percent of the Army's total annual investment.
This year, AMC launched an Innovation Campaign, designed to strengthen synergy and transformation across the S&T and R&D spectrum. The Innovation Campaign is a proactive initiative to facilitate evaluation, feedback, and collaboration across the larger Materiel Enterprise.
Through a series of Innovation Summits, the campaign will chart the course for future Army readiness in a time of reduced resources and increased operational complexity on non-traditional battlefields. Innovation Summits bring together our teammates at TRADOC, FORSCOM, and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, along with our partners in industry and academia. The synergy created by this assembly will propel us to reach greater efficiencies, ideas, and advancements.
Fostering a culture of innovation will posture AMC and our Army for future success for the Force of 2025 and beyond. More than ever before, creativity and agility must permeate our everyday thoughts and processes. We remain resolved to lighten the logistics burden for our Soldiers, and provide an unmatched level of survivability, mobility, and lethality, and we will continue to build upon the remarkable discoveries and improvements we've achieved over the last decade to protect the Soldier.
OPTIMIZING THE ORGANIC INDUSTRIAL BASE AND GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN
With great efficiency achieved after decades -- and in some cases, centuries -- of operations, our depots, arsenals, and ammunition plants that comprise the Army's Organic Industrial Base (OIB) provide continuous readiness to the joint force. The Army's OIB is a National Security Readiness Insurance Policy, responsive to every Warfighter need, manufacturing and fabricating critical components, and modernizing and refurbishing equipment to build future combat readiness.
As we reshape our Army after 15 years of war, a declining workload will require our Army and DoD to invest in the OIB to ensure we maintain these critical and unique industrial capabilities and Artisan skillsets. We have a tremendous opportunity to incite positive change across the OIB to ensure its critical stance as a national treasure.
In pursuit of that goal, we are aggressively optimizing the OIB. Over the past decade, AMC invested approximately $2 billion in capital improvements across the enterprise in upgraded equipment and facilities. These enhanced OIB capabilities and new technologies rival -- and in many cases, surpass -- what can be found in the private sector.
This year also saw the implementation of Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Increment 2, which brought unmatched automation to the manufacturing shop floor across the OIB. LMP is a true business transformation for our Army, providing greater accuracy, reliability, and speed. LMP allows us to better deliver readiness in support of global operations, and AMC is advancing efforts to better manage one of the nation's largest, fully-integrated global supply chains -- our U.S. Army's.
DEVELOPING THE WORKFORCE
Our dedicated workforce remains the cornerstone of everything we do; our people are our credentials and our most valued resource. Through initiatives like the "AMC 1,000 Interns" program that pledges AMC commands and subordinate organizations to hire 1,000 interns each year for the next five years, and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI) program that promotes Army opportunities for diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), AMC is actively recruiting the next generation of Army professionals. Meanwhile, through partnerships with the Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) and Army Logistics University (ALU), we continue to develop and enhance the skills and abilities of our Department of Army Civilians. ALU joint training and leader development programs provide the foundation for our logistics and sustainment enterprise. AMC remains committed to building and sustaining a professionally trained and ready workforce of flexible and adaptive leaders, and multi-skilled team members.
CONCLUSION
With a presence in all 50 states and more than 140 countries, AMC remains a worldwide logistics powerhouse, developing and delivering global readiness to the Joint Force. Our role in shaping our Army as it transitions to a globally engaged, regionally aligned, expeditionary force, while balancing readiness, end strength, and modernization, is absolutely critical.
We remain committed to providing responsive and reliable readiness solutions at the point of need for the current and future force. In close alignment with our senior Army leaders, AMC will successfully face the challenges of the future and remain the premier provider of Army and Joint Readiness to sustain the strength of the Nation -- the Soldier!
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