ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. - The Joint Munitions Command provides lethal munitions to the Joint Force to win on the battlefield of today and tomorrow. In order to accomplish this critical mission for the Department of Defense and Combatant Commanders around the world, JMC must plan and execute a modernization strategy that moves the ammunition Organic Industrial Base into the future.

For more than 75 years, JMC depots and production plants have been industrial process focused. The time to lead the modernization of these national assets into the information based manufacturing and supply chain environment is now.

JMC recently initiated a planning effort to deliver a holistic master plan for the Joint Munitions Industrial Enterprise. Gen. "Gus" Perna, Commanding General of the Army Material Command, has stated, "We must continue to ensure our plans for modernizing the OIB are delivering current readiness to the Joint Force, continuing to build surge capacity, all while modernizing to meet future force requirements."

"JMC needs to create improved processes and a framework to execute modernization of all critical areas of the ammunition OIB," said Brig. Gen. Michelle Letcher, Commanding General of the Joint Munitions Command. "The end state of this effort is to have an executable master plan that will better synchronize execution of all projects while responsibly using all available funding sources."

The JMC team provided a progress update on this planning effort to Perna on August 13. During the update, Col. Shane Upton, McAlester Army Ammunition Plant Commander, presented the key outputs of this planning effort and some key initiatives that will modernize the JMC enterprise in a more holistic manner. One key outcome of this planning effort is focused on future projects that build more multi-use and flexible manufacturing facilities which can quickly be changed to adapt to rapidly emerging technology requirements.

A modernization effort at McAlester Army Ammunition plant aligns with this new master plan. McAlester executed modernization upgrades on a bomb production facility that increases out-puts and surge capacity by more than 150 bombs per week. This improvement provides readiness to the Joint Force and increases the surge capacity.

Overall, the enterprise modernization plan will encompasse all infrastructure, equipment, information technology, cyber, and human capital requirements while ensuring each critical JMC installation supports current Warfighter readiness gains, looks for ways to increase surge capacity in order to ensure victory in a peer-threat global environment, and adapts to build and supply the ammunition to win on the battlefield of the future during Multi-Domain Operations.