ANNISTON ARMY DEPOT, Ala.-Anniston Defense Munitions Center, a tenant here, has embraced a program aimed at giving ammunition managers in the Army a better understanding of operations at the depot level.
Joint Munitions Command's Ammunition Management Career Program is a grassroots program designed to provide hands-on ammunition experience to careerist who have minimal or no hands-on ammunition experience.
Lawrence Rogers, an ammunition manager at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, was the first to take advantage of this program at Anniston. During the month of July, he worked on depot where 125 government civilians at ADMC, a subsidiary of JMC, are responsible for the receipt, storage, shipment, maintenance, inspection, demilitarization, and recycling of ammunition and missiles.
"There was a lot to do here in 30 days," said Rogers, who was only two hours away from his home while in Anniston. ADMC is already hosting its second ammunition manager, this time from a little further away: Elroy Brooks comes to Anniston from Fort Lewis in Washington State.
Rogers, a 30-year Army veteran who retired five years ago at the rank of command sergeant major, experienced depot-level work in all of ADMC's divisions: production management, munitions, maintenance, and logistics support.
He was able to see the demolition pit where stockpile like M15 land mines and 66 mm rockets are demilitarized through below-ground detonation. ADMC is also home to a one-of-its-kind missile recycling center where workers dismantle and process obsolete TOW (tube-launched, optically tracked, and wire-guided) missiles that were first manufactured in the early 1970s.
The leaders of ADMC were impressed with Rogers' willingness to get in on the work. Anthony Burdell, ADMC deputy to the commander, said Rogers, an Army civilian for five years now, "came in wearing white coveralls, ready to work. He rolled up his sleeves and put on his gloves. And to me that means a lot."
ADMC Commander Lt. Col. Duncan MacMullen said the program is beneficial to both the visiting ammunition manager and to the host munitions center. "It gives us a better understanding of each other's responsibilities, and it fosters an awareness of the processes involved in the ammunition supply chain," he said.
Aside from ADMC working the wholesale side of the industry and Roger's office serving as a retailer, he said it was several other differences between the two sites that provided a palette for learning.
He said ADMC uses an information system-Standard Depot System-much different from the Standard Army Ammunition System used at Redstone where he works for the garrison in the training division of the directorate of plans, training, mobility and security.
SDS uses a planograph, which provides users a pictorial display reflecting items in storage. "The gridding system has coordinates that take you straight to the magazines you need from the bunker," he said.
The SAAS, conversely, doesn't employ the use of a computer-generated grid for finding inventory, he said. "You have to hunt for a magazine with SAAS, so I think the SDS is much better," he said. (The Army is in the process of replacing SDS with SAP-based business software called Logistics Modernization Program. The depot deploys LMP in October 2010.)
Another contrast between Rogers' practices at Redstone and those at ADMC is found in the transportation arena. ADMC has an in-house transportation department that can schedule shipping of inventory. At Rogers' ammunition supply point, the office there must go through another element on the garrison to ship something out. "But, as a wholesaler, the depot must do it that way (have its own transportation department) because of the volume," he said.
"It was good to see that ISO (9001) is in place here. I got to see the SOP (standard operating procedures) they worked to get certified," said Rogers.
"And, I like that we speak the same language here. We understand each other," he said.
Rogers works behind a desk most days at Redstone where he receives requests from organizations wanting to draw conventional ammunition from a local supply point. After Rogers validates requests, it goes to the ammunition supply point to be received by the troops who use the ammunition to train.
When Rogers orders the ammo for the troops, the request goes through JMC in the form of a requirement sheet. JMC is the supplier for the ASPs.
Redstone has a robust test community for ammunition and aviation and is home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Space and Missile Defense Command, and many other government organizations.
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