Col. Ronnie Anderson Jr., the Joint Munitions Command’s commander, told a few jokes to keep the mood light.
But the Franklin, Indiana, native also got serious when emphasizing his key points to the JMC workforce during his first enterprise-wide Town Hall address.
Anderson opened the event, which took place Aug. 29 inside Heritage Hall at the Rock Island Arsenal, by recognizing several award winners.
“They have gone above and beyond in support of JMC’s mission,” Anderson said. “Everyone that was recognized today was recognized for bringing an effect that will last beyond their tenure and most of them were doing it in a way that affected the rest of the team.
“What they’ve done impacts the rest of the team. The whole of the enterprise,” Anderson added. “I’m very grateful for all those who were recognized today and their contributions that they have made to the entire JMC team.”
Anderson stated his main focus consists of people, readiness, and modernization, which are in harmony with the Army Materiel Command, and the Army’s priorities.
“People are my No. 1 priority,” Anderson said. “If we take care of the people, the readiness, the mission, the munitions, and the modernization is going to take care of itself. We have to generate an environment where people want to work, where they want to join our team, where they want to be productive on our team, and they want to stay on our team.
“I know how difficult it is for all of our teams to play short,” Anderson added. “I’ve been there. I’ve been on five deployments and for every one there were shortages in our formation. That meant someone else had to carry the load. That’s why it is so important to make JMC an environment where people want to join and stay on the team.”
Anderson reflected on the fact that JMC remains dedicated to timely and high-quality munitions delivery. The command is fully committed to fulfilling annual materiel orders, accomplishing this within 45 days of fund receipt by proactively addressing planning and resource needs.
Modernizing production equipment and certain methodologies will aid in ensuring that JMC successfully fulfills its mission.
“Modernization is more than catching up on 50 years of deferred maintenance or ignored maintenance at our Organic Industrial Base sites,” Anderson said. “It is getting our facilities into great working order where people have pride in their work and what they do. It’s innovating the equipment and the processes we use to produce munitions. It is enhancing all our skills to make sure we can keep pace with the new equipment that is coming into manufacturing.
“In some places, our munitions process is the same thing that we’ve been doing for the last 70 years,” Anderson added. “We may be putting in a new piece of equipment but it’s the same process. We have to be thinking about innovation, and I recognize that we don’t always control all the decisions that impact what we make, when we make it or how we make it, but we can influence process outside what we control.”
According to Anderson, data and analytics are set to contribute significantly to JMC's decision-making process, and he emphasized the prudent utilization of data within the command.
“We are not going to make data products for the sake of making a data product. We are not going to make a dashboard just because it is a new fashionable thing,” Anderson said. “We are going to use data that helps us make better decisions, and better decisions faster.
“There’s algorithmic data that machines can do for us,” Anderson added. “A computer can do it very quickly, but it is not great at the context of the environment in which it is making the recommendations. I want us to be thinking about how we can do these things faster, and how we can justify what we know to be right with empirical data.”
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