Q&A: General Norton A. Schwartz
GLOBAL DISTRIBUTOR:
Leading USTRANSCOM’S Integrated, Supply Chain Movement
General Norton A. Schwartz
Commander
United States Transportation Command
In September 2005, General Norton A. Schwartz took over as commander of the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), based at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Prior to this, Schwartz served as the director of the Joint Staff.
He is a command pilot with more than 4,200 flying hours in a variety of aircraft. He was a crewmember in the 1975 airlift evacuation of Saigon and in 1991, he served as chief of staff of the Joint Special Operations Task Force for Northern Iraq in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. In 1997, he led the joint task force that prepared for the noncombatant evacuation of U.S. citizens in Cambodia.
Schwartz received a Bachelor’s degree in political science and international affairs from the United States Air Force Academy. He received a Master’s degree in business administration from Central Michigan University.
His awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal and Army Commendation Medal.
Schwartz was interviewed by Dawn S. Onley, MLF editor.
Q: What role does USTRANSCOM play in supporting the warfighter and how do you directly impact that mission as the commander?
A: Whether by air, land or sea, the United States Transportation Command [USTRANSCOM], serves as the “quarterback” of the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise [JDDE], whose purpose is to project national security capabilities, provide end-to-end visibility of forces and sustainment in transit and rapidly respond to support joint logistics requirements. Through our component commands, the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command [AMC], the Navy’s Military Sealift Command [MSC], the Army’s Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command [SDDC] and our national and commercial partners, we execute military and commercial transportation, terminal management, aerial refueling and global patient movement through the Defense Transportation System [DTS]. USTRANSCOM, as the Department of Defense distribution process owner [DPO], is leading a collaborative effort with JDDE partners across the defense logistics community to increase the precision, reliability and efficiency of the DoD supply chain. By increasing collaboration, employing expeditionary tools, streamlining systems, adapting our business models and ensuring an appropriate mix of lift assets, we fulfill our obligations and keep our promise to our warfighters and the nation, today and tomorrow.
Q: What is the breakdown of USTRANSCOM in terms of civilians, active-duty and contractors?
A: The USTRANSCOM team includes more than 155,000 men and women from every branch of the armed services—active and reserve components, civilian employees and contractors—who are helping win the global war on terrorism [GWOT]. They’re dedicated to deploying and sustaining our warfighters, and returning them home upon mission completion. They’re also fulfilling our obligation to get them to medical care quickly and safely when they’re wounded or injured.
More than 1,700 are stationed at USTRANSCOM headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. They include 764 active duty, 272 reservists, 364 federal civilian employees and 600 contractors.
Q: The command recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary. What, in your viewpoint, have been some of the biggest successes since standing up the command?
A: The most significant initiative since USTRANSCOM’s 1993 charter came in September 2003, when then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated USTRANSCOM as the DoD’s distribution process owner—or DPO. The DPO designation expanded the mission from solely a transportation focus to responsibility for the entire DoD supply chain—from source of supply to the ultimate end user. No longer just the single manager of the DTS, USTRANSCOM now had the following assigned responsibilities:
- Providing common-user and commercial transportation, terminal management, and aerial refueling
- Providing global patient movement for the DoD through the DTS
- Serving as the mobility joint force provider
- Serving as the distribution process owner for the DoD
The undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics updated and published a revised USTRANSCOM Charter, DoD Directive 5158.04, “United States Transportation Command,” dated July 27, 2007. The new charter designates the commander of USTRANSCOM as the:
- DoD single manager for transportation, other than service-unique or theater-assigned assets
- Mobility joint force provider
- DoD distribution process owner
- DoD distribution portfolio management manager for sustainment and force movement
- Single manager for patient movement
In addition, DoD Instruction 5158.06, Distribution Process Owner, dated July 30, 2007, implements policy for overseeing, coordinating and synchronizing DoD-wide distribution processes, including force projection, sustainment, and redeployment/retrograde operations. It specifies the functional responsibilities of the DPO and outlines the interface with the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise.
Q: What remain some of the biggest challenges? How are these challenges being addressed?
A: A major objective of the DPO is asset visibility from the point of initial pickup to the final distribution point or customer, better known as in-transit visibility [ITV]. USTRANSCOM, in collaboration with the Defense Logistics Agency [DLA], is integrating the capabilities of the Global Transportation Network [GTN], which provides transportation and asset movement visibility with DLA’s Integrated Data Environment [IDE].
The IDE/GTN convergence initiative will provide enterprise-level, in-depth insight into the transportation and distribution performance. The improved system will provide DoD logistics customers with more complete information on supplies and people as they move through the DTS.
In 2006, USTRANSCOM and DLA established a joint program office to guide the convergence of IDE and GTN. This integrated capability will focus on the warfighter and will merge defense supply chain, logistics, transportation and distribution data into a single reliable system for logistics data sharing between USTRANSCOM, DLA, the services and select commercial partners.
USTRANSCOM has also made several major changes in the way it conducts business to incorporate distribution into daily operations. The Mobility Control Center, USTRANSCOM’s worldwide command and control center, was expanded to accommodate the distribution processes and renamed as the Deployment and Distribution Operations Center [DDOC]. Operations within the DDOC were initially modal-centric, with cells dedicated to airlift, surface movement and sealift. While this focus provided transporter expertise, it did not optimize distribution for the geographic combatant commanders [GCCs]. A shift to GCC-centric operations has resulted in more appropriate attention on the end-to-end supply chain, monitoring all processes from the source of supply to the point of effect, providing greater flexibility with intermodal solutions that yield timely delivery and potential cost savings.
USTRANSCOM is undertaking a number of initiatives to improve transportation and distribution efficiency through improvements in business practices utilized in the JDDE. We depend heavily on our commercial partners in the transportation and distribution business, and through teaming relationships, we can improve many parts of the business enterprise. In the transportation business, AMC has had an outstanding half-century relationship with the civil aviation industry through the Civil Reserve Air Fleet [CRAF]. The CRAF program provides AMC with access to commercial aircraft for airlift augmentation during times of crisis, in exchange for peacetime airlift business. Similarly, USTRANSCOM has a contractual arrangement in the maritime industry called the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement [VISA], which provides access to military-useful U.S.-flagged commercial sealift vessels, port infrastructure and intermodal capability to support DoD contingencies. VISA provides contingency sealift capability in exchange for peacetime sealift business.
Q: How has the command’s mission changed/evolved over the past 20 years?
A: USTRANSCOM’s roles and missions have changed—evolved—as the command has matured, and as joint operations have become the norm in worldwide military operations. Initially, USTRANSCOM was formed as a planning headquarters. A group of officers, enlisted members and civilians, some 350 strong, focused on strategic mobility planning to get the warfighter to the fight through synchronized transportation. Yet the planning was limited; USTRANSCOM’s responsibilities started at the seaport or airport of embarkation. The military services or force providers had to marshal the units and their equipment, and arrange transportation to the port for loading. Similarly, Air Force units had to coordinate with the Military Airlift Command to arrange for air transportation of equipment, while coordinating with the Strategic Air Command to arrange for air refueling for aircraft deploying to a warfighter theater. USTRANSCOM helped with the overall planning through the time phased force and deployment data [TPFDD], matching the combatant commander’s priority for force deployment with the transportation allocated to get the forces to the theater of operation. This planning was largely static, not a dynamic mission execution tool with the flexibility needed when the fog of war required the warfighter to change the deployment priorities of combat forces to meet operational needs. However, the TPFDD planning process did provide a common foundation for the warfighter, the transportation operating agencies [now the Transportation Component Commands] and USTRANSCOM from which to operate as forces began moving to a wartime theater.
As we conduct the missions of today, we are transforming the JDDE to meet both the changing environment of current operations and rapid global mobility and distribution requirements of the future force.
Guiding our transformation efforts is the DoD-sanctioned and Joint Requirements Oversight Committee-approved Joint Logistics [Distribution] Joint Integrating Concept [JL(D)JIC]. This keystone document directs the development of joint capabilities to enhance the movement and sustainment of joint forces. Leading this important work is USTRANSCOM, exercising our responsibilities as the global mobility force provider and distribution process owner.
The JDDE includes the equipment, procedures, leaders and connectivity necessary to conduct joint distribution operations. When fully developed, the JDDE will be a single unified enterprise with well-defined authorities, metrics, business rules and integrated capabilities that can precisely and reliably see and direct the flow of forces and sustainment.
Transformation is driving us to rethink how we conduct business. We are moving toward arrangements with private industry that are geared towards performance and integrated customer-focused solutions. An example of this business transformation is the Defense Transportation Coordination Initiative (DTCI). USTRANSCOM, in partnership with DLA and the military services, recently selected a transportation services coordinator to manage DoD freight movements in the continental United States [CONUS]. This transportation services coordinator will have visibility of CONUS freight movements, enabling load consolidation, use of more cost effective inter-modal solutions, and more intelligent scheduling. These improvements will increase the precision and reliability of freight movement which will lead to increased customer confidence, cost savings and more effective employment of our work force. Use of a single coordinator will also help generate relevant metrics that can be used to drive continual process improvements across our distribution system.
Q: What are your priorities/goals for the coming year?
A: My top airlift priority remains to work with the Air Force to recapitalize our aging tanker fleet. The current fleet consists of 500 Eisenhower-era KC-135s and 59 Reagan-era KC-10s. The Air Force needs to recapitalize its KC-135 fleet with the next generation tanker, the KC-X, as well as retire those remaining KC-135s that are no longer able to fly or are mission-ineffective. The KC-X must be a dual-mission aircraft capable of multi-point refueling, have significant cargo and passenger carrying capability, and be equipped with appropriate defensive systems. The KC-X will not only fulfill its primary refueling role, but also provide an array of enhanced mobility solutions. A tailored cargo and passenger carrying capability will multiply our transportation options and mitigate wear on the C-17 and C-5.
The USTRANSCOM Fusion Center is the integration of our components [AMC, MSC and SDDC] into our Operations and Plans Directorate. We have incorporated their planners and business process experts with their operational-level expertise and are integrating them with our strategic warfighter teams within the DDOC. This integration is designed to provide us the ability to optimize our response to customers’ requirements and our transportation capacity, thus increasing efficiency and reducing costs while maintaining the ability to support the warfighter, when and where they need it.
USTRANSCOM began the Fusion Center integration in July and is currently in the first spiral of development. We are currently prioritizing the component interaction within the limited space our current DDOC has to offer. This provides us with the ability to build the processes, procedures and lines of communication that will be fully implemented in 2010 when the new DDOC will be operational as part of a new USTRANSCOM facility which will also house the SDDC headquarters.
Another priority is the Universal Services Contract-06 [USC-06]. In the past year, we’ve spent nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars on commercial ocean transportation. Our contract with industry is the Universal Services Contract [USC], which provides world-wide ocean and intermodal transportation services in support of DoD requirements, as well as other agencies such as DLA, Army and Air Force Exchange Service [AAFES] and the Defense Commissary Agency. These users depend heavily on USC as a cost-effective method of transporting the equipment and supplies the troops need.
Leveraging commercial trade routes and relying on existing commercial capacity allows us to enjoy significant cost savings, while avoiding significant capital investment.
Today’s environment has changed and we are asking our commercial partners to expand their services to cover the entire end-to-end distribution chain.
Efforts are underway to improve the USC contract, to address today’s environment, to strengthen our partnership with the commercial sealift industry and to ensure our warfighting customers’ equipment and supplies are delivered, when and where they are needed.
Q: Has USTRANSCOM integrated its supply chain/logistics processes with the services and agencies? Can you provide a few examples if this is taking place?
A: We have begun combining two key automated port processing information systems. They’re the Global Air Transportation Execution System—an Air Force capability—and the Worldwide Port System—an Army capability.
This integration will provide a single port operations and manifesting system to support worldwide aerial and surface ports. Again, the practical wisdom is in its simplicity. The combination will reduce duplication, enhance current operating capability and—after an initial investment—enable cost savings.
Concurrent with this systems integration, we also have begun identifying and training joint port-opening teams who will be deployable with the new information technology tools.
Between now and then, USTRANSCOM is working closely with terminal operators to ensure that the integrated system works for them not for us quite distant from the scene and that it meets all the requirements for operating worldwide aerial and surface ports.
In close partnership with DLA, we’re coming up with ways to share information across the DoD and build a way to improve reliability and responsiveness of data exchange.
In the big picture—and of vital importance for the joint enterprise—it provides enhanced materiel visibility while identifying duplication and redundancy across the enterprise.
Q: What are some of the leading-edge technologies that USTRANSCOM relies on to perform its daily mission?
A: In collaboration with the Air Force and Defense Finance and Accounting Service, we are replacing outdated, unreliable billing and accounting processes and systems, transforming the financial management of our $9 billion enterprise with the Defense Enterprise Accounting and Management System [DEAMS]. With implementation of Version 1.1 in fiscal year 2007, DEAMS will provide the warfighter with near real-time, accurate and reliable financial information. This cross-service application, when fielded, will set the standard for effective and efficient stewardship of Defense Working Capital Fund resources.
In the current high-paced operating environment, commanders need timely and accurate supply chain information to inform operational decision making. With this in mind, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics designated USTRANSCOM to be the department’s functional proponent for radio frequency identification [RFID] and related automated identification technology [AIT] implementation. Under the new designation, USTRANSCOM will execute an AIT implementation strategy and develop a corporate approach for use of these asset visibility technologies. Major responsibilities include developing an integrated AIT concept of operation to provide end-to-end visibility, incorporating RFID and related AIT in the DPO architecture, overseeing data quality and performance using portfolio management methodology, championing funding and synchronizing RFID implementation.
We have already implemented active RFID technology at our strategic ports to provide COCOMs detailed tracking information on the movement of cargo throughout the transportation system and are assessing the benefits of passive RFID through implementations at USTRANSCOM, DLA and service stateside supply chain nodes.
USTRANSCOM is also evaluating the use of satellite technology to track container movements in the Central Command area of responsibility. Our goal on the AIT front is to craft a strategy that delivers the optimal AIT and corresponding logistics solutions which provide the warfighter with end-to-end visibility of forces and material moving through the DoD supply chain.
Q: Tell me one thing that you think people might find surprising about USTRANSCOM.
A: I think most people might be surprised at the magnitude of our efforts. As an example, since October 2001, USTRANSCOM and its component commands have moved more than 9.7 million tons of cargo and more than 4.3 million people in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. That’s more people than the population of South Carolina and, if that amount of cargo were loaded on semi-trucks, they would form a line from Tacoma, Wash., to Miami Fla. An even more surprising fact is that we’ve done this concurrently with all of our other worldwide commitments supporting U.S. national interests.
Q: Do you have any final thoughts?
A: As the geographic combatant commanders reorient their capabilities and forces to be more agile in the GWOT, to prepare for increasingly asymmetrical challenges around the world, and to hedge against uncertainty in the longer term, so must USTRANSCOM rethink our capabilities, forces and processes. We are implementing enterprisewide changes to ensure that our organization, its processes and procedures support those combatant commander’s vectors.
Our DPO initiatives are paying substantial dividends now in effective support to the warfighter and in efficient use of our national resources. Our readiness and modernization initiatives will ensure the combatant commander’s ability to swiftly engage and defeat America’s adversaries or provide relief to populations in need. USTRANSCOM will keep looking to the future and advocate systems and processes to move America’s military might at yet greater distances and speeds with a keen eye on cost, value and efficiency.
I could not be more proud of the USTRANSCOM team and our national partners. Today, we are supporting the GWOT while providing precision and velocity to ensure delivery of combat forces and humanitarian relief in support of national objectives. Together, we are transforming the military deployment and distribution enterprise, ensuring our nation’s ability to project national military power to confront America’s adversaries or support our allies whenever and wherever the need may arise. In all of this, a promise given by USTRANSCOM will be a promise kept. ♦