Organization Profile: USTRANSCOM
QUARTERBACKING DOD DISTRIBUTION
AND KEEPING PROMISES
by Major General William H. Johnson
The U.S. Transportation Command is relatively young compared to many of our military’s commands or organizations. Established in 1987, we recently celebrated two decades of service to our nation.
Originally chartered to provide common- user transportation in times of war and during contingencies, the mission and impact of this unique command has grown significantly since its inception.
Today, USTRANSCOM, a unified combatant command (COCOM), serves as the “quarterback” of the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise (JDDE) and projects national security capabilities, provides endto- end visibility of forces and sustainment in transit, and rapidly responds to support joint logistics requirements.
Through our component commands, the Army’s Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC), the Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC), the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command (AMC) and our unique national and commercial partnerships, we execute military and commercial transportation, terminal management, aerial refueling and global aeromedical patient movement through the Defense Transportation System (DTS).
As designated in 2003, redesignated in 2006, codified in the 2006 Unified Command Plan, and now institutionalized in DoD instructions, USTRANSCOM is the DoD’s Distribution Process Owner (DPO) and 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.
As our mission and impact continues to evolve and grow, there is a correlating need to consistently improve our processes. As a result, we have focused a great deal on improving our command and control capabilities. USTRANSCOM’s Fusion Center, established in July 2007, is the DPO’s and the combatant commands’ operational arm with a mission to serve as the single coordination and synchronization element to manage current operations within the JDDE and to achieve the commander’s intent.
The Fusion Center brings a synergistic planning approach to deployment and distribution operations for the JDDE. This allows Transportation Component Command (TCC) planners to work directly with other joint planners to craft requirements using a holistic approach, addressing all requirements from a multimodal view so that supported commanders’ needs are more precisely understood and limitations are also clearly articulated.
Fused operations enable Fusion Center teams to develop executable multimodal deployment and distribution courses of action. The foundation of this success includes collaborating earlier in the decision cycles; developing enterprisewide, executable plans; monitoring end-to-end movement of forces and sustainment; and providing agile, adaptive logistics solutions in support of the warfighter.
Our Joint Intelligence Operations Center- Transportation (JIOC-TRANS), funded by the Defense Intelligence Agency, enhances our deployment and distribution mission by identifying and assessing specific threats to global intermodal operations, and by orchestrating analysis and dissemination of comprehensive intelligence on seaports, airfields and connecting surface networks. JIOC-TRANS is moving toward full operational capability by 2010 when the newly constructed Fusion Center will completely integrate operations and intelligence.
A very significant mission for USTRANSCOM is the global movement of injured warfighters from the battlefield to world-class medical treatment facilities. Nowhere is our motto and ethos of “a promise made is a promise kept” more aptly demonstrated than in meeting this vital obligation to the men and women that serve our great country. This is a complex, timesensitive process requiring close collaboration with doctors, military hospitals and our aeromedical evacuation crews in order to move injured personnel at exactly the right time to the right place.
We continue to seek ways to improve an already superb and unrivalled process. In this effort, the chartered Global Patient Movement Joint Advisory Board, in collaboration with our COCOM and service partners, is working diligently to improve a joint critical care transport capability, standardize the theater patient movement requirements centers and implement joint electronic medical records.
There are a number of key projects that USTRANSCOM is spearheading in support of the joint logistics community. Per BRAC 2005, the USTRANSCOM, SDDC and AMC acquisition functions are consolidating into a single contracting activity for all DoD national-level transportation contracts.
This Acquisition Center of Excellence (ACE) combines common carrier acquisitions, contract functions and program management under one acquisition authority. ACE delivers streamlined, mode-neutral solutions and enhanced decision support tools to the warfighter, improving service and capabilities through professionally managed acquisitions, while reducing procurement lead times and overhead costs by establishing long-term umbrella contracts and strategic partnerships with high-quality, multimodal transportation and distribution service providers.
Joint Task Force-Port Opening (JTF-PO) is a joint expeditionary capability that enables USTRANSCOM to rapidly establish and initially operate a port of debarkation and support a forward distribution node, facilitating port throughput in support of combatant commander-executed contingency response.
Aerial port of debarkation (APOD) forces are ready to deploy in 12 hours and seaport of debarkation (SPOD) forces in 36 hours. USTRANSCOM continues to mature the JTF-PO concept, which combines the capabilities of the Air Force’s contingency response groups and the Army’s newly established transportation detachment-rapid port opening (TD-RPO) element, stationed at Fort Eustis, Va., which recently assumed the port opening mission of JTF-PO. This TD-RPO is the first of three the Army will develop over the next two years to provide the ability to field two complete JTF-PO units at any time.
Beginning in 2009, the Army element will be dual-tasked to perform both the APOD and the SPOD requirements. A great deal of effort has been put into capturing and sustaining the capabilities that have matured during USTRANSCOM’s support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (and their impact is much broader than these two ongoing conflicts). We would have a difficult time meeting wartime requirements without our strong and unique partnerships with civilian industry since the backbone of our lift capacity lies in the commercial sector.
Our commercial partners are key players in supporting and sustaining our global commitments. USTRANSCOM uses business incentives to create wartime capacity, ensure readiness within the civilian sector and exercises frequently used procedures for fluid transition to support contingencies.
A good example is the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, or CRAF, which is a voluntary contractual partnership between the DoD and U.S. commercial air carriers. CRAF is intended to provide both commercial aircraft and crews to augment military airlift during times of crisis and high operations tempo. This additional strategic surge mobility capability is absolutely critical to DoD’s ability to conduct and sustain missions abroad.
As an incentive for committing aircraft to the program and to ensure adequate airlift reserves, peacetime airlift business is made available to the air carriers, which in turn helps to maintain the health of this critical capability. The USTRANSCOM commander, with the approval from the secretary of defense, can request to activate three incremental stages of CRAF, which can be further tailored to accommodate the situation.
The Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA) represents another success achieved between USTRANSCOM and the commercial industry to cooperatively meet our nation’s sealift contingency requirements. VISA provides DoD with time-phased access to militarily useful U.S.-flagged commercial dry cargo vessels, intermodal systems and infrastructure in return for peacetime business preference.
When needed, as with CRAF, the program is activated in three stages of increasing levels of commitment, depending on the severity of the contingency. Major U.S.- flagged carriers participate in VISA, and over 90 percent of their dry cargo vessels are enrolled, including roll-on/roll-off and container ships, break-bulk ships, and seagoing tugs and barges.
These examples highlight the partnerships we rely upon, and must sustain, to continue to meet mobility requirements today and into the foreseeable future. Support for operations in Afghanistan, however, pose unique challenges because of the region’s geography, austere environment, and the wide range of threats to our lines of communication. We are constantly reassessing our concept of operations and leveraging our national capabilities to meet these requirements in different and multifaceted ways.
USTRANSCOM continually prepares to meet the logistics challenges of today and tomorrow through the development of new and innovative strategies and technologies. Our transformation initiatives include moving toward private industry arrangements geared to performance and integrated customer-focused solutions, such as our Defense Transportation Coordination Initiative (DTCI). DTCI has quickly evolved from a concept to a fully integrated and operationally focused program. In August 2007, we partnered with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and the services to contract a commercial transportation services coordinator, or 3PL (3rd party logistics provider) to help manage a subset of DOD CONUS freight. This partnership with Menlo Worldwide Logistics provides competitive rates, enables load consolidation, increases the use of costeffective, intermodal solutions through optimized scheduling, and provides visibility of CONUS freight movements. Today, many Fortune 500 companies using transportation management services witness cost savings of 7 to15 percent. Our current analysis shows the integration of commercial best practices has confirmed a conservative cost avoidance of 15 percent. DTCI has already realized savings of over $4 million since March 2008 and is on course to meet the projected savings of 15 percent over today’s costs.
In addition to commercial partnerships, we are also capitalizing on advances in technology and learning from industry best practices. As DoD’s functional proponent for radio frequency identification (RFID) and related automated identification technology (AIT), we continue to work in partnership with the services, DLA and other agencies to synergize our AIT efforts. The DoD AIT Implementation Plan is the road map for fully incorporating AIT into our business processes. Active RFID is the backbone of our in-transit visibility, and we are migrating to a new active RFID tag to decrease process times and secure cargo data. In addition, we are incorporating satellite tracking in some austere environments and using sensor technology to prevent pilferage and enhance force protection.
The lessons we learn from industry can only take us so far, but we continue to search for ways to leverage emerging technologies. In order to assist in transforming DoD’s supply chain, USTRANSCOM established a research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) program.
Although still in its infancy, this program is having a dramatic impact by rapidly developing and delivering new capabilities to enhance warfighter support. For example, USTRANSCOM funded the development of a laptop tool (Mission Planner), which passes updated drop-zone information (weather, wind, etc.) to the Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) Autonomous Guidance Unit, improving payload delivery accuracy from 500 meters to 100 meters while keeping delivery aircraft out of harm’s way and reducing ground troop exposure. Simply stated, JPADS-Mission Planner is transforming vertical supply and has drastically improved traditional combat airdrop. Other areas where new capabilities have either been delivered or are under development include battlefield and en route patient care; container standardization; seabasing enablers; and improved planning, execution and decision support tools.
In only two decades, USTRANSCOM has changed the landscape of strategic mobility and allowed the United States to project its power and good will whenever and wherever needed. Today, through our authority as DPO, we are transforming distribution and positively influencing the DoD’s supply chain. Simply stated, we are keeping promises— getting the warfighter to the fight; sustaining the warfighter while deployed; supporting rapid force movement and patient movement; and bringing the warfighter home. ♦
Army Major General William H. Johnson has served in various positions of leadership influencing and directing mobility and distribution activities for the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise. He is currently the chief of staff, U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Since 2001, he has also served as deputy director for Operations and Logistics at USTRANSCOM; commander, 143rd TRANSCOM (FWD)/ CENTCOM CFLCC director Operational Movement and Distribution, Camp Arifjan, Kuwait; and the director U.S. Central Command Deployment and Distribution Center, Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.