Q&A: General Benjamin S. Griffin

Written by Dawn S. Onley

RESET COMMANDER:
Supporting the Army Through Life Cycle Management Commands



General Benjamin S. Griffin
Commanding General
U.S. Army Materiel Command

Among his assignments, he has served as special assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army in Washington, D.C., and commander of the 2nd Brigade, 6th Infantry Division (Light) in Alaska. In August 1994, he served as executive officer to the commanding general, U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Ga. He formerly served as the director of Force Programs in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans and later as commander of the 4th Infantry Division in Fort Hood, Texas.

Early in his career, he served two tours at Fort Bragg, N.C., in the 82nd Airborne Division. He also worked as a G3 operations officer in the headquarters, 82nd Airborne Division.

Griffin graduated from Old Dominion University in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in business management. He also holds a master’s degree in business administration from Mercer University. His military education includes the Infantry Officer Advanced Course, Command and General Staff College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University.

Griffin’s awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation Award, the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, the Army Superior Unit Award, the Master Parachutist Badge, the Expert Infantry Badge, and the Army Staff Identification Badge.

General Griffin was interviewed by Dawn S. Onley, MLF editor.

Q: What does your job entail at AMC?

A: As the commanding general of AMC, I lead an organization of close to 55,000 people in 149 different locations. We’re in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Germany, Korea, the Pacific, Hawaii, Alaska, Italy and the continental U.S. Any place U.S. soldiers are deployed, we have AMC employees: military, civilians and contractors. Our job is to reset the Army—it’s part of the Force Generation Model. That means as units deploy back from Iraq and Afghanistan, we work with the chain of command and reset their equipment, which means to restore unit equipment to a desired level of combat capability after returning from contingency operations. We also support forwarddeployed units around the world, and we team through what we call life cycle management commands. We have logistics, maintenance, research and development, and PEO PMs working hand-in-hand to support units forward or units resetting to prepare to go back.

We support the active Guard and Reserve and we do that through 10 major subordinate commands: TACOM Life Cycle Management Command (Warren, Mich.); Communications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command (Fort Monmouth, N.J.); Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command (Redstone Arsenal, Ala.); Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Management Command (Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.); Joint Munitions Command (Rock Island Arsenal, Ill.) Chemical Materials Agency (Aberdeen, Md.); Research, Development and Engineering Command (Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.); Army Sustainment Command (Rock Island, Ill.); Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (Alexandria, Va.); and the Security Assistance Command (Fort Belvoir, Va.).

The Army Sustainment Command has seven field support brigades around the world and they are AMC’s face to the field. Those brigades are in Iraq and Afghanistan (with elements in Kuwait), Korea, Germany, Fort Lewis, Washington (which supports the Stryker), one that supports the eastern United States at Fort Bragg, N.C., and one that supports the west at Fort Hood, Texas.

Q: What are your goals and objectives for this year and, since we’re already more than halfway through the year, have some of them been met?

A: The number one goal, of course, is to meet the needs of the customer, and that’s the soldier in the field. And when I use the term soldier, I’m referring to soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and special operations forces. The command does its best to try to get them what they need in a timely fashion. We accomplish that through our second goal, which is to be as efficient as we can and to apply those methods of efficiency in production and delivery as well as forward support as soon as possible. We spend a lot of time with successful businesses in the private sector in applying their techniques to what we do in the government sector and nowhere is that seen more clearly than in the production process. So we spend a great deal of time trying to improve our production quality and quantity and be as efficient as we can with taxpayer dollars. We’ve saved a significant amount—hundreds of millions of dollars— applying Lean Six Sigma process improvement methodologies to the production process. But just as critical is where we need to be with the right people to do their work and with their parts and ultimately meeting the needs of the customer. Key for us—meet soldier needs first, then be as efficient as possible.

The third goal, which is in the area of research and development, is to apply lessons learned as quickly as we can. What we’re finding on both the equipment side, as well as the individual soldier side is to either develop solutions in a laboratory or find them through engineering and then very quickly make the repairs to fix it and get it back in the hands of the user. We’re always challenged to be faster, more agile, and less bureaucratic and try to deliver equipment and technology to meet the needs of the soldiers in the field. We’ve done that by being forward-deployed with units and working the communications links so that we can get the information and feedback to our scientists and engineers and streamline that process. The network with command sergeants major across AMC and in the field has really enhanced that capability—from uniforms to rapid equipment to HMMWVs, tanks, Bradleys, Strykers and aircraft.

Q: Do you estimate that you’re meeting the goals?

A: Well I think we are challenged every day to meet those goals. We are an Army at war and we’re continually challenged to meet the needs of the soldiers fighting the war as well as resetting to go back. I judge our program from feedback from the field.

We’ve had some successes, yes, but ours is a business where you’re never satisfied with where you are. We’re continually trying to improve upon that. Yes, we’ve had some successes and I judge successes based upon customer feedback and not just statistics or other metrics. Are we meeting the needs of the soldiers in the field? Are we meeting the needs of commanders in the chain of command and the individual soldier for what he or she needs to get the job done? Those are our measurements and that feedback is so critical to us. We are always challenged to do it better, to do it faster, and to improve our quality control, but we’ve also had tremendous success in production. That’s where they’ve improved through the techniques that I’ve talked about. This is the worker in the factory. And they’ve improved assembly line procedures and quality control procedures.

We’ve also had tremendous success in our partnering with the private sector. We have U.S. companies that partner inside and outside our depots and arsenals. That’s in our production facilities and ammo plants. But again, the challenge is always there to try and do it better.

We’ve also worked very closely with the Defense Logistics Agency. I think we have a strong partnership relationship with DLA and we’re seeing tremendous dividends inside the United States as well as overseas. We’ve made some significant improvements over the last year in our working relationship with DLA and we also have a very strong partnering relationship with the other services—sharing ideas and working close together.

Q: You mentioned some of the businesses that AMC is partnering with. Is there any in particular that you care to mention?

A: There are large and small businesses across the board. We use competitive processes and work with numerous contractors. Among them are: General Dynamics, BAE, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, IBM, Oracle, Toyota, Caterpillar, Sikorsky, Bell, Allison Transmission, Goodyear, Michelin, DuPont, Textron, FedEx, UPS and many other outstanding firms.

We’ve had tours of Ford Motor Company and the Toyota plants. We’ve also had tours of the Caterpillar facility and the Goodyear tire plant. We were able to send some of our depot commanders to visit these facilities. We also run a program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where we train our depot commanders. Not only do we train our Army depot commanders, but the Marine Corps and the Navy started sending some of their depot commanders there as well. It’s a tremendous opportunity to share ideas among the depot commanders to improve production. I’ve recently sent a letter to my Air Force counterpart inviting them to also participate.

And then we take our depot commanders out and put them in the private sector for a few weeks at a time and they bring back even more good ideas. The point is we’ve got tremendous support from the private sector in helping us do a better job to support the military. They’ve been very open and very supportive of what we’re trying to do.

Q: Now is this something you’ve brought to AMC, this partnering with the private sector?

A: I think we’ve always had this. It goes back to the history of AMC. Over the last two years, I do think that we’ve reached out more to the private sector and I think they’ve reached out more to us. So I think there’s been a much more aggressive partnering, if you will, with the private sector. We’ve also received strong support from our Army Secretary and his staff in this area. Much of the work we do with the private sector is through our life cycle management commands. They are a very good vehicle for a stronger partnership with the private sector. We’re seeing that in our depots today and we’re seeing it outside of the depots. It’s a tremendous advantage that we have.

As we work through our LCMCs, it’s important that we maintain a strong relationship with the Army Acquisition Executive, Mr. Claude Bolton and his staff. These LCMCs are really a teaming between the AAE and AMC. They’ve enabled us to significantly improve the quality and quantity of our support and I think that’s what’s been demonstrated over the last two years—the criticality of these LCMCs to the support of the soldiers.

Q: Do you know what your greatest success story has been since coming to AMC?

A: When you talk about great success, it is tied directly to feedback from soldiers in the field. So, I don’t have a single one. I measure our success on how well we’re meeting the needs of those division, brigade and company level commanders, CSMs, and their chain of command and really, how well we’re supporting the soldier out in the field. It’s nice what we’ve done to this point, but the real challenge we have is to maintain it and improve upon our support.

So our real successes lie ahead in how well we’re able to continue to improve upon our ability to support those soldiers through our LCMCs and MSCs. That’s our success. It’s very good to save resources and that’s critical. It’s critical that we produce things faster. It’s critical that we maintain the quality. But our number one goal is to be able to meet the needs of the men and women serving in our military around the world. That’s how we measure success.

Q: How would you rate AMC’s progress in transforming logistics processes and also what does this transformative work involve?

A: Well everything we’ve talked about up to this point is transformation, creating the Army Field Support Brigades and being more forward-deployed both inside of units and along side those units around the world.

We’ve also created these life cycle management commands, which attempt to bring the critical tenants of logistics maintenance support together under one LCMC concept. They have been vital to transformation and our ability to do what we’re doing. We’re applying the most efficient techniques we can to the production process so that we produce quality equipment in a timely manner, literally saving hundreds of millions of dollars and be most efficient with taxpayer dollars. But we’ve also made tremendous strides in our Chemical Materials Agency, U.S. Army Security Assistance Command, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, and Research, Development and Engineering Command.

Transforming those concepts to meet the needs of the customer, the soldier—to me that’s been the transformation of AMC. It’s a total focus down on the organization, on individuals, on soldiers. The other part is partnering with the other services. We know we can be more efficient.

Q: How is Lean Six Sigma enabling AMC to perform its mission?

A: Well we’ve had, over the past two years, a very concerted effort to get black belts and green belts trained on the techniques of Lean Six Sigma and then empowering those people to make changes. This is a top to bottom buy-in concept, if you would, to make this thing work. We’ve also found that we have a tremendously talented work force, allowing better engineering practices and ideas to surface and to empower those folks who are down on the shop floor to be able to bring new ideas forward. We’re not where we need to be long-term, but we’ve certainly made some significant progress.

We’ve also had four of our depots recognized as Shingo Award recipients. Utah State University assesses the private sector, and over the past two years they’ve expanded the recipients to the public sector. Four of our depots won the Shingo and we have many others competing this year. And what I like about that is it gives the work force an opportunity to apply the tenets of efficiency. They are assessed on their efficiencies and it helps us to see where we are benchmarked—ultimately helping us improve. It’s a better use of taxpayer’s dollars but aimed at better meeting the needs of the soldiers in the field. We’ve seen some tremendous improvements in production across the board due to Lean Six Sigma. But again that’s taking advantage of the talent that our work force has. It’s unleashing some of the ideas that they have and applying better business practices down both at the production sites as well as in the administrative levels. It’s much easier to see and much clearer on the production line, but it’s also essential in the administrative paper work side.

We’re also applying it in the distribution system because the challenge in many cases is delivering the item to the customer. What is the last tactical mile in the entire process? We spend a lot of time trying to improve that process, the distribution of surface, air, truck and rail, and then the actual materiel handling of the items—both getting it to the fight as well as retrograding it back in a timely fashion. Again, to get it back into the reset mode, whether we’re doing it at the depot level or whether we’re doing it at DLA, or whether we’re doing it at the unit level. Because when we talk about reset, we talk about both individual weapon/equipment reset all the way up to major systems reset. Some of that’s done at the depot, some of it’s done with contracts with the private sector. Some of it’s done directly at logistics maintenance facilities down at the installation level and some of it’s done right at the unit motor pool.

One of the other things we’ve done very successfully over the last year is we take the left behind equipment when a unit deploys, we sign for it and maintain left behind equipment. The unit does not have to leave people back to do that. We secure it, we maintain it, and if the Army chooses to redistribute that equipment to another unit getting ready to deploy, we can do that for the Army. Or, when a unit comes back, we maintain it in a certain level that is ready for the unit. I think you’ll see more and more of this. That’s the right way to take care of equipment in the future.

Q: What would people find surprising about AMC?

A: I think one thing that does surprise people is when they go to a production site and they see how efficient the production processes are today and how efficient our work force is. We’re very proud of that. I think people are surprised at how far we have come in the production process. Again this is going to school on the private sector. This is having received great support from the private sector. But ultimately it has been the worker on the assembly lines and the good ideas that we’ve gotten from our work force and the applications they’ve made on the production lines. I think it’s also been the focus of the people in the headquarters. It’s a focus-down to meet the needs of the soldiers in the field. And also the relationship we have with the private sector in partnering. AMC is all about the partnering we do with the private sector as well as the production we do inside the government.

The last piece—and I think this probably best reflects the relationship we have with units in the field—is the work that the field support brigades and battalions do. How well they have embed ded themselves in our units across the Army. I’m very proud of the way they’ve been taken into units and accepted by units and how units work with us because we depend so much upon those relationships with units around the world in getting the information and the ideas and being able to be there forward-deployed with them. There’s a tremendous amount of work done in Iraq, Afghanistan—forward deployed with our units—and we get tremendous support from the chain of command of those units to help look after our people.

Q: The concept of a logistician embedded with a unit, do you think this is changing the face of a traditional warfighter?

A: I don’t think it’s changing the face. We’ve always had logisticians deployed forward. However, I don’t think we’ve ever had the kind of AMC organization forward-deployed that we have today. We’ve had elements of AMC forward deployed, but we didn’t have these field support commands because they didn’t exist. We stood the first one up a little over two and a half years ago and since then, we’ve gone from one to seven. That’s a different organization than we’ve had in the past. We’ve always had embedded logistics assistants representatives. I had them when I was a division commander, but it’s a different organization today—a single organization/team the commander can turn to for support.

We like to say it’s one face to the field inside the organization that brings together the Program Executive Office program managers, research and development, and logistical maintenance, so the commanders can turn to a single organization—that field support command—to support the brigade/battalion/company. Therefore if the battalion has a problem, hopefully our AMC organization has anticipated that issue and is already working solutions. That single point inside these organizations is what we’re striving to sustain in the future to meet the needs of the warfighters. That’s the brains of all the elements of AMC.

We’ve had some initial successes with that over the last couple of years. But again, we’ve gotten great support from the unit chains of command and because of their feedback and working with us; that’s the reason we’ve been able to take it to where we are today.

Q: Do you have any final thoughts?

A: I just think the challenge we have is to build upon where we are today because in the future, resources will be limited. We have a tremendous challenge and requirement to meet the needs of soldiers in a rapidly changing high-tech world. We face a very adaptive enemy, who seeks to fight in all dimensions. To counter these threats, our research facilities are working on future generation technologies.

The possibilities are exciting, and it is still AMC’s responsibility to help acquire, field and maintain these technologies. Ours is a 24-7 business.

We say if the soldier drives it, flies it, eats it, shoots it, wears it, AMC provides it in some aspect. We just have to make sure we continue to do this, and the only way to do so and meet the challenges of the future is to leverage technology and efficiencies that come through collaboration and process improvement. This will guarantee our ability to support soldiers today and in the future. ♦

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