Army Logistician (Army Logistics Knowledge Management and SALE)

Logistics knowledge.

This article, the first in a three-part series, introduces the author’s research of Army logistics knowledge management and the Single Army Logistics Enterprise. The Single Army Logistics Enterprise (SALE) is a network of automated logistics information systems. Information technology (IT) hardware and software plug into the SALE architecture to help the Army maintain warfighting readiness. SALE provides visibility over the logistics pipeline to managers at all levels of operations through a web-based, integrated logistics database. The Army has identified SALE’s logistics functional areas as supply, maintenance, ammunition management, and distribution. SALE is the Army’s logistics enterprise system. The vision for SALE is “a fully integrated knowledge environment that builds, sustains, and generates warfighting capability through a fully integrated logistics enterprise based upon collaborative planning, knowledge management, and best business practices.”1 The three components of SALE are collaborative planning, best business practices, and knowledge management (KM). However, the Army has not identified the logistics KM practices that SALE should support. The Army does not have a logistics KM framework to help manage data and information from SALE. To compound the problem, the Army has not taken steps to identify SALE implementation procedures relative to logistics KM. This presents a danger that the ongoing implementation of SALE might not be relevant to Army logistics KM. Current Army logistics policies and regulations do not address KM and its relationship with SALE. Army logisticians need to know how to manage data and information. According to Donald Hislop, “Data includes numbers, words and sounds which are derived from observation or measurement, and information represents data arranged in a meaningful pattern . . . Knowledge can be understood to emerge from the application, analysis, and productive use of data and/or information.”2 KM pertains to the discovery, sharing, and application of knowledge.3. Unlike in the past when logisticians relied primarily on data and information from stovepiped stand-alone systems, today’s logisticians deal with real-time data and information from enterprise systems like SALE to manage the logistics pipeline. Recent IT breakthroughs and Army transformation require the Army logistics community to identify KM requirements and implement KM practices to satisfy the requirements. Otherwise, the flood of data and information from an enterprise system like SALE could overwhelm logisticians. The purpose of this research is to propose a logistics KM framework and examine the implementation of SALE to determine its relevance to Army logistics KM. The relationship between Army logistics KM and SALE should evolve from logistics KM requirements, logistics KM practices, and SALE implementation efforts. Many Army documents and KM studies were examined to help determine Army logistics requirements. Petrides and Guiney’s study4 about KM and organizational strategies and Smith and McKeen’s study about the importance of an organizational vision for KM5 and business processes6 provided insights for this portion of the research, as did Grossman’s study7 about KM metrics and academic discipline. According to Miles and Huberman, “when you’re working with text or less organized displays, you often note recurring patterns, themes, or ‘gestalts,’ which pull together many separate pieces of data. Something ‘jumps out’ at you, suddenly makes sense.”8 Strategies, policies and regulations, institutional training and education, and operations drive Army logistics KM requirements. These themes that emerged from analyzing Army documents and KM studies helped to identify Army logistics KM requirements. The strategies that influence Army logistics KM requirements include the 2004 Army Transformation Roadmap, the Army Knowledge Management (AKM) Strategy, and the 2006 Army Game Plan. The Army Transformation Roadmap “refines the Army’s transformation strategy and details Army actions to identify and build required capabilities to enhance execution of joint operations by the Current Force while developing the capabilities essential to provide dominant land-power capabilities to the future Joint Force.”9 AKM “is the Army’s strategy to transform itself into a network-centric, knowledge-based force and an integral part of the Army’s transformation to achieve the Future Force.”10 The 2006 Army Game Plan “describes strategic challenges and reinforces the centrality, importance, and intent of the Army Campaign Plan.”11.

These strategies provide Army-level guidance for current and future military capabilities. The Army Transformation Roadmap, the AKM Strategy, and the Army 2006 Game Plan help drive Army logistics KM requirements. They contain the Army’s intent for collecting, sharing, and using information. They serve as guides to help the Army become a knowledge-based force. The strategies focus on enhanced capabilities, NCW, and best business practices. Enhanced capabilities. Strategies that will lead to enhanced capabilities pertain to making decisions, distributing supplies and services, receiving forces, and integrating the supply chain. According to the AKM Strategy, “AKM is intended to improve decision dominance by our warfighters and business stewards—in the battle space, in our organizations, and in mission processes.”12 Logisticians make decisions with data and information from several knowledge bases. The 2004 Army Transformation Roadmap states: To sustain combat power, the Army must have the ability to see the requirements through a logistics data network. The Army requires a responsive distribution system enabled by in-transit and total asset visibility and a single owner with positive, end-to-end control in the theater. The Army needs a robust, modular force-reception capability—a dedicated and trained organization able to quickly open a theater and support continuous sustainment throughout the joint operations area. The Army needs an integrated supply chain that has a single proponent that can reach across the breadth and depth of resources in a joint, interagency and multinational theater.13. The enhanced capabilities mentioned in the AKM Strategy and the 2004 Army Transformation Roadmap stress the importance of collecting, sharing, and using data and information to make speedy and timely decisions. The Army relies on real-time data and information to conduct operations, and logisticians make decisions concerning the deployment and sustainment of military forces that could affect military operations. Therefore, logisticians must have the capability to make speedy and timely decisions. NCW. One focus of the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) transformation efforts is NCW. Alberts, Garstka, and Stein’s study14 concerning influences of IT on commercial business practices helped launch DOD’s NCW concept. According to their study, NCW is a concept for connecting decisionmakers to achieve situational awareness on the battlefield. IT has revolutionized military operations, and it has also affected Army logistics. NCW “leverages information-age concepts in the evolving strategic environment, enabling dispersed operations that produce coherent, mass effects via speed and coordinated efforts.”15 The U.S. Armed Forces implement transformation efforts from an NCW perspective. The Army logistics community must be able to operate in an NCW environment. Furthermore, DOD has identified NCW as a concept that will help transform information sharing. “Achieving the full potential of net-centricity requires viewing information as an enterprise asset . . . As an enterprise asset, the collection and dissemination of information should be managed by portfolios of capabilities that cut across legacy stove-piped systems.”16 The Army must have the means to access and share information in an NCW environment. The logistics piece of this pertains to logistics KM requirements. Logisticians must access and share data and information in an NCW environment. Best business practices. The AKM Strategy and the 2006 Army Game Plan cover best business practices.

The AKM Strategy emphasizes “innovative ways of doing business to improve Army decision making and operations.”17 It states that decisionmakers must “integrate best business practices into Army processes to promote the knowledge-based force.”18 The 2006 Army Game Plan says that the Army should concentrate on core missions and processes and on measuring performance.19. For the Army logistics community, this means focusing on core logistics functions and measuring the performance of the execution of those functions. Logisticians quantify data and information in order to measure the performance of logistics processes. The 2006 Army Game Plan advocates the Lean Six Sigma management technique to measure improvements in processes. Logisticians use performance-measurement approaches like Lean Six Sigma to determine how well logistics processes are performing. Best business practices help drive Army logistics KM requirements. Best business practices, NCW, and enhanced capabilities support the vision of the Army logistics community for collecting, sharing, and using data and information. These strategies could help the Army logistics community identify logistics KM requirements and influence policies and regulations. Policies and Regulations. Although the Army has over 100 Army regulations (ARs), field manuals (FMs), and pamphlets covering logistics, the main documents that influence Army logistics KM requirements are FM 4–0, Combat Service Support; FM 3–0, Operations; AR 220–1, Unit Status Reporting; AR 700–138, Army Logistics Readiness and Sustainability; and AR 25–1, Army Knowledge Information Technology. FM 4–0 is the authoritative doctrine for sustainment, and FM 3–0 is the Army’s keystone doctrine for full-spectrum operations. AR 220–1 covers “the readiness of Army units for their wartime mission,”20 and AR 700–138 assigns responsibilities and establishes policies and procedures for reporting the condition of Army equipment. AR 25–1 establishes policies and responsibilities for information management and information technology. These regulations identify goals and standards. AR 700–138 provides materiel readiness goals for the Army. Logisticians manage data and information pertaining to supply, maintenance, production, distribution, and other logistics support needed to attain materiel readiness goals. AR 25–1 identifies the Army’s web portal, called Army Knowledge Online (AKO), as an AKM goal for the Army. AR 25–1 states that the Army should “institutionalize AKO as the enterprise portal to provide universal, secure access for the entire Army.”21 For the Army logistics community, AKO’s institutionalization as the enterprise portal implies that logisticians must use AKO to access, share, and apply logistics data and information. Logisticians use AKO to help ensure that the right supplies and services get to the right place at the right time and to ensure equipment readiness standards. Institutional Training and Education. Army institutional training and education programs include requirements for collecting, sharing, and using logistics data and information. However, many programs do not have updated courses that use the term “logistics KM requirements.” The Army institutions that drive logistics KM requirements include TRADOC, CAC, and CASCOM, which all provide oversight over logistics training and leader development. TRADOC “recruits, trains and educates the Army’s Soldiers; develops leaders; supports training in units; develops doctrine; establishes standards; and builds the future Army.”22 TRADOC provides overarching policies for training and educating Soldiers. CAC and CASCOM develop and execute training and education programs in support of TRADOC policies. CAC provides policies pertaining to officer, noncommissioned officer, and civilian education. CAC focuses on the professional development of leaders. 23. CASCOM operates the logistics branch schools (Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Transportation), writes logistics doctrine, provides an Army-wide construct for organizing logistics forces, and ensures that logistics materiel solutions support warfighting.24 According to the CASCOM Command Overview Briefing and information from the Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Transportation schools, the Army does not have logistics KM courses. However, existing logistics training and education programs address collecting, sharing, and using logistics data and information. The Army simply has not created logistics KM requirement titles for what it trains and educates. Logisticians who need specific logistics KM requirements training and education attend special courses at their respective training and education centers.