DVIDS – News – Organic Industrial Base, supply chain management help drive Army readiness

Army Materiel Command is dedicated to the synchronization, integration, and operations of its Major Subordinate Commands, like Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, to provide materiel readiness to today’s Army.

TACOM’s six manufacturing arsenals and maintenance depots contribute to that readiness as part of the Army’s Organic Industrial Base and TACOM’s Integrated Logistics Support Center contributes to that readiness by executing repair parts planning and supply chain management for more than 3,500 weapon systems that form the core of America’s ground combat capability.

In a quarterly update to AMC on Nov. 21, TACOM leaders highlighted the command’s efforts to provide ground and Soldier systems readiness over the previous quarter.

“We are really ratcheting up our lean manufacturing,” said Maj. Gen. Dan Mitchell, TACOM commanding general, “Demand is up, but we are filling back orders, which is good…it means we are buying the right stuff.”

“We have had nine straight months of declining back orders,” said Marion Whicker, ILSC executive director.

TACOM is meeting AMC’s goal of reforming and streamlining contracting processes to speed the pace of acquisition, eliminate redundancies, and increase efficiencies with improvements to its Performance to Promise.

Performance to Promise, or P2P, measures the OIB’s success meeting delivery projections.

While there is a focus on reducing costs in these processes, Gen. Gus Perna, AMC commanding general, reminded TACOM leaders that cost reductions should not hamper the Army’s capabilities to fight a war.

“We do not need to chase pennies, we need to chase readiness,” he said.

He reiterated that one of the ways that TACOM and AMC will be able to do their jobs better is by concentrating on the basics of standards and discipline.

“We have to keep our workforce steady, we have to keep our capabilities steady, it is about keeping a good foundation,” said Perna.

The Army is focused on maintaining the highest levels of readiness to provide lethal land power in large-scale combat operations. To do that, Perna said that the Army must get to the fight quickly with a superior force and then maintain that force.

“We need predictable and consistent workload and a foundation ready to surge,” he said.

Perna reminded TACOM leaders that “we need a cultural change” to meet the logistical demands of the Army.

“We can react, or we can be proactive,” he said, “I do not want to drift, I want to drive.”

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During the meeting, Perna presented awards and recognized some of TACOM’s top performers for the quarter.

Todd Hawotte, Steve Natole, Dave Franing, and Jerry Figueroa all received four star coins for serving in developmental assignments from AMC to Army Futures Command. Hawotte supported Soldiers and Maneuver Systems Cross Functional Team, or CFT, Natole supported Fire Systems CFT, Franing supported Protection Systems CFT, and Figueroa supported Logistics.

Mark Colley, Director Combat Support and Combat Service Support Readiness and Support Directorate was recognized for his leadership on the HMMWV Wheel Assembly issue which generated a world-wide requirement of 125,545 wheel assemblies across the fleet from all services.

Janet Smylie from Sierra Army Depot, Calif. was recognized by the Wilson Perumal study for her leadership on the floor, high production output, and low employee lost time.