JUST IN: The Department of Defense needs data-savvy logistics personnel
Logistics soldiers train in an exercise.
army pictures
oklahoma city — From analytics to predictive planning, the use of data is pervasive in the military logistics environment, but the Department of Defense needs to better position logistics personnel to handle it, industry experts say. ing.
When considering the role data plays in logistics across the Department of Defense, Kevin Gaudette, a retired Air Force colonel and senior vice president of integrated analysis and support at Linquest, says, [challenges]” is “How to Build Today’s Logistics Professional.”
At the National Defense Association’s National Logistics Forum on Feb. 7, Gaudette said the department is developing logistics personnel who can do what he calls “stop and tackle,” such as moving goods, warehousing, and planning. He said they were doing a “great job” in doing so.
“But unfortunately, they are kind of illiterate when it comes to IT, data and analytics,” he said. Twenty years ago, logistics people didn’t need to know. “Right now, not so much.”
Data is increasingly integrated into “all activities other than logistics,” he said. “It’s not going in a different direction.” Gaudette said the latest generation of logistics personnel has been raised to ignore the data and information technology part, “or that we’re not trained in that part.” “is being ignored,” he suggested.
This leads to two things, he said. One is a logistics person who doesn’t think about the “geeky” parts of logistics, and the other is someone who “has the background and knowledge to make good decisions about where they need to go to solve problems.” “Individual deficiencies.” There is a problem. ”
He noted that the military has largely withdrawn from offering ROTC scholarships for science, technology engineering and mathematics, and said preparation for logistics personnel must begin before entering military service.
“We kind of ran away from that, and I think it’s a disservice to us. You have a computer science degree, you have an engineering degree, you have an operations research degree. … You need it to get started. It’s four,” he said. “We have a year to prepare,” he said.
And the service needs to be better staffed with logistics personnel with the right backgrounds. “They can bring their logistics expertise and experience as well as their technical expertise to move the ball forward and develop that skillset,” he added.
From an industry perspective, Justin Wolf, Systemcon’s chief technology officer, said industry and government can learn from each other. He mentioned a program that places government representatives inside companies to visit and work with them for weeks at a time.
“I think we can expand this kind of talent sharing from government to industry, training on what industry is doing, and applying some of industry best practices within government,” he said. “The people we’ve worked with so far are nerds who can see what the industry is doing and understand it. [that] Go back and lead their organization and do great things. ”
Jim Sutton, senior director of strategy at Shipcom Wireless, said a major obstacle to meaningful collaboration between industry and government is the government’s “onerous and time-consuming” mandate to run the process. he suggested.
Sutton said many industry representatives would be “happy to put their technology in government hands” to be used for open education and guidance, but that the power to run the process would be “very expensive and “Only very difficult people play in that world.” They are large companies that have already won large projects with huge amounts of funding. ”
Much of the technical expertise within the industry could be leveraged into operational environments where Department of Defense personnel can be coached and trained, but first… [authority to operate] “We have to change,” he said.
Aaron Jaffee, head of supply chain at Palantir Technologies, said that while obstacles exist, “the right building blocks and a lot of the technology foundations” are already in place within the sector.
“I think there’s a kind of dissipative learning happening across the service. We’ve made great progress in the last few years, and I hope we’ll continue to see progress,” he said. “And I think that extends to the training area, where we bring in different services and different groups and train them and want them to have hands-on experience with our technology and other technologies. There are multiple programs available.
Jaffee said that “first and foremost,” industry would hand over capabilities to governments to enable broader groups “to train, learn and develop an informed perspective on how to use other use cases.” I also hope for that.”
topic: Department of Defense
