When U.S. Transportation Command’s Global Transportation Network reached the end of its useful life after about 15 years of operation, the organization looked to the Defense Logistics Agency for help building its replacement. The result, the Integrated Data Environment/Global Transportation Network Convergence – or IGC – now gives logisticians across the Defense Department visibility of supplies as they move through the department’s transportation channels.
GTN was developed to improve the in-transit visibility of supplies for warfighters and logisticians worldwide after Operation Desert Storm, but it became outdated, and the investment needed to upgrade it to compete with current systems was too high, said Army Lt. Col. Rodrigue Aleandre, USTRANSCOM’s IGC program manager. Meanwhile, DLA had developed the Integrated Data Environment, the information broker that improved the visibility of data, secure access to data, and data quality in terms of its validity, timeliness and accuracy for logisticians across the Defense Department. Aleandre said there were two reasons for USTRANSCOM to partner with DLA to upgrade its system.
“From the logistics side, supply and transportation are linked,” he said “You cannot separate them, so the need for them to work together is the cornerstone of the business. The second point is that, instead of USTRANSCOM developing its own broker while DLA was developing one, we could work together. That pushed a mutual agreement to leverage the capabilities that were already developed under DLA. It was more of a cost avoidance.”
In addition to curtailing costs, Aleandre said, IGC allows for the elimination of multiple legacy systems that were expensive to maintain and made it difficult for users to trust the fidelity of data as they tracked their shipments. IGC gives users one place to go to get data on shipments, reducing confusion and incompatible data formatting.
“There are a number of systems involved in doing this,” he said. “IGC takes the data from all those systems to give you that picture. Regardless of what system originated a transaction, IGC would be the system of record. We get satellite data when an item passes through a tracking point. You don’t have to go to multiple systems to create a picture. Under GTN, in order to provide a report on a shipment from one point to another, they would have to make multiple queries and compile that information.”
All those systems now feed into IGC, Aleandre said, allowing logisticians who need to know whether their supplies are on a truck in Germany or on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea.
“In the past, that information would have to be sent to multiple systems,” he said. “With the broker, it is published once and subscribed to by many. There is one publication point.”
In addition, IGC expands GTN’s historical data, Aleandre said. Under the old system, planners could only pull shipping data from the previous 180 days. IGC will allow those same planners to go back five years once the system, which went live in October 2011, has been online that long.
“That allows planners to use the data to do analytical studies that could not be done before, because GTN only retained six months of data,” Aleandre said. “With the system just fielded, we don’t have five years, but over time, you’ll have all the data you need for agile tracking in the 21st century to do that analysis. We maintain a single point of distribution of data.”
Noel Romey, a chemical engineer who works with DLA Aviation’s Hazardous Materials Information Resource System, helped test IGC to ensure it could be used by visually impaired users. He said that in addition to finding the system usable for people with visual disabilities, he found his own use for the system.
“I didn’t think that I would use it in my work. I was just asked to test it following a set of canned scripts, but I actually found there was a case I could use it,” he said. “We put in material safety data sheets for products that the Department of Defense procures and uses. My team puts in that data for DLA. We had a shipment that we weren’t sure where it was, and we were being told it was held up. I used IGC to pull up that shipment and see its status. To me, it’s another tool kit that we can use.”
Moving forward, IGC will be linked to DLA’s Asset Visibility system, which shows logisticians where supplies stored in warehouses and depots are located and in what quantities, Aleandre said. Having the two systems linked will allow planners and logisticians access to vital information on supply locations and quantities worldwide. Work on that link started in May, and Aleandre said it should be complete by the first quarter of fiscal 2014.
“You’ll be able to see the location, transportation channel of what’s moving and what’s located right at your doorstep,” he said. “You can see where it is, what’s being requested, and what’s needed to transport it and distribute it. Now you can track it from the depot all the way to the foxhole.”