USTRANSCOM/DLA initiative: Military-industry works on faster ocean shipments

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (USTCNS) --- The ocean carrier industry has reacted favorably to a call from the Military Traffic Management Command and its military partners to improve the synchronization of maritime freight shipments.

"This is very focused," said Lou Lambremont, director, Military Sales & Marketing, MaerskSealand. "It definitely is in the right direction."

Lambremont made his comment at the latest meeting of the Surface Distribution Committee, of the Strategic Distribution Management Initiative.

"We have seen the Strategic Distribution Management Initiative made into a household word in the industry," said Lambremont. "We have to really get in the details."

Sponsored by U.S. Transportation Command and Defense Logistics Agency, MTMC chairs the Surface Distribution Committee for domestic and international freight.

Military and industry carriers met in their latest session Aug. 13 at Logistics Management Institute, in McLean, Va. To date, the initiative has been highly successful. As an example, the military's supply chain time between the United States and Europe has been cut from an average of 59 days to 46 days.

"We're taking apart our supply chain," said Frank Galluzzo, director, Distribution Analysis Center. "We're looking at our processes.

"We want to know if it works - not only for us but for everyone. It has to work for the carrier from the standpoints of efficiency and economy."

Carrier feedback was positive.

"It's great," said Mike Garvin, director, Government Services, Matson Navigation Co., Inc.

"We need to break this down by channel and customer and work each one," said Garvin. "We need to identify the issue and make sure it is fixed. We need to experiment and test and get the bar up there."

In full agreement was David DeBoer, director, Military and Government Markets, of APL Limited.

"The bottom line is any time we can rework redundancy out of the supply chain it takes cost out for everyone in the supply chain - including carriers," said DeBoer.

"The name of the game is to take out costs."

Speeding up the use of containers is a win-win situation said DeBoer.

"Let's say it takes 10 days on a particular route to get your containers back," said DeBoer. "That is about three cycles a year. If you can get another cycle out per year due to increased movement, it provides efficiency, effectiveness and profit for everyone."

Galluzzo stressed the need to synchronize the movement of military supplies and spare parts from depots to ocean carriers.

"Every time we miss a ship it adds seven days to the customer wait time," said Galluzzo.

Speed of military freight movement is more important than its cost.

"With a container, you might have $40,000 worth of goods inside," said Galluzzo. "The transportation is cheaper than the inventory in there."

Goal of the effort is "time-definite delivery" to customers," said Charlie Nye, of the Defense Logistics Center's Defense Distribution Center, New Cumberland, Pa.

"We want our customers to know they can order on Tuesday and get their goods on Thursday. We're looking at velocity and reliability."

Among his agency's challenges is the Department of Defense's 4 million stock items at 24 locations, said Nye.

"It's a big system."

Delivery reductions have been achieved, said Nye, by positioning items that are reordered with great frequency at forward resupply points. (MILITARY TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT COMMAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS)