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Harnessing the power of data for the Joint Force: USTRANSCOM establishes an enterprise data and analytics environment

Members of U.S. Transportation Command’s Enterprise Data and Analytics Environment (EDAE) team gather in front of the combatant command’s headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, Dec. 9, 2020. The EDAE team is creating an environment where massive stores of data will be securely linked and accessible across the mobility enterprise to support critical logistics decisions. (USTRANSCOM photo by Michelle Gigante.)

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (January11, 2021) –   U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) laid the cornerstone for a shared data environment that will provide warfighters the ability to make better, faster decisions about moving scarce resources to where our Joint Force is needed the most. 


The Enterprise Data and Analytics Environment (EDAE) was launched late last year and will provide decision-makers at every level of the mobility enterprise with data that is visible, accessible, linked and secure, allowing decisions to be made quickly regarding the movement of critical logistics.


Decision-making is pressurized in today’s security environment by the volume of information available and the speed at which it travels. Minutes on the battlefield matter, and can mean the difference between preventing a conflict, winning a war, or providing life-saving resources during a disaster. Being able to analyze massive amounts of data faster and get this information to senior leaders quickly, provides decision space and the advantage of time.


“The key USTRANSCOM responsibility to the Secretary of Defense is global power projection. We have the ability to move limited resources to the highest strategic priority, to be able to shift time and space temporally across the globe to meet the highest national security priority. And that is the essence of global command and control,” said Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, commander of USTRANSCOM.


In the day-to-day operations of the global mobility enterprise, volumes of data on routes, nodes and transportation capacity (air, land, and sea conveyances) are generated.  The global posture of the enterprise, to include its present state and past patterns, can be analyzed from these data stores to create operational advantages and increased efficiencies.  The Department of Defense recently released the DOD Data Strategy, and highlighted data as being a significant strategic asset. 


“The frontier has expanded exponentially with EDAE,” said Larry McLean, chief of USTRANSCOM’s enterprise data management team. “As we bring in more and more data to the EDAE, we’ll rapidly grow our enterprise information context, accuracy, and access.  We’re taking our reservoir of data, applying an analysis capability and making that accessible to the warfighter.” 


The analytics are being provided by USTRANSCOM’s Joint Distribution Process Analysis Center (JDPAC). The center is staffed with military analysts and data scientists who help USTRANSCOM solve complex problems by transforming data into meaningful information.


JDPAC has a number of studies underway like how transportation demand stimulates the mobility enterprise, ways to influence expedited delivery, and the most complex of challenges, shifting priorities to scale to a high-end war fight.


Lyons drove specific lines of effort to deliver the EDAE and advance decision-making capabilities across the mobility enterprise.  The team responsible for these initiatives includes USTRANSCOM’s operations directorate, the command, control, communications and cyber directorate, JDPAC and the acquisitions directorate. 


USTRANSCOM’s acquisition team procured an advanced commercial platform based on IBM Watson – the system that answers questions posed in natural language. From there, the EDAE team worked with the operations directorate to begin populating a master set of data sourced from day-to-day operations.


“The team effort to get us to the launch was incredible. We’re going to break it wide open and head into some truly advanced areas of data management and data science. The EDAE is critical in our efforts to support the warfighter. Harnessing data as a strategic asset to afford the Joint Force a competitive advantage is our goal,” said USTRANSCOM’s chief data officer, Mark Rogers.


JDPAC has been conducting analyses using artificial intelligence (computer algorithms designed to make decisions using real-time data) for some time now.  Moving that work into the EDAE will open up a variety of different sources and the analysis, and ultimately, the decision making capabilities of the mobility enterprise, will only get better and faster.



USTRANSCOM exists as a warfighting combatant command to project and sustain military power at a time and place of the nation’s choosing. Powered by dedicated men and women, USTRANSCOM underwrites the lethality of the Joint Force, advances American interests around the globe, and provides our nation's leaders with strategic flexibility to select from multiple options, while creating multiple dilemmas for our adversaries.


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For additional information, contact Laura Fogerty, USTRANSCOM public affairs, (618) 220-4999/5838, laura.t.fogerty.civ@mail.mil


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