NO MORE ‘STEEL MOUNTAIN’
plans for moving equipment and produce reports for their leadership.
Once the database was up and running, it was published on the USF-I portal, Grzy- bowski said.
“We have basically created a software that pulls data and allows us to see equipment as it travels through the system from a FOB all the way back to a depot in the U.S. This helps us track millions of pieces of equipment,” said James C. Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, G-4, U.S. Army Materiel Command.
MISSION-CRITICAL EQUIPMENT
The METCOP process is designed to ensure that the operational community has the final decision- making authority to stand up or tear down equipment critical to mission requirements. METCOP addresses commanders’ concerns that there was not enough oversight of the operation, sustainment, and movement of equipment, Here, from left, SPC Justin L. Hastings, SFC Jason N. Gouty, and SPC Alicia F. Martinez, all with 24th Brigade Support Battalion, 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, inventory equipment before a 215-mile supply run from Camp Deh Dadi II to Forward Operating Base Griffin, Afghanistan, in June 2011. (Photo by SSG Christopher Klutts.)
communities: operations, sustainment, and acquisition. METCOP’s success hinges on the effectiveness of the SMEs’ training and on good communications on how to implement the system; a help desk was set up to ensure that the portal would be used correctly, Grzybowski said.
“Prior to METCOP, we didn’t have an integrated means for the three stake- holder communities to collaborate and work together to track the drawdown of personnel and equipment. The concern from commanders was that there was not enough oversight of the operation,
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sustainment, and movement of equip- ment,” Grzybowski said. “The first part of the effort was getting the stakeholders together, building a common definition, and translating that into a tool to ensure that data was implemented correctly.”
The established METCOP process allowed this vetting to occur, ensuring that the operational community had the final decision-making authority to stand up or tear down equipment critical to mission requirements. Program executive officers (PEOs) and program managers (PMs) can access the database to check on
The METCOP database is also a big help to forward-positioned PMs and PEOs who track the development and deployment of emerging technologies, said LTC Peter Lozis, Deputy Director, Army Systems Acquisition Review Coun- cil, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (ASAALT). The database helped ASAALT track technologies involving more than 52 different PMs, along with 2,200 per- sonnel, Lozis said.
“Forward-stationed PMs tracked different types of equipment, including vehicles, shipping containers, and small items for the individual Soldier. The METCOP database allowed us to look at plans for equipment from multiple different levels. It helped PMs provide accurate logistics planning information and assisted their retrograde operations out of Iraq in a time-phased manner,” Lozis said.
KRIS OSBORN is a Highly Qualified Expert for the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Office of Strategic Communications. He holds a B.A. in English and political science from Kenyon College and an M.A. in comparative literature from Columbia University.
Army AL&T Magazine
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