RETROGRADE THROUGH AUTOMATION


PACKED, STACKED AND READY Automated systems enable the Army to track the movement of materiel at every level, from remote outposts in theater to home stations in the States. Here, truckloads of supplies are ready to move from Combat Outpost Terra Nova in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, June 12 as part of the retrograde process. (Photo by SSG Jason Ragucci, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division)


W


orking behind the scenes in support of the massive Retrograde, Reset, Redeployment, Redistribution and Disposal (R4D) mission from Afghanistan is a highly sophisticated set of tools and applica-


tions, managed by the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) Logistics Support Activity (LOGSA).


With the mission of providing the Army a consolidated view of the Army supply chain, LOGSA turns data into informa- tion intelligence and provides tracking visibility of equipment through all stages of deployment and redeployment.


LOGSA accomplishes this mission through the Logistics Information Warehouse (LIW), the Army’s authoritative source for logistics data. Integrating the data from more than 90 different automated systems across the Army and DOD, LIW is the repository for tactical and strategic logistics information from unit property books all the way up to wholesale-level inventories in depots and arsenals. LIW integrates logistics information to provide a common view enabling any stakeholders to access, acquire, analyze and present data and information for managing materiel. Widely used across DOD, LIW currently has more than 65,000 users, is queried at least 19,500 times per day, has 18 terabytes of data stored and represents more than 40 million transactions daily.


46 Army AL&T Magazine October–December 2013


LIW plays a critical role in the R4D mission, from tracking Teater Provided Equipment (TPE) through lateral transfers in theater to support mission requirements or as it declared excess and turned in for retrograde from theater, to providing decisions on organizational equipment requiring Automatic Reset Induction (ARI) through the reset process. Additionally, the use of the Lead Materiel Integrator Decision Support Tool (LMI DST) provides materiel managers with visibility of future and known requirements as equipment is reset.


LIW has a record of requirements based on data received from the Property Book Unit Supply Enhanced (PBUSE) and Army authorizations for specific quantities of each item. Tese require- ments are vetted in the LMI DST to determine who needs that item and who should get it first.


TPE PLANNER Te TPE Planner within LIW is the primary system used to manage the disposition of TPE in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. Developed to alleviate the use of spreadsheets passed from unit to brigade to country to theater, the TPE Planner automated the lateral transfer, redistribution and disposition process for TPE. Since TPE Planner’s deployment in January 2010, it has processed more than 1.2 million items of equipment laterally transferred or redistributed through the theater, declared excess


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