Developing a Situation Awareness Environment for the Distribution Process Owner: Recommendations for United States Transportation Command

Abstract

On September 16, 2003, the Secretary of Defense designated the Commander, USTRANSCOM as the Distribution Process Owner (DPO), charged with the responsibility to coordinate and synchronize execution of the DOD distribution system. In this context, distribution process is defined as the networks, relationships and procedures used by the Department of Defense to control the flow and distribution of military forces and materiel between the point of receipt into the military system and the point of issue to using activities and units.1 Additionally, on 28 July 2004, USTRANSCOM was given the responsibility for managing the Information Technology (IT) Portfolio associated with its DPO mission.2As such, historically the term COP D2 refers to a materiel IT solution that was undertaken by the DPO in 2006. However, this research is focused on the broader environment required for successful DPO situation awareness (SA). Today, as functional proponent of a future DPO SA environment, USTRANSCOM is searching for best practices to provide visual and tabular supply-chain information necessary to execute DPO operations. This paper addresses holistic recommendations (beyond technology) for consideration as USTRANSCOM looks for effective ways to improve its information environment in support of its DPO mission. Executing its new role as Distribution Portfolio Manager (DPfM), USTRANSCOM acted upon a requirement from the November 2005 Council of Logistics Directors Conference and moved forward with the DOD logistics community and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to provide a Common Operating Picture (COP) for Deployment and Distribution (D2). During the fall of 2007 and spring 2008, DISA fielded an initial operating capability for COP D2 on its unclassified and classified Global Combat Support System-Joint (GCSS-J) web portals.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 16, 2010
Accession Number
AD1018542

Entities

People

  • James M. Doolin

Organizations

  • Air War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Best Practices
  • Command And Control
  • Department Of Defense
  • Deployment
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Information Systems
  • Logistics
  • National Security
  • Situational Awareness
  • Supply Chain
  • United States
  • United States Pacific Command
  • United States Transportation Command
  • User Interface Engineering
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
  • Government and Public Administration Law.