Logistics Issues in the CAF/DND

[Eaglelord17]

My civilian company tried that not used in 5 year plan. Worked great until a major breakdown which they found out that part that was sitting there for a decade and recently thrown out was a extremely long lead time and many millions of dollars to replace.

Its even more important to retain spare parts for the military as just in time delivery is a unreliable joke for serious needs. The pandemic should have shown us the short sightedness of it. The key is the parts have to be for something in use or long term storage. Not just kicking around with no real plan or intention for use.

 

[Furniture]

My civilian company tried that not used in 5 year plan. Worked great until a major breakdown which they found out that part that was sitting there for a decade and recently thrown out was a extremely long lead time and many millions of dollars to replace.

Its even more important to retain spare parts for the military as just in time delivery is a unreliable joke for serious needs. The pandemic should have shown us the short sightedness of it. The key is the parts have to be for something in use or long term storage. Not just kicking around with no real plan or intention for use.

Having parts in stock means nothing if you haven't logged them correctly, so you know what you actually have.

I have seen some pretty useless descriptions associated with NSNs in the system. "Barometer, digital" is pretty useless as a description, there have been many different digital barometers used over the decades. "Barometer, digital", followed by a description "Vaisala PTB330TS" is extremely useful.

 

[MJP]

I've decided if I can't easily figure out what the item is from the NSN, and it hasn't moved in 5-10 years, to just authorize disposal whenever someone at a depot flags it as inactive. When I can figure out the NSN, unless it's for a current ship, and in good condition, also dispose of it. That seems to get rid of 90% of it, and for the remaining 10% if it can't be sent for R&O or otherwise still used, scrap as well.

Maybe someone will curse me as an idiot in 5 years but whatever.

That is fairly reasonable....almost unprecedented compared to most EMTs.

My civilian company tried that not used in 5 year plan. Worked great until a major breakdown which they found out that part that was sitting there for a decade and recently thrown out was a extremely long lead time and many millions of dollars to replace.

Its even more important to retain spare parts for the military as just in time delivery is a unreliable joke for serious needs. The pandemic should have shown us the short sightedness of it. The key is the parts have to be for something in use or long term storage. Not just kicking around with no real plan or intention for use.

Meh, no one is asking for anyone to get rid of specialized one of ones, highly consumed or low density material. If you have a 20+ years supply and they have been on the shelf for 30+ years you are probably ok getting rid of some. We have a smart dude that pulls material status, consumption and space consumed along with a few other metrics to highlight the how misused our space is. It goes back to the point is the people that make hold/no hold decisions don't have to worry about storage costs so EMTs are largely risk adverse when it comes to disposal as it doesn't affect them. Not to mention, it is a last priority when they have a million other things to do

Having parts in stock means nothing if you haven't logged them correctly, so you know what you actually have.

I have seen some pretty useless descriptions associated with NSNs in the system. "Barometer, digital" is pretty useless as a description, there have been many different digital barometers used over the decades. "Barometer, digital", followed by a description "Vaisala PTB330TS" is extremely useful.

NSNs by their nature generally will always have generic names. Cable, special assembly has like 2000+ NSNs associated with it. It is an issue and the Canadian Government cataloguing system (CGCS) should contain all the proper data including a longer description and part/model numbers that fit that NSN but it isn't always that great nor is/was NSN creation. The Material Identification project will address some/most of those concerns and is supposed to impose better oversight on the data being fed into the system. There already has been a massive clean-up of NSNs in the previous 5 years and despite my whinging the EMTs have gotten rid of lots of material.

 

[Navy_Pete]

@MJP I usually ask for a photo when it's a vague NSN; that generally helps a lot and someone will recognize it. Or helps make it obvious that it's something useful, obsolete, or sometime mis-labeled.

@Furniture The NSN name flows down from some kind of standardized NATO tables, which is why everything has the same name. The issue is when there is no long text, part/model numbers, NCAGE or anything else that is supposed to be there. at least with an OEM and part number you can look it up., or with an ERN at least have a start point for what system it's fitted on.

 

[Halifax Tar]

NSNs by their nature generally will always have generic names. Cable, special assembly has like 2000+ NSNs associated with it. It is an issue and the Canadian Government cataloguing system (CGCS) should contain all the proper data including a longer description and part/model numbers that fit that NSN but it isn't always that great nor is/was NSN creation. The Material Identification project will address some/most of those concerns and is supposed to impose better oversight on the data being fed into the system. There already has been a massive clean-up of NSNs in the previous 5 years and despite my whinging the EMTs have gotten rid of lots of material.

My understanding of our naming convention is that it stems from customs and shipping. Its why our part names are so non descriptive but its meant to be properly identified in the details. I stand to be corrected, just something I was told while in Log Ops, shipping stuff for the RCN all over the world, I had the same questions.

I am for a more decentralized warehousing doctrine. And I like lots of parts on shelves, just in case. As @Eaglelord17 stated we should have seen the problems with JIT Logistics over the last few years. Having said the above, it needs to be logical. And we should be able to divest of parts and material that are deemed SNLR.

 

[Navy_Pete]

My understanding of our naming convention is that it stems from customs and shipping. Its why our part names are so non descriptive but its meant to be properly identified in the details. I stand to be corrected, just something I was told while in Log Ops, shipping stuff for the RCN all over the world, I had the same questions.

I am for a more decentralized warehousing doctrine. And I like lots of parts on shelves, just in case. As @Eaglelord17 stated we should have seen the problems with JIT Logistics over the last few years. Having said the above, it needs to be logical. And we should be able to divest of parts and material that are deemed SNLR.

Found out the painfully hard way is there is an actual NATO STANAG on this, with basically a huge table of naming convention. I can't remember if it's this specific standard, but wiki has a decent stub on it;

NATO Codification System - Wikipedia

It's this huge table type thing, but is why you have weird things like the TICs called 'Cameras, night vision', because it's an IR imaging device that someone decided 20 years ago can only be used for night vision, and why hoses are generically catalogued as 'non-metallic' or 'metallic'.

On the plus side, means that every other NATO country uses the same name convention, so lets you look up what other countries use and try for an FMS case a lot easier. At least until something in CGCS broke so we can no longer import foreign NSNs for a year or two.

The downside is a lot of times you find stuff like this out while arguing with DSCO about how 1/32" is within tolerance for a measurement given in mm and it's a fit/form/function replacement, or that gland valves shouldn't be catalogued as a 'valve, gate', because it's fundamentally different, but for some reason will have a totally change some background thing in DRMIS which screws up procurements. And somehow they know better than the item TA, so the technical details in the long text about things like dimensions, materials, standards etc get dropped, and helpful bread crumbs like 'replaces NSN xxx' (or 'replaced by NSN yyy' in obsolete items) get removed from CGCS.

 

[my72jeep]

30 years ago or so they were tearing down a few old supply buildings in Borden to build the new base supply, one day I saw a few old .303 transit boxes in he dumpster as I was grabbing them (10 or so) I read the labels on 15 other crates ( Canopy spitfire perplex 5 each. This was 1994.

 

[GK .Dundas]

I made a joke back in the nineties when the Armed Forces were stood down supposedly to so they could all go on a document hunt for a Royal Commission.
That while they might not have found anything relating to the commission's interest. I'd wondered how many 13 pounders and cavalry saddles they found in various warehouses.