I visited the Supply Depot in Montreal last year. One thing that folks on the outside who say "just do what Amazan/Walmart do" don't realize is that those supply chains work in one direction. Our supply chain has to receive items back. Those industry supply chains work on money - ownership of the assets changes as the money changes hands. When you buy a hockey helmet for your kid its yours forever. Not so with our supply chains. The Queen buys helmets for troops and issues them, but will take them back and give them to someone else. Anyhoo I am out of my depth.
Bingo, we are very much a closed loop supply chain which means much of what we push out comes back in some way shape or form to some level of the supply chain for repair, refurb, demil or disposal. TBF most organizations have a return aspect of their supply chain but when your world revolves around parts it is vital. John Deere, Catapiller, Mack are all examples of companies that have strong returns aspects to their supply chain.
While we do hold lots of consumable stock most of our parts for platforms is repairable and returning those parts for repair or refurbishment is crucial to maintaining future stocks. Failure to execute this activity can have strategic effects especially for low density parts. One anedoctal example from early in my career is I took over a repair and disposal platoon that had had simply failed to do their job for several years. In cleaning up the mess we found we held 30 - 40% of all the transmissions for the HLVW, 90% of which were not properly on the system of record so there was no visibility of them in the supply chain. Just returning them to the system properly reinvigorated the fleet and likely saved money as they (EMT) no longer at to do a major purchase of additional assemblies which was crucial as the fleet was nearing the end of life anyway.
Is more people the answer or developing efficiencies in our processes a better way to tackle the issue?
I would argue that processes need to be refined before we go mewling for more PYs. There is something to be said on the PY front though as 3rd line lost roughly 1000 people between 1996 when they close CFSD Moncton and Toronto (900 PYs) and 2005 with the implementation of Material Acquisition Support Optimization Project (
MASOP). Roughly 600 folks mostly civilian run 3rd line for the CAF, however many more work on the policy and equipment management side of the house controlled by DND proper.
I've said it before and I will say it again. Get rid of off the street LogOs. Stop having them become a "jack of all trades and master of none" and have strict discipline officers as in Supply Chain Management officers and solely commission from the ranks.
Put some teeth in our policies. Right now our polices are made of a wet paper lunch bag. Hold those accountable who abuse the CFSS.
Dude I respect ya but that is a bunk suggestion with no backing in anything substantive and I come from the ranks(although not MM Tech). Our 3rd line is mostly civilian and the back bone of 1st to 2nd line is SNCOs not officers and in my opinion they are just as much the problem as bad officers. As technical SMEs, I find them as a institution wholly lacking. Do not get me wrong there are a great many that are excellent, but many are dead weight and couldn't tell you the difference between and _S or _P MRP and or where a PReq/PO is stuck in the system. Part of it is breath and scale of the trade as they flit between being both lower level procurement and pure material management folks.
To touch on your policy aspect one thing many folks don't realize is that ADMMat owns policy and they belong to DND not the CAF. They are part of the whole supply chain but supply chain management is not our strength as that is a total understanding and cultivation of relationships across an entire supply chain.
Just so it is clear what I mean supply chain management is not the same as logistics.
Logistics = Logistics is the process of strategically managing the procurement, movement and storage of materials, parts and finished inventory (and the related information flows) through the organisation and its marketing channels in such a way that current and future profitability are maximised through the cost-effective fulfilment of orders
Supply Chain Management = A network of connected and interdependent organisations mutually and co-operatively working together to control, manage and improve the flow of materials and information from suppliers to end users
That said I am curious what policies you think are weak? I have my own thoughts but curious what you see as an issue.
Perhaps but it should not take a month to get a part to fix an aircraft. There are lessons that we could learn from an efficiency point of view. We don't exist to make profit but the supply chain should be effective and efficient, both characteristics that are required to run a profitable supply chain. The fact that consumable parts for Tutors (which are only based in Moose Jaw) are located in Montreal is a sign that our supply system is dysfunctional.
Agreed
So why hasn't the Moose Jaw Log O submitted a UCR and requested all Tutor parts be re-located to Sqn stores at Moose Jaw?
UCRs are to fix problems with individual NSNs not to fix systemic distribution and vehicle off-road (VOR or whatever a broken plane is called in RCAF parlance) problems.
Oh it has been asked at higher levels...
The CA has the same issue with much of their Engines and Major Assemblies (EMAS) for many fleets including almost all Leo II parts in Montreal despite 70% of the fleet being in Edmonton right beside a depot. It took some high level command involvement to break the Supply Manager and Life-Cycle Materiel Managers reluctance to not have all their preciouses in one place. If anything it makes sense if not Moose Jaw then at least pre-positioned regionally in Edmonton for Tudor parts.
We used to know better but that was before they trying to justify keeping Montreal open and the jobs in Quebec. Central storage works great if you have a dedicated delivery service attached to it but we got rid of the cosmos decades ago and along with them the scheduled flights between bases. Amazon works only because they have the delivery service to go with the warehousing.
We have dedicated delivery in the form of the National Freight Run, run by CMSG and executed by a number of partners within the CAF. Shipping by planes is expensive and they really can't carry the quantity that rail or trucks can at a fraction of the cost. Several posters have mused about more planes to move stock around and that argument might be valid for expeditionary ops but domestically an optimized NFR fits our needs fine and when it is needed commercial is there to back stop.
* edited for very shitty wording
