Improving the Defense Transportation System's supply chain through best practices

¶ … transitioning of the Defense Transportation System towards complementing best practices in supply chain management efficiently and securely is a daunting task. Organizations like DTS that aid the DOD in various processes requires consistent, effective, and continual management of things like inventory and delivery. That is why examining ways to improve the supply chain must be addressed. One way to address this issue is seeing how other companies or similar organizations handle their supply chain demands. Best practices mean collection of information from organizations or companies that perform a certain task or adopt a strategy effectively.

The supply chain and supply chain management must be examined and through research into best practices of other organizations and business in relation to supply chain may yield favorable results. For example, the use of AIT technology could very well help increase automation and tracking for the DTS. Technology is a way to improve the supply chain and research must be dedicated in that area.

Abstract

This research paper seeks to learn which best practices performed by other companies and organizations will aid the DTS in improving their supply chain and supply chain management. Through researching what the DTS does and why the DTS needs a supply chain management overhaul, this paper hopes to shed light on solutions that can not only bring optimization and effectiveness to DTS, but also provide a framework for a better understanding of supply chain management.

Literature Review

Departments like the DOD need supply chain processes that can track and tag things in order to promote asset visibility. The DODs use of AIT (Automated Identification Technology) provides the tracking and tagging capabilities the DOD and its extension, the DTS require to improve the supply chain. The added automation also provides speed and reliability. "AIT is a suite of technologies enabling the automatic capture of data, thereby enhancing the ability to identify, track, document, and control materiel, deploying and redeploying forces, equipment, personnel, and sustainment cargo" (DTS, 2013, p. JP 4-01). By encompassing a plethora of carrier technologies or data storage, such as magnetic strips, bar codes, optical laser discs, integrated circuit cards, RFID tags, and satellite tracking, individual items, containers, or equipment can be tagged and stored faster, easier.

RFID technology has long been used by businesses. Thanks to cloud computing RFID has become a prevailing technology even in smaller organizations and has crossed over from private sector use to public. "RFID technology has been introduced across a range of industries, including public sector as well as in retail and manufacturing. For example, RFID has been used by Harley-Davidson and Toyota to monitor parts for their motorcycles and automobiles, respectively" (Jamal, Omer & Salam Qureshi, 2013, p. 79). This means supply chain management strategies from successful business can work as best practices models for the DTS to improve their supply chain with. They can also examine organizations similar to them and see what other steps they may take to promote effective SCM. The Austrian Institute of Technology for example, improved their performance through regular research in traffic systems optimization, enabling effective implementation of transportation strategies enabling faster and safer ways for public transport and civilians to get around.

Data from different sensor sources are collected, analyzed, modelled and integrated into complex simulation tools. This allows accurate predictions about travel times or capacity utilization in order to guide people and traffic flows safely and efficiently - the aim being to balance the optimum of every traffic mode with the entire transportation system optimum (AIT, 2016).

Discussion of ideas on the topic and problem

The topic center on supply chain improvement so supply chain management can improve as it concern the DTS. The DTS thus needs to examine the best practices of organizations and businesses similar to them to understand where to begin development of strategies that could lead to successful completion of the objective. Therefore, examining what a supply chain consists of and how companies and organizations improve their supply chain management strategies are key ways to begin tackling the problem of improvement. Research is the first step toward understanding which best practices complement effective supply chain management for the DTS and which do not.

Discussion of new solution(s) to the problem

While RFID technology is nothing new in the business world, it is a slow transition in the public sector. The government has yet to fully integrate technological innovations and best practices into their departments and organizations. DTS could utilize RFID technology better if they combine it with the use of cloud computing. Cloud computing is not only useful in larger organizations, but smaller ones as well.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while DTS has developed ways to integrate AIT into its supply chain management, it fails to fully integrate key aspects of such technology such as RFID. RFID technology coupled with cloud computing will provide an easier transition for the DTS to a more automated and technologically innovative supply chain where items and shipments, so forth are processed faster and tracked more easily. Other organizations like Austrian Institute of Technology performs research that ensures optimization of transport.