U.S. MILITARY, OCEAN CARRIERS STRIVE FOR FASTER OCEAN SHIPMENTS

U.S. MILITARY, OCEAN CARRIERS STRIVE FOR FASTER OCEAN SHIPMENTS    The U.S. Military Traffic Management Command and a group of ocean carriers are working together to reduce transit times and improve service to Defense Department ocean shipments.
   The Surface Distribution Committee is part of the Strategic Distribution Management Initiative, an effort sponsored by the U.S. Transportation Command and Defense Logistics Agency, and provides a forum through which MTMC and carrier officials can find ways to improve ocean cargo handling. The committee held a meeting last week at the Logistics Management Institute in McLean, Va.
   So far, the committee’s work has been successful, MTMC officials said. The military’s supply chain time between the United States and Europe, for example, has been reduced from an average of 59 days to 46 days.
   “We’re taking apart our supply chain,” said Frank Galluzzo, director of MTMC’s Distribution Analysis Center. “We’re looking at our processes. We want to know if it works — not only for us but for everyone. It has to work for the carrier from the standpoints of efficiency and economy.”
   “The bottom line is any time we can rework redundancy out of the supply chain, it takes cost out for everyone in the supply chain — including carriers,” said David DeBoer, director of military and government markets for APL Ltd. “The name of the game is to take out costs.”
   The military said it now takes the view that speed of its military freight movements are more important than their cost.
   “With a container, you might have $40,000 worth of goods inside,” Galluzzo said. “The transportation is cheaper than the inventory in there.”
   The overall goal of the Surface Transportation Committee is to improve “time-definite delivery” to Defense Department customers, said Charlie Nye of the Defense Logistics Center’s Defense Distribution Center in New Cumberland, Pa., which handles about 4 million stock items out of 24 locations in the United States. “We want our customers to know they can order on Tuesday and get their goods on Thursday. We’re looking at velocity and reliability.”