U.S. DEFENSE SPEEDS DELIVERY

U.S. DEFENSE SPEEDS DELIVERY    The U.S. Defense Department said it has increased the speed of delivery for shipments in the United States by 59 percent and by 20 percent between the United States and Europe.
   The catalyst is the Defense Department’s Strategic Distribution Management Initiative, which was started in February by the U.S. Transportation Command and the Defense Logistics Agency.
   “This is true supply chain management,” said Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Privratsky, commander of the Military Traffic Management Command, the overland and ocean transportation logistics unit of the USTRANSCOM. “We are moving supplies and transportation together.”
   U.S. domestic shipments are now delivered in 9 days, as opposed to 22 days. Similarly, Europe-bound shipments take 51 days, as opposed to 64 days.
   The key to the initiative is the synchronization of work between Defense Logistics Agency depots and the defense freight shipments of the Military Traffic Management Command.
   Trucks used to arrive at the depots at a fixed time of day. Freight prepared for shipment after that time would have to wait for the next day’s delivery. Under the Strategic Distribution Management Initiative, trucks are scheduled to arrive for their cargoes at the time the freight is ready for pickup, said Frank Galluzo, the Military Traffic Management Command’s coordinator of the effort.
   It used to take the U.S. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command 13 days to move goods between the United States and Tuzla, Bosnia. The initiative has reduced that delivery time to five days, Galluzo said.