With its troops still fighting in Iraq, the US Marine Corp
has embarked on an overhaul of its multibillion-pound supply
chain.
Earlier in the war, reports claimed that US forces had to pause
their campaign due to problems maintaining a supply chain
stretching hundreds of miles.
The supply chain project, known as Systems Realignment and
Categorisation, was announced earlier this year. It will revamp the
Marine Corps' entire IT architecture and business processes. The
modules in the new supply chain will be rolled out over the next
two years.
The core of the supply chain is based on Oracle's 11i enterprise
software suite. It will create a single supply chain for the
Marines, replacing the two supply chains currently used to support
garrison units and soldiers deployed on active duty.
AT&T Government Solutions, analyst firm Gartner and KPMG are
among the 35 suppliers working on the project.
The project is being driven by "the need to create an agile and
flexible supply chain to enable the Marine Corps to respond to the
new crises in the 21st century", according to a Marine Corp paper
outlining its benefits.
A key challenge presented by the project will be to consolidate the
Marine Corp's sprawling legacy systems to enable them to integrate
with the new supply chain infrastructure. So far, 36 legacy systems
have been scrapped. The old supply chain had more than 200
logistics applications, with little integration between them.
Some of the benefits of the supply chain overhaul identified by the
Marine Corps include a cost reduction of up to $180m (£115m) and a
35%-50% reduction in order cycle time for products and services.