The role of EDI in readiness logistics

Abstract

Today armed conflicts may be played out in a matter of days rather than years as in the past. The superior weapons that make this possible are highly sophisticated and complex. The price tag of these weapons may run into billions of dollars which requires the purchase and maintenance of fewer end items than in the past. Now, more than ever in history, major end item readiness is a determining factor in our ability to win an armed conflict. Major end item readiness relies on the ability to keep the fleet of tanks, planes, ships, or missiles, maintained and ready for use and the ability to quickly repair any item damaged in service and bring it quickly back into play. Meeting this goal, however, has increased in difficulty exponentially in recent decades. Causes of this increase in difficulty include the number of different major end items in existence today, the number and geographic dispersion of the maintenance depots, and the number of vendors supplying components for each of these items. As always, the key to meeting these logistics goals is information. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a viable technology to help the DOD meet these challenges today.