Timely Decision-Making for Logistics Support

The objective of this proposal is to conduct research to address problems of inadequate logistics support planning during the contingency or crisis action planning process. The current deployment planning process primarily focuses on the flow of forces into theater and sustainment planning is regulated to a secondary effort, or worse, as an afterthought. The Global Channel Analysis for Logistic Support (GCALS) tool will seek to effectively “optimize” and synchronize the flow of forces, equipment, and sustainment within the Combatant Commander’s (CCDR) Operations Plan (OPLAN). Although logistics planning is considered in the overall planning process, there are some drawbacks to the current approach. The sustainment channel moves only sustainment and the forces channel moves only forces. As a result, each channel may have significant unused capacity, which can be used for a better-optimized deployment plan. By performing a channel analysis of second and third order requirements, GCALS will be able to optimize resource usage of available assets. This will result in a more optimized transportation flow for the OPLAN and save significant costs to the using customer. This proposal will research and define optimization strategies within a dynamic environment that focus on resource usage against resource availability.