Napoleon, a master logistician, famously said that an army marches on its stomach, and although the defense business has evolved radically, that concept is still true today. Of course, the term "stomach" is shorthand for all the myriad requirements of a fighting force, which can be summed up in the phrase "defense logistics." Without accurate, efficient defense logistics, without the appropriate services and support, today's troops can't present the highly prepared, deployable, and sustainable presence that's required of them. Today's global expeditionary force needs an agile, responsive, end-to-end support chain that allows all levels of operational command to have total confidence that the right logistical support will be delivered to their front-line forces. And this need to manage supplies and suppliers, improve forces' readiness, and provide a seamless link between service-identified requirements—equipment, training, deployment, operational—and their fulfillment must now be accomplished without increasing the size of the logistics agency or the cost to the taxpayer. Around the world, armed forces are discovering that the solution to the defense logistics challenge lies in information technology—specifically IBM technology, which helps drive the performance that keeps a defense force mission-ready.
Cognos Delivers Logistical Mission-readiness
The world leader in enterprise planning and business intelligence software, IBM is helping military forces globally to answer logistics challenges. Armed forces in the US and around the world have implemented IBM solutions to enhance their logistics, readiness, and operations capabilities. Military logisticians worldwide can gain instant awareness of troops, assets, and target resources. As well as simplifying and improving key defense logistics processes—engineering, procurement, inventory, transportation, material flow—the Web-based approach of the IBM tools leads to cost savings for the forces and rapid user adoption, and also makes it easy to implement important security controls.
Cognos Business Intelligence is a Strategic Asset for Defense Logistics
Responding to a complex variety of threats world-wide, the modern force depends more than ever on information driving logistics, and many forces rely on IBM to turn logistical information into a strategic asset. With IBM business intelligence, logisticians can capture, process, analyze, and manage disparate data sources to understand operational performance and identify strengths and weaknesses. The IBM system enables analysis and sharing of strategic information across the logistics support chain, and provides a precise, real-time understanding of asset disposition—troops, equipment, spares. The culture of continuous improvement in the modern forces is enhanced through the IBM capacity to drive greater efficiency, streamline processes, and spread best practices. With IBM, you can gain an unprecedented insight into operational readiness with a 360-degree view of the defense logistics environment.
Learn more about IBM defense logistics solutions here.
