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Resources management
By Amnon Barzilai
"I undertake to cut 30 to 40 percent of the
logistical tail of the Israel Defense Forces
[IDF]," declares Major General Udi Adam, head of
the Technological and Logistics Directorate
(TLD). "If you press me, I will say that the cut
will reach 50 percent. It's going to be dramatic."
In this sphere, the IDF is
going to learn from the
Americans. A few days after the
end of the war in Iraq, U.S.
Vice President Richard Cheney
quoted the American historian
David Hanson, who noted that by
any criteria the progress of
the U.S. forces across Iraq was
unprecedented in terms of speed and boldness in
the light of the low casualty rate. The
logistical conception of the American army will
be studied for decades to come, the historian
said.
The IDF, too, has begun to study the method that
was used to deploy the American ground forces
in Iraq and the logistical modalities that made
it possible for them to gobble up 500
kilometers of desert roads from Kuwait to
Baghdad. "To move a quarter of a million people
from the United States to Kuwait - a distance
of 11,000 kilometers - and to transport them
across the desert, even without fighting, is an
impressive achievement," General Adam says.
He adds, though, "We are ahead of the Americans
in this approach. What's impressive about them
is their ability to move the equipment and
maintain and collect it, to provide logistical
support. We have the advantage of knowing the
terrain, our arena of battle."
In a lecture he delivered a few weeks ago at a
symposium held at Bar-Ilan University about
the impact of the Iraq war, General Adam, whose
subject was "Strategy and Logistics in Modern
Warfare," revealed something of the logistical
reorganization that is now under way in the
IDF. The directorate he heads is responsible
for the ongoing existence of the IDF, for three
corps - munitions, maintenance and medical -
and for the maintenance aspect of the Signal
and Electronics Corps.
The organizer of the academic conference, Prof.
and (res.) Colonel Haim Schneiderman, a former
senior officer in the TLD, says that Adam's
initiative has a reasonable chance to succeed
in terms of its approach and timing. In the
1990s the TLD slashed its costs by about NIS 2
billion. In the course of the current project,
thousands of trucks will go, hundreds of career
army jobs will be eliminated and the reserves
will be reduced by thousands of soldiers.
According to several estimates, the result will
be a saving of about NIS 4 billion in the IDF's
logistical expenses.
With its back to the wall because of the budget
squeeze, the TLD is being compelled to alter
the IDF's logistical disposition. In the past,
every combat force in a battalion, brigade and
division had its own logistics unit. General
Adam uses the term "emergency stop" to describe
the crisis of resources that is afflicting the
IDF. This is also the reason for the urgent
search for new conceptions that will be both
more efficient and more economical. "Not
everyone has to come to the battlefield with
his supermarket," he says.
It's agreed in the IDF that every battalion has
to have a headquarters company. That entails
about 100 soldiers who are in charge of
communications, medical services, munitions and
supplies. The dispute in the IDF revolved
around the question of where the next
logistical linchpin should be: at the level of
the brigade, the division or the territorial
command.
The problem first arose about 10 years ago, when
the TLD was headed by Major General (res.)
Haggai Shalom. A simulation exercise examined
the performance of the logistics units in an
armored division in the context of the threat
of a war.
The results astounded the senior officers of the
directorate. It turned out that the armored
division that was rushed to the north reached
the border before the logistics units had even
left their bases in the center of the country,
more than 100 kilometers to the south.
Since then, the TLD has developed advanced
systems of maintenance and management.
Thousands of vehicles - jeeps and trucks -
replaced the old fleet that was acquired after
the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The IDF is now about to decide on the new
conception that is being urged by the head of
the TLD. "We have a small country, so the
logistics should be adapted to its scale and to
the arenas of battle," Adam explains. That
calls for a change in the logistical conception
from an organic to a territorial approach. In
other words, forces fighting on the Golan
Heights will receive their logistical services
from Northern Command. "The units will get
logistics direct to the client's home," Adam
says.
According to the new doctrine, an armored
division will not have to occupy itself with
problems related to the stores of fuel,
munitions, food and water. It will get them "as
a service from the territorial command." The
result will be to accord the division high
mobility and enhance efficiency. The idea was
accepted by the head of Northern Command, Major
General Benny Gantz, who articulated it in this
way: Until now every armored division had a
maintenance service group just in case; from
now on, the division will receive its logistic
service just in time. The result will be that
the logistic alignment of the level being
deployed will be suited to the IDF's financial
capacity.
The deputy chief of staff, Major General Benny
Ashkenazi, who is responsible for force
building, has also assented to the new
conception. Adam: "We will ensure that the
fighters get everything in time through the
territorial logistics disposition. They will
have support throughout the period of combat in
terms of food, fuel, water, repairs, spare
parts and evacuation of casualties. The result
will be to reduce ponderousness and ensure that
the fighting force has operative mobility, the
ability to move units from one place to
another."
The TLD's capability in this regard was seen
during Operation Defensive Shield in April
2002. Utilizing its transportation center, the
TLD activated two battalions that ran 240 tank
carriers for a month. "During that entire
period there was only one hitch, and it was
resolved within half an hour," Adam says.
An example of the advantage of the territorial
logistics doctrine is the storage of munitions.
At present, munitions are stored in depots and
bunkers that have been built since Israel's
creation 55 years ago. Instead, the TLD plans
to build munitions deports in subterranean
tunnels based on a territorial approach. Adam:
"We are now entering a pilot project in which
we will carry out this experiment. In our view,
the tunneling of munitions is an investment
that will repay itself within a few years and
also double munitions survivability."
However, divisional commanders balked at this
plan. In internal discussions of the General
Staff it was noted that a basic formation has
four central elements: fighting units,
firepower (including artillery and air
support), intelligence and logistics. "Let's
say a division is a basic formation," Adam
says. "It can operate with virtual and not
necessarily physical means. Given the size of
Israel's combat areas, a divisional commander
can rely on territorial logistics support. The
commanding officers are told that they will get
everything they need but that this is not an
organic part of the division. What's there to
be afraid of? It's a traditional human
conception: People want what they think they
need."
An IDF armored division consists of five
brigades: three armored brigades, an artillery
support group and a maintenance service group.
Each maintenance group has three battalions:
one for munitions services, one for supplies
and one for medical services. According to the
new conception, all these will be replaced by
territorial logistics support groups in the
IDF's territorial commands (North, South and
Center). The change is meant to take place in
all the divisions. Adam: "This represents a
saving of thousands of combat trucks, fuel and
water tankers, and armored combat vehicles for
the forward companies of the Munitions Corps.
The impact of the new approach will extend to
the levels of the stocks of food, equipment and
spare parts, and it will enable manpower to be
reduced."
The elimination of a divisional maintenance
service group will make it possible for the
division to be cut by 1,000-1,500 soldiers. In
addition to the enhanced efficiency and
heightened military mobility, the major saving
that the new conception will bring is in
eliminating the need for future investment.
Adam: "It will make it possible to do away with
existing structures and to deal with aging
systems. It will also make it possible to
divert some of the resources that will be saved
into renewing fleets of vehicles and developing
other logistical means."
According to Schneiderman, the TDL's new
approach, which is based on territorial
logistics capability, is fundamentally similar
to the approach that was adopted by Egged, the
big bus cooperative. In the past, every bus
carried a spare tire, whereas today the company
has territorial units that can dispatch a team
to any place in the country and change a tire.
It's both more efficient and less expensive.
The TDL is reading correctly the "momentum of
changes" in the operational spheres,
Schneiderman notes, and is trying to get the
army to adopt an approach based on the
application of advanced management techniques
and operative technologies.
The U.S. armed forces implemented a new
information technology in the form of an
electronic system known as total asset
visibility (TAV). This system, which was used
for the first time in the Iraq war, made it
possible for the logistics and operational
personnel to know in real time and with a high
degree of accuracy the disposition of combat
equipment: where it was, in whose control, and
how much. Each item of equipment - plane, ship,
tank, artillery piece, missile, truck,
container and so on - contained electronic
chips. In the first days of the war, electronic
control gates were positioned on the roads in
order to read information about the equipment
that passed by and transmit the data in real
time to operations centers, some of them in the
United States, 10,000 kilometers from Iraq.
The TLD is currently implementing a similar
project, which is the result of one of the
lessons of the Yom Kippur War. In a postwar
debriefing, the head of the supplies department
at the time, Major General Yohanan Gur,
related, "There was no shortage of equipment,
munitions or combat gear. The problem was that
we didn't know where it was. Everyone took
things for themselves. We had no control over
the equipment." It is on the basis of that
situation that the TLD is now implementing a
logistical control and command project. "This
is a long-term project that has been under way
for several years," Adam explains. "The idea is
to be able to see the logistical situation of
the fitness of the equipment, the stores of
fuel, the motor oil, the engine pressure, the
number of casualties, the movement of the
vehicles - from the level of the General Staff
all the way down to the individual piece of
equipment in the field. Today's technological
world makes it possible to control everything.
That way, you can know who is missing what and
how much. And that will also create quiet in
the communications networks. Because everything
will be fed in from computerized systems and
you will know where everyone is and who needs
what and how much. We will be able to conduct a
quiet war. We're on the way there."
Privatizing the Merkava
The concept of eliminating a division's
maintenance service group and relying on the
logistic anchor of the territorial command
reflects the modern economic approach of
outsourcing, says Prof. Schneiderman. The idea
is to entrust the supply of services to one
body that can do the job more efficiently.
Major General Udi Adam is trying to apply this
approach in other areas of the Technological
and Logistics Directorate (TLD) as well. He is
ready to forgo and place in external hands
everything that is not defined as a core
occupation of the directorate. The factory that
manufactures the Merkava tank, which is located
in the refurbishing and maintenance center at
Tel Hashomer, falls under the responsibility
of the Munitions Corps.
Adam: "Building a tank is not my core
occupation. I am not against privatizing the
factory. With the TLD's ability and the
dedication of the personnel in the Munitions
Corps, I can repair a tank at 2 A.M. That's a
core occupation. To build a tank? I don't want
that? I'm ready to examine everything today. Of
course, the proposals have to be at a
professional level. We have to examine things
from the economic point of view, to see how
much an hour of work costs the IDF as against
an hour of work in Elbit Systems, and then
decide."
As part of the revolution of the territorial
approach, the directorate is already moving to
the privatization of the emergency depots. The
first step will be a pilot project in which
three or four of the depots will be
privatized.
Adam: "Managing the emergency depots is not a
core occupation of the TLD. Maintaining the
depots is very expensive. They are managed by
soldiers and noncoms headed by a commander with
the rank of lieutenant colonel. I say we should
leave one army person in each depot to
supervise the work of civilians."
However, the outsourcing project has so far been
only partially successful. "A few years ago we
did away with the IDF's towing capability and
decided to use civilian towing facilities,"
Adam relates. "The project fell apart. The
companies didn't meet our demands. Some of them
went bankrupt. Others refused to enter the Gaza
Strip or Judea and Samaria. It ended up costing
us double.
"The privatization of catering was a partial
success. In some cases the level of service
declined and the expenses increased. The
attempt to privatize medical services for
career army people also failed. The IDF closed
the clinics at the Defense Ministry compound in
Tel Aviv and at Tel Hashomer. We discovered
that the services of the health maintenance
organizations were a lot more expensive than
what we planned for. We did the privatization
and today we don't have the money to pay the
HMOs."
On the other hand, the privatization of some of
the IDF's construction units by placing the
work in the hands of civilian contractors has
been successful, General Adam notes. "We were
able to create competition between the
companies and lower prices. The construction
units will gradually be phased out. It will all
be done via outsourcing but under the army's
control. There will be a headquarters group
with planning, management and supervisory
capability, but the implementation will be
external."(A.B.)