move 'em out, track 'em down

In order to track thousands upon thousands of pieces of equipment, supplies, and cargo containers, the U.S. military has turned to a solution that will be familiar to many supply chain managers. It is using real-time asset-monitoring technology to keep tabs on the whereabouts of everything from hamburgers to Humvees.

As the pullout from Iraq and redeployment of resources to Afghanistan nears, the military has been involved in a number of asset tracking programs, including the following:

• In June, the U.S. Army loaded hundreds of military assets onto Navy transport ships at Norfolk, Va., and then tracked each one as it traveled along the coast and was offloaded onto the beach at Camp Lejeune, N.C. (See photo.) During the exercise, the Army relied on a logistics and asset tracking system developed by ARINC Inc. and Impeva Labs to follow individual items. Known as Next Generation Wireless Communications for Logistics Applications, the system uses battery-powered electronic tags that form secure local mesh networks and link to mobile RF gateways—no local power or ground communications infrastructure is required. The gateways transmit global positioning system (GPS) tag locations and sensor data over communications channels like satellite and cellular networks.
• Damco, the global freight forwarding arm of the A.P. Møller-Maersk Group, is using System Planning Corp.'s GlobalTrak system to track and monitor shipments for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) in the Middle East. The system provides security, cargo condition monitoring, and cargo tracking and inventory management using publicly available global communications networks. The AAFES shipments, destined for military base exchanges, arrive in Turkey and then travel cross country to Iraq. Damco places a GlobalTrak asset monitoring unit on truck trailers crossing Turkey. The unit carries a suite of sensors that report location and cargo condition via two-way cellular and satellite communications to a secure online pOréal.