Inventory Management

By CW4 Atacha P. Randolph

January 1, 2024 | Warrant Officer Journal, January-March 2024 Edition

Read Time: < 8 mins

We have all heard the adage that time is money. Time is a valuable resource, so doing things as quickly as possible is essential. The adage could not be more accurate in the profession of arms. Army National Guard (ARNG) soldiers assemble one weekend a month and two weeks in a fiscal year. The Guard must remain ready and relevant to augment the active duty component to perform the go-to-war mission. Leaders at the highest levels recognize the need to perform more efficiently and provide time for junior leaders to focus on preparing to address our pacing threats. When General Randy A. George, Chief of Staff of the Army, addressed over 4000 attendees at the National Guard Association of the United States, 145th General Conference Professional Development Session, he reminded the audience that the Guard is nearly 40% of the Army operating force and that the Army never goes anywhere with 60% of the team. General George recognizes that the Guard is embedded on the battlefield. One of four of his focus areas is delivering ready combat formations, and the Guard must be prepared. He continued to explain that commanders should not have to take two weeks to lay things out when technology already exists through our commercial Partners to provide time for our young leaders to focus on delivering ready combat power and ready combat formations. To support the senior leader’s intent, the National Guard should invest in inventory software to decrease the cost associated with property loss, decrease inventory time, and implement modernization that appeals to the future generation.

Our doctrine already provides the standards and instructions for implementing an electronic method for conducting inventories. Army Regulation 710-4 Property Accountability, December 2023, significantly modernized inventory procedures, incorporating inventories by exception, sampling, proxy, electronic methods, and remote inventory. Inventory methods may include direct physical touch, video, photographs, Automated Inventory Technology (AIT) devices, and other electronic methods if the method indicates the asset exists. The Army has made several attempts to implement an automated inventory system. Components of the computerized inventory terminal were issued as a part of the hardware package with Property Book Unit Supply- Enhanced (PBUSE) and Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-A); however, the Common Table of Allowance (CTA) provided the authorization, and eventually, the states and territories were tasked to fund the automation inventory hardware within their organizations. An Accountable Property Officer (APO) understands the struggle to get inventory on a training schedule to monitor completeness and receive the documented result on time, left alone to request an operational pause to create the infrastructure to implement an automated inventory system without the essential tools. Around 2008, Operation Clean Sweep was the Army’s spring cleaning. These efforts aimed to gain better control over inventories, excess equipment, and supplies and ensure units had what they needed to train and deploy. The force later participated in the Item Unique Identification (IUID) marking campaign. The primary purpose of IUID is to assign a single, unambiguous, globally unique data element known as the Unique Item Identifier (UII) to items that require unique item-level traceability. AR 700-145, chapter 2 outlines the UII criteria. IUID tags are for the traceability of end items and did not fill the automated inventory gap. This campaign is still ongoing.

In the book Lying to Ourselves, Leonard Wong and Dr. Stephen J. Gerras mention a restraint recommendation in propagating requirements and compliance checks. The authors challenge leaders from every headquarters level to analyze policies and directives regarding their impact on the force’s cumulative load and time. There is a plethora of inventories prescribed in the Army’s regulations. Cyclic or annual, Component of Major End Items Inventory, Change of Primary Hand Receipt Holder Inventory, Sensitive Items, Tool Crib, Component List of items in common areas, Organizational Clothing and Individual Equipment, Monthly Weapons and Ammunition, Sub hand Receipt Holder, Capital Asset, and Command Directed. By Army Regulation 710-4, ARNG must complete inventories of all end items and components 30 days before the effective date of the assumption of command. Is it realistic and feasible to pause all training events and accomplish this task during a 2-day Individual Duty Training period? When will the Commander find the time to develop a ready combat force during that training period?

The doctrine also provides compliance measures and financial consequences of up to one month’s base pay or one-twelfth annual salary if found negligent in the loss of accountability in the custody and safekeeping of army property. In total, the dollar value of Financial Liability Investigation of Property Loss (FLIPL) for all army components, Active Duty (AD), Army National Guard (ARNG), and Army Reserve (AR) was $1,609.864,038, information extracted from the Army Vantage database and represents the period from March 2023 to March 2024. Undoubtedly, ARNG’s dollar value of property loss of $238,140,278.00 can cover the cost of research to identify a commercial Partner who can complete the installation’s assessment, propose a conventional way to conduct inventories and do away with the analog process. General George challenged the Guard to look at how we do inventories; he made the parallel to Walmart; they have a big warehouse, and an inventory is done overnight. To the cost of the Guards FLIPL dollar amount, it begs the questions: Are items lost, or is the task too daunting to continue, or is there not enough time to continue, and the final recourse would be to let the adjudication process take care of the rest?

In many cases, the latter may be palatable to that incoming Commander approaching the effective date of assuming command. The onus is on the outgoing Commander, a part-time officer in the Guard who cannot be removed from his full-time civilian job, to dedicate the necessary time and resources to this part-time responsibility. Lost, stolen, or damaged inventory is a severe problem for mission-critical operations. When accountability is expected, audit and compliance failures cause irreparable damage in modern times. Manual systems are frustrating and cause further delay and confusion, especially with high turnover. Solving inventory problems does not need to be expensive or add to complexities.

Market research indicates that an inventory software package can cost between $35,000 and $150,000 depending on the number of handheld mobile computers and portable printers and the number of devices being tagged, ranging from 3,000 to 15,000 items. Based on the installation’s requirements, brigade-level formation packages, including the Tool Cribs, Arms Rooms, unit-level expendable, and unit non-expendable, can scale up to $425,000. Customization can include integrating Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-A), Support Supply Activity, and automation enhancements such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Dashboarding via Application Program Interface (API) functionality. The Guard can measure the return on investment in implementing a Rapid Asset Management Platform in months and not years. The impact of technology in this process includes the individual soldier performing inventory functions such as receive, store, issue, and turn-in. Mission-critical impacts include readiness, accuracy of inventory, and correct location. Time-saving measures have a special meaning for the National Guard because of the statutory time constraints on the number of assembly periods authorized to train for the federal mission.

TRADOC Pamphlet 525-92 gives us a glimpse at our future operating environment through the lens of the Era of Contested Equality (2035-2050). It is an era of robust innovation in technology and convergence. This period is marked by significant technological breakthroughs and convergences regarding capabilities, leading to substantial changes in how the forces prepare and fight. Our commercial Partners have always been alongside us and on the battlefield throughout every conflict. Nesting them into our garrison operations is essential to foster that relationship. Can we imagine a world where tool crib inventories take about 30 minutes to complete? Outsourcing the task to assess all the durable items stored in the tool room cabinets and around the maintenance bays and investing in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and a few interrogators can make this a reality. We would know what we have, avoid duplicates, and do away with excess while saving money. The unit can be used to improve equipment on-hand readiness. Envision a supply room like the “Amazon marketplace store,” with the interrogator at the exit door and the motor pool gates. Envision an inventory system that can produce a report to indicate items out on a convoy with the capability to generate reports for what should still be remaining in the supply room, motor pool, and installation. Every item in a grocery store has a scannable barcode.

Similarly, every component of the end item can be tagged to avoid laying out every item to count manually. The Army Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiative allows a vehicle operator in the motor pool to use a personal cell phone to scan assigned equipment and transmit the results to the Supply Sergeant in the Supply Room, which is undoubtedly a game changer. The National Guard should invest in inventory software to decrease the cost associated with property loss and decrease inventory time. It is incumbent on National Guard Installation Commanders to prepare their organization to operate in the Guard of 2035 and beyond.

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