The Army’s recent Contested Logistics Cross-Functional Team (CFT) is prone to reach full operational capability (FOC) before the top of 2023, a lead Futures Command official said on Tuesday.
Willie Nelson, Futures Command’s deputy to the commanding general, during remarks on the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama detailed the initial priorities the Army has directed the Contested Logistics CFT to deal with, including efforts to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning and getting after increased fuel efficiency.
“The precise focus areas are still being hammered out, but here’s a brief list of areas the most recent CFT will likely address,” Nelson said. “The primary one focuses on precision sustainment, and that basically means rapid, data-driven, resilient logistics that leverages advances in machine learning and AI. The second area is demand reduction, leveraging hybrid engines, alternative fuels, etc. and recent materials to cut back weight and delivery times. The third one focuses on recent distribution platforms, each manned and unmanned, on the bottom, within the air and on the water and autonomous logistics operations, resembling automated ports and refueling operations. And, finally, advanced power generation that goals to cut back our consumable demands, resembling liquid fuels and batteries on the battlefield, and leverage recent technologies to realize greater efficiencies across the force.”
Gen. James Rainey, head of Army Futures Command, in late March announced the arise of the brand new Contested Logistics CFT, which relies at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville (Defense Every day, March 29).
“This CFT goes to be focused on tactical, so think division and below, elements of all things that must do with contested logistics. So we all know we’ve got to recuperate at this problem,” Rainey said on the time. “We’re putting it in Huntsville because Gen. [Charles] Hamilton, [head of Army Materiel Command] has the operational-level contested logistics problem and the strategic-level with the economic base, so where else would you set the oldsters which are going to work on the division and below for that.”
Nelson confirmed the brand new CFT has already initial operational capability, while reiterating the main target areas he detailed “should not final” and “may grow or change” as the brand new organization approaches the FOC designation.
“I fully expect, quite frankly, this list to ebb and flow just a little bit. I believe it’ll grow just a little bit. I believe the team will get dug in. I believe a few of these smaller ideas will get taken away and, like the remaining of the CFTs, they’ll be left with some foremost [lines of effort] that the Army’s agreed those are the foremost tactical areas we want to pursue,” Nelson said.
Rainey has previously confirmed he’s conducting a review of Futures Command’s CFTs, which bring together officials from different Army organizations to deal with specific modernization initiatives resembling Future Vertical Lift and Next-Generation Combat Vehicles, with the trouble potentially leading to the formation of latest CFTs.
“Indisputably, certainly one of the things we absolutely got right as an Army with AFC was the CFTs. [They’re about] identifying a transparent problem, scope it and dogpile talent on it from all of the stakeholders. My interest in CFTs is how can we be sure that we follow through on what they’re doing after which capitalize on this good approach to generating transformational activities for us as we go from [2030] to [2040],” Rainey told reporters in March. “It’s about capitalizing on something that works, not fixing something that’s not or a scarcity of emphasis or importance on the CFTs.”