The Official Publication of the National Defense Transportation Association
February 2018
www.ndtahq.com
The Technology Issue NDTA’s Cybersecurity Best Practices Committee USTRANSCOM Completes Transportation Management System Proof of Principle Internet of Things, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence in the Modern Supply Chain and Transportation How BNSF is Leading the Way for Drone Use in Rail
2
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
At the Ready For Your Local, State & Federal Governments We SPECIALIZE in SPECIALIZED SOLUTIONS
1,400 stepdecks & 1,300 flatbed trailers Multi-axle STRETCH
RAMPS
Blade trailers
Curtain side
80
TON
CAPACITY
LARGEST platform fleet in North America.
Load too heavy? Not for Landstar.
LANDSTAR GOVERNMENT SERVICES Over
220
STRETCH trailers
400
Over LOWBOYS that are 40-ton capable
UNIT MOVES WITH ONSITE CARRIER REPRESENTATIVE SECURE, DEDICATED government services with MORE THAN
300
Outstanding
SAFETY From RELIEF SUPPLIES to DOD transport.
Record
“SECURITY CLEARED TEAMS”
9,000
AA&E TEAMS and OVER HAZMAT CERTIFIED OPERATORS
Corporate Headquarters 13410 Sutton Park Drive, South | Jacksonville, Florida 32224 Visit www.landstar.com, call 800-443-6808 or email solutions@landstar.com
TRUCKLOAD • LTL • HEAVY HAUL/SPECIALIZED • EXPEDITED • AIR • OCEAN • RAIL INTERMODAL • TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS www.ndtahq.com |
3
4
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
February 2018
FEATURES February 2018 • Vol 74, No. 1 PUBLISHER
VADM William A. Brown, USN (Ret.) MANAGING EDITOR
Sharon Lo | sharon@ndtahq.com CIRCULATION MANAGER
Leah Ashe | leah@ndtahq.com PUBLISHING OFFICE
NDTA 50 South Pickett Street, Suite 220 Alexandria, VA 22304-7296 703-751-5011 • F 703-823-8761
NDTA’S CYBERSECURITY BEST 8 PRACTICES COMMITTEE Interview with Ted Rybeck
USTRANSCOM COMPLETES TRANSPORTATION 12 MANAGEMENT SYSTEM PROOF OF PRINCIPLE
By Michael P. Kleiman
INTERNET OF THINGS, MACHINE LEARNING, 14 AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE MODERN SUPPLY CHAIN AND TRANSPORTATION By Atul Mahamuni
GRAPHIC DESIGN & PRODUCTION MANAGER
Debbie Bretches
ADVERTISING ACCOUNT MANAGER
Bonnie Coggin bcoggin@cjp.com
ADVERTISING & PRODUCTION Carden Jennings Publishing Co., Ltd. Custom Publishing Division 375 Greenbrier Drive, Suite 100 Charlottesville, VA 22901 434-817-2000 x330 • F 434-817-2020
Defense Transportation Journal (ISSN 0011-7625) is published bimonthly by the National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA), a non-profit research and educational organization; 50 South Pickett Street, Suite 220, Alexandria, VA 22304-7296, 703-751-5011. Copyright by NDTA. Periodicals postage paid at Alexandria, Virginia, and at additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One year (six issues) $40. Two years, $60. Three years, $75. To foreign post offices, $45. Single copies, $6 plus postage. The DTJ is free to members. For details on membership, visit www.ndtahq.com. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Defense Transportation Journal 50 South Pickett Street, Suite 220 Alexandria, VA 22304-7296
HOW BNSF IS LEADING THE WAY 18 FOR DRONE USE IN RAIL Interview with Todd Graetz
DEPARTMENTS PRESIDENT’S CORNER | VADM William A. Brown, USN (Ret.)....................................... 7 NDTA NEWS.................................................................................................... 24 LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES | Captain Todd M. Fisk, USAF................................................26 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT | Irvin Varkonyi......................................................27 CHAIRMAN’S CIRCLE.......................................................................................28 HONOR ROLL..................................................................................................29 IN MEMORIAM................................................................................................ 30 INDEX OF ADVERTISERS.................................................................................... 30
We encourage contributions to the DTJ and our online publication, The Conduit. To submit an article or story idea, please see our guidelines at https://www.ndtahq.com/media-and-publications/submitting-articles/. www.ndtahq.com |
5
NDTA Headquarters Staff VADM William A. Brown, USN (Ret.) President & CEO COL Jim Veditz, USA (Ret.) Senior VP Operations Patty Casidy VP Finance Lee Matthews VP Marketing and Corporate Development Leah Ashe Manager, Database Kimberly Huth Director of Public Relations
GovTravels:
NDTA and DTMO’s Co-Sponsored Symposium on Government Travel & Passenger Services
“The Future of Government Travel” March 5-7, 2018 Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria, VA
Rebecca Jones Executive Assistant to the President For a listing of current Committee Chairpersons, Government Liaisons, and Chapter & Regional Presidents, please visit the Association website at www.ndtahq.com. EDITORIAL OBJECTIVES The editorial objectives of the Defense Transportation Journal are to advance knowledge and science in defense logistics and transportation and the partnership between the commercial transportation industry and the government transporter. DTJ stimulates thought and effort in the areas of defense transportation, logistics, and distribution by providing readers with: • News and information about defense logistics and transportation issues • New theories or techniques • Information on research programs • Creative views and syntheses of new concepts • Articles in subject areas that have significant current impact on thought and practice in defense logistics and transportation • Reports on NDTA Chapters EDITORIAL POLICY The Defense Transportation Journal is designed as a forum for current research, opinion, and identification of trends in defense transportation and logistics. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Editors, the Editorial Review Board, or NDTA. EDITORIAL CONTENT Archives are available to members on www.ndtahq.com. Sharon Lo, Managing Editor, DTJ NDTA 50 South Pickett Street, Suite 220 Alexandria, VA 22304-7296 703-751-5011 • F 703-823-8761 sharon@ndtahq.com
6
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
Registration is open for GovTravels 2018. GovTravels is the only event where decision makers from government and industry gather to meet, learn and collaborate on common travel issues. Our 2018 theme is The Future of Government Travel. If you work in passenger travel and related services for the federal government, a state government, or the private sector, GovTravels is for you. We are proud to co-sponsor this important event again with the Defense Travel Management Office, and we’ve created an exciting program with input from DTMO, the General Services Administration, and private sector stakeholders. This year’s speakers include leaders such as Mike Premo, President and CEO, Airlines Reporting Corporation, and John Bergin, Business Technology Officer, Department of Defense Chief Information Officer. NDTA is also hosting a full-scale exposition, where organizations can highlight their travel solutions and offerings, and attendees can benefit from the sharing of information. For more information, please visit: www.ndtahq.com/events/gov-travels/ We look forward to seeing you there!
PRESIDENT’S CORNER WELCOME NEW CORPORATE MEMBERS
Building on Our Positive Trajectory
as of January 31, 2018
VADM William A. Brown, USN (Ret.) NDTA President & CEO
G
reetings. As we welcome the New Year it is time to reflect on our collective accomplishments in 2017—and “shove off ” on our 2018 journey. We are excited because of all we have accomplished and where we are heading, by necessity, interconnected. We’ve adopted a theme for 2018 that reflects the overlap between 2017 and 2018: “Build on our positive trajectory!” First, it is abundantly apparent to me that the NDTA/DOD relationship is as strong as ever. That said, we will look to continue to build these relationships with USTRANSCOM and its component commands (SDDC, MSC and AMC), the Services, Joint
Staff and COCOMs and the new Office of the Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. We should all be encouraged by the strong turnout USTRANSCOM led at the 2017 Fall Meeting. It was incredible—at the leadership and deck plate levels—across all the partners I just mentioned! Many thanks. Our Nation’s ability to deter our adversaries continues to rely on the strong bond between DOD and Industry. Over the last year, much has been accomplished to bring industry and DOD together. Our strong committee structure enabled the world class Fall Meeting—2 ½ day plenary sessions, Transportation
REGIONAL PATRON • Erudite Company UNIVERSITY • McKendree University
Academy, CEO and Committee meetings. Reviews from the 1,233 attendees were overwhelmingly positive. It was also a professional education success with 68 classes, in 14 fields of interest, 96 instructors and 4 senior military leaders leading seminars. Working with the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO), we supported improvements in the government traveler experience and the efficiency of that process. The third annual GovTravels Seminar is in early March. Participants and sponsors are signing up now! See Pres. Corner pg. 30
Founded in 2008 by seasoned supply chain professionals, VETCOM is a Certified VeteranOwned Small Business. VETCOM combines logistics expertise with innovative technology to manage the delivery of goods safely, securely, rapidly, and cost-efficiently. Our backgrounds are diverse, with everything from our vast product knowledge, responsive IT solutions, skills, and extensive geopolitical understanding coming from years of hands-on consultative experience. We know what it takes to work globally and stay competitive in today’s fiercely competitive business environment. VETCOM manages domestic and international transportation for the government and government contractors. Challenging projects are our specialty. Trust us with the full array of your Supply Chain Management needs, to include shipping, warehousing, IT solutions, and more.
INFO@VETCOMLOGISTICS.COM
888-990-9897 EXT 802
WWW.VETCOMLOGISTICS.COM
www.ndtahq.com |
7
8
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
NDTA’s Cybersecurity Best Practices Committee A CONVERSATION WITH CHAIRMAN TED RYBECK By Sharon Lo, Managing Editor, DTJ & NDTAGram
Originally established as the Security Best Practices Committee to examine both both physical and cyber issues in a post 9/11 world, NDTA changed the name to the Cybersecurity Best Practices Committee in 2014 to reflect an an even greater cyber focus. The Cybersecurity Committee provides a forum for understanding the emerging cyber challenges and requirements for effective transportation and supply chain partners. For greater insight into the committee, DTJ sat down with its Chairman Mr. Ted Rybeck.
DTJ: Thanks for meeting with us today. To start, I know US Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) played a significant role within the committee and especially in the decision to refocus the committee on cybersecurity. Can you talk about how the various stakeholders came together on that decision? Mr. Rybeck: ADM James Loy [who was at the time the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration and then served as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security], Gen John Handy [who was the Commander of USTRANSCOM at the time] and his successor Gen Norton Schwartz helped us get the original Security Committee up and running after 9/11. It included a focus on physical security, as well as cyber security, in the context of preparedness response and recovery. That was when former NDTA President LTG Ken Wykle was guiding the creation of the committee. We also benefited from the coaching of LTG Wykle’s predecessor LTG Ed Honor. The decision to further focus the committee came in 2014 and 2015 when then USTRANSCOM Commander Gen Paul Selva, followed by current Commander Gen Darren McDew, along with VADM William Brown during his time as the Deputy Commander at USTRANSCOM and then as the Director for Logistics (J4) at the Joint Chiefs, all supported an increased concentration on cybersecurity. NDTA past President RADM Mark Buzby www.ndtahq.com |
9
promoted the notion of taking the Security Committee—which included cyber and physical—and naming it the Cybersecurity Best Practices Committee. DTJ: It’s great that the committee has received such strong support from senior leadership. Who exactly is a typical committee member? Mr. Rybeck: Committee membership always started with the notion that this is a CEO team mission-driven effort—with the CIO often acting as the point person—but that contrasts to calling this a technical mission issue. At its onset, the Security Best Practices Committee was led by the CEO of the various committee members. This ranged from CEOs of giant corporations to the CEOs of small family businesses that are in the transportation industry and part of NDTA. For the larger corporations, a company’s CIO often serves as the CEO’s point person. DTJ: And how do your various members from government, military and industry work together within the committee? Mr. Rybeck: We start by prioritizing which challenges are the most pressing for our members and the public-private sector partnership. Then we educate to those priorities. One of the strongest ways to upskill is exchanging best practices among the members. That way all the NDTA members share a common foundation of lessons learned. Cyber is one of those issues where competitive questions are less important and “united we stand” issues are more important. There’s no stronger common ground issue than cybersecurity. That’s also why the NDTA Cybersecurity Committee communicates what we’re doing into all the other committees, who also have cyber as integral to what they’re working on. DTJ: What are the committee’s main objectives? Mr. Rybeck: Our overall objectives are best stated in the committee’s charter: ‘The NDTA Cybersecurity Best Practices Com10
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
mittee, like the Security Best Practices Committee before it, represents shared cybersecurity interests and concerns between USTRANSCOM and its transportation and logistics industry partners. Across this community of interest and within the NDTA educational mandate, committee members create, instill, and inspire collaboration to increase cyber readiness. Specifically, committee members exchange and develop best practices and policies that prevent, manage, and respond to current and emerging cybersecurity threats. Ultimately, the committee’s efforts contribute to operational mission assurance for transportation and logistics.’ Within that charter, we have our 2018 priorities. First, the committee will continue to strengthen the understanding of all NDTA members on cybersecurity best practices and contract compliance requirements. This focuses on all businesses, but especially small businesses who may not have as many resources to dedicate toward cyber issues. How do we do that? One fundamental way is to help highlight the small number of supply chain data elements that need the most security. Otherwise, we can all get overwhelmed trying to protect oceans of data that are less sensitive or already public. These priorities align with the standard planning requirements of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-171 controls. In doing so, the committee supports each NDTA member in complying with the Department of Defense (DOD) requirements for NIST compliance by all DOD contractors. This includes strategic issues as well as device-level compliance issues such as the use of secure phones, which is an especially big challenge on ships. A prerequisite for any steps forward will be to keep it simple. A classic example of this has been password protection. Many of us know someone who got so overwhelmed with managing their passwords that they they put a Post-it note with the passwords on their computer screen. The takeaway is that new security regimens have to be practical enough that they don’t inadvertently create more problems than they solve. The committee aims to support the categorization of challenges and threats so that
everyone in the public-private partnership can better assess their own vulnerabilities as well as the potential cyber attack paths by any adversaries. Threat analysis also involves evaluating how fast NDTA members, USTRANSCOM, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the DOD overall can recover from a breach. This is a kind of proactive resilience or “prosilience” for mission assurance to use an expression from USTRANSCOM’s Chief Security Officer. That’s all hard to do, but from an educational perspective, this fits the NDTA mission.
That also raises the question of how you assess whether the information we’re dealing with from a partner is accurate or valid. All of this is about best practice sharing, which has to do with aligning those best practices between the military and the private sector leaders both technically and operationally. Like all the committees, we want to continue support of USTRANSCOM’s continuity of operation exercises. These exercises give everyone a chance to see what happens if USTRANSCOM or any of USTRANSCOM’s partners have to operate without the systems that they usually depend on. That also raises the question of how you assess whether the information we’re dealing with from a partner is accurate or valid. All of this is about best practice sharing, which has to do with aligning those best practices between the military and the private sector leaders both technically and operationally. DTJ: And do you still focus on physical security? Mr. Rybeck: Physical security by nature is a part of cybersecurity and cybersecurity by nature is dependent on physical security. Cyber was a big part of the NDTA Security Best Practices Committee from the start because there’s no way to avoid it. Old-fashioned perimeter security has been so integrated with digital assets that there
is no way to separate the two. For example, the NIST Cybersecurity Controls include issues that relate to physical access. Another example, that many NDTA members will be familiar with, is the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). The credential still has a long way to go in part because it requires agreement by policy makers and infrastructure owners on how to handle the challenges where physical security and cybersecurity intersect. DTJ: What do you feel have been the major accomplishments of the committee since refocusing on cybersecurity? Mr. Rybeck: There are three I think are most significant. First, clarifying the requirements for large and small businesses with the DOD as a whole, and with USTRANSCOM in particular. Second, beginning an exchange between the companies on their actual experiences with threats and remediation. This is a breakthrough example of why NDTA is so unique—the participants care enough about the DOD mission as a whole that they are able to share challenges that in another environment would be seen as negative exposure. There’s an old expression, “the nail that stands up shall be pounded down.” As it happens at USTRANSCOM, Gen McDew and his team, as well as his predecessors, have made it clear that it is about progress and not about looking good in an area that the entire world knows doesn’t look good. A third accomplishment—and a concrete example of upskilling, awareness, and then providing specific resources—is what the committee’s Working Group on Small Businesses did in pulling together a resource list that we have put on the NDTA website [located at www.ndtahq.com/ media-and-publications/cyber-resources/]. To be clear, these resources are relevant to all businesses, as well as small businesses. Having said that, we acknowledge that a large business often has more staff available to coordinate and distill their organization’s documentation on cybersecurity best practices.
DTJ: I’d like to switch gears a bit to get your thoughts on more general cyber issues. For starters, what do you feel are the biggest cyber challenges or threats facing transportation, logistics and supply chains today? Mr. Rybeck: To me the greatest challenge is how to prioritize preparedness and recovery in a combined public-private network like our Defense supply chain partnership. Any supply chain faces challenges of cyber preparedness and recovery due to multiple interdependencies. But the overall stakes, the global interdependencies, and the materiel complexity are all much higher in the Defense supply chain. That may sound depressing, but fortunately NDTA has been building joint upskilling capabilities since the united effort during World War II. So this is what NDTA knows how to address. Now those upskilling and mobilization resources need to be regeared for different adversaries and tools. DTJ: Do you find that certain threats are greater to or specific to certain modes, or being that supply chains are so interconnected do the same threats apply across the board? Mr. Rybeck: The particulars, such as the equipment and suppliers associated, change from mode to mode. But, most of the issues are common. The larger umbrella that brings them all together is communicating the right requirements with internal and external partners in a time when we’re all networked together, but without a common concept of operations on cybersecurity. We’ve developed that common concept of operations as we needed it for secure collaboration in the past. We’ve yet to apply that discipline to the Internet and the Internet of Things. DTJ: What are some solutions to these challenges? Mr. Rybeck: An important start has been NIST providing a national framework of control requirements that could be used internationally. A strength of the NIST approach is that it presents the challenge in a disciplined way that needs to be resolved by
This is a breakthrough example of why NDTA is so unique—the participants care enough about the DOD mission as a whole that they are able to share challenges that in another environment would be seen as a negative exposure. each organization, but it doesn’t specify the exact solution. That gives each organization the flexibility they need to take the right steps as the cyber attackers innovate. NIST compliance gets us to come together on a baseline of good practices on the way to best practices. There are more advanced precautions to take. As a first step, adhering to the NIST control requirements will make cyber attacks against the Defense supplier chain costlier and riskier for an adversary. That’s a goal for the private sector supply chain as well. So cyber upskilling and mobilization is a larger national and international issue that goes way beyond USTRANSCOM, DLA, and the DOD. All the more reason that NDTA, USTRANSCOM, DLA, DOD, and their private sector partners should be pacesetters on cybersecurity best practices. Inevitably, there will be incidents that occur. So it all comes back to how effectively the Defense supply chain can prepare and respond compared to the status quo. DTJ: Thank you so much for your time today. I’d like to close by asking the question that always comes to my mind when I read about cybersecurity issues—with cyber threats evolving so rapidly, how can organizations keep pace? Mr. Rybeck: The response to cybersecurity won’t be a thing that we buy. It can only be achieved by maintaining systems internally that securely updates the organization on what’s been done and needs to be done. That means we don’t get to build systems and move on. Instead, we need to concurrently update systems globally and upskill each individual on the system about their cyber defense responsibilities. Mission assurance depends on a faster pace of continuous upgrades and joint mobilization. That’s needed and that’s hard. DTJ www.ndtahq.com |
11
USTRANSCOM Completes Transportation Management System Proof of Principle By Michael P. Kleiman, US Transportation Command Public Affairs
U
S Transportation Command Together, they identified capabilities withof all transportation requirements and (USTRANSCOM) recently in numerous scenarios to “stress” a TMS and shipments in one system for optimized completed a successful proof of also validated that the system would support planning, including real-time deviation principle (PoP) effort that fused the command’s transportation requirements. alerts and the ability to re-plan • delivers the capacity for cost-informed a leading-edge, commercial-offUltimately, the command’s employthe-shelf, Transportation Manment of TMS smartly leverages enterprise options and end-to-end shipment fiagement System (TMS) capability with technologies to maintain America’s comnancial visibility for fiscal improvement government-integrated platforms. A and audit-readiness compliance in a TMS allows users to plan and execute single system “TMS supports the command’s effort to evolve the shipment of cargo of any kind “The world we live in today defor tomorrow by enhancing our operational more efficiently, reliably, and cost efmands we do things differently than fectively. It has the potential to sub- processes and supporting information technology what was done yesterday. The pace of stantially increase USTRANSCOM’s technology and information, as well to conduct efficient and effective multi-modal ability to manage its logistics enteras the changing character of war will operations, while providing proven, end-to-end, prise by delivering enhanced air, sea, not wait for us to catch up,” said Gen best-practice transportation solutions.” and land movement solutions, as well Darren W. McDew, USAF, Comas real-time visibility of cargo from mander, USTRANSCOM. “TMS point-of-origin to destination. petitive advantage in logistics operations. supports the command’s effort to evolve The PoP started on Aug. 7, 2017, and USTRANSCOM’s TMS journey demonfor tomorrow by enhancing our operaduring the next four months, the TMS strated the system: tional processes and supporting informateam, along with the command’s compo• brings people, processes, technology, and tion technology to conduct efficient and nents, worked with industry and subject data together across the organizational effective multi-modal operations, while experts from across the joint deployment enterprise providing proven, end-to-end, best-pracand distribution enterprise. • provides management and visibility tice transportation solutions.” 12
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
After the 2016 alternatives decision to the Joint Staff-approved program, Integrated Multi-Modal Operations, which evaluated readiness, life-cycle costs, and risks, the command subsequently identified TMS as the preferred solution from five options.
Six months later, Gen. McDew directed the formation of a TMS Joint Planning Team to rapidly conduct a 120-day PoP of TMS and government off-the-shelf systems, assessing its ability to perform global transportation-management functions. He charged the team to strain the
system, stating, “If it’s going to break, let’s break it fast.” Following a successful system demonstration on December 1, 2017, USTRANSCOM Deputy Commander, LtGen John Broadmeadow, USMC, subsequently directed the command to move forward in establishing a Joint Integrated Product Team (JIPT) to develop a TMS prototype. “The TMS is not just an internal solution for the command, but it will redefine how we do business on a global scale,” said Brig Gen John C. Millard, USAF, the command’s TMS Joint Planning Team lead. “In implementing the TMS prototype, USTRANSCOM capabilities and information resident in today’s existing systems will be leveraged to ensure success.” During the upcoming months, USTRANSCOM’s JIPT will partner with key strategic stakeholders, customers, and transportation partners to create and execute a detailed implementation plan. Since its establishment three decades ago, USTRANSCOM continues to answer the Nation’s call, whether delivering an immediate and decisive force when and where needed, assuring unrivaled global expeditionary capability, and now, with the TMS, optimizing warfighter support through immediate tracking and efficient and effective end-to-end movement of their equipment. DTJ www.ndtahq.com |
13
Internet of Things, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence in the Modern Supply Chain and Transportation By Atul Mahamuni, Vice President of IoT Applications, Oracle
14
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
T
hanks to ubiquitous connectivity, a plethora of sensors, advances in data analytics and (in the areas of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence [AI]), the Internet of Things (IoT), the industry is on the way towards revolutionizing the modern supply chain and transportation industries. These disruptive changes manifest themselves as new, smart capabilities in Supply Chain Management (SCM) applications especially in manufacturing, quality, maintenance, transportation, logistics and warehousing. Under the hood, these capabilities are enabled through the collection of sensor data and predictive analytics on the sensor data, along with contextual data form business applications and integration of these predictive insights into SCM/Transportation applications. Here are some of the quantifiable benefits that many SCM organizations have reported in industry publications: 1. 48 percent reduction in unplanned downtime: Unplanned downtime reduction from 11 percent to 5.8 percent due to IoT technologies. 2. 16 percent improvement in Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE): OEE improvements from 74 percent to 86 percent. This has a direct impact on overall productivity. 3. Defect rate cut in nearly half: From 4.9 percent to 2.5 percent. 4. 23 percent reduction in New Product Introduction cycle time: From 15 months to 11 months.
ROLE OF IOT, MACHINE LEARNING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Transformative Trends
IoT technologies are impacting the supply chains with the following key transformative trends—in the order of increasing potential of positive business impact: 1. Optimizations in individual supply chain functions: Each individual supply chain function—such as manufacturing, transportation, logistics, and service—are realizing operational improvements due to IoT technologies. For example, the manufacturing sector is witnessing significant bottom-line reduction due to real-time visibility into business Key Performance Indicators (KPI) such as OEE, zero unplanned downtime, and predictive maintenance. The transportation and logistics sector is benefiting from significantly lower downtime due to real-time monitoring of trucks, on-time arrivals due to location tracking and intelligent routing, reduction in liabilities due to driver behavior monitoring, and reduction in in-transit damages due to cargo monitoring. 2. Interconnecting the supply chain (Digital Thread): Today, individual functions in the supply chain operate in their own silo. Interconnection of the entire supply chain in a seamless Digital Thread delivers a new level of business benefits. For example, when in-
IoT enables harmonization of physical and digital realms spanning the entire digital thread from Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) design team, to manufacturing, to transportation and logistics, and to customer usage & service—thereby powering the modern supply chain of the future.
It is important to understand the positive business impact IoT, machine learning and AI are having on manufacturing, transportation and warehousing operations. There are specific technological advances that have made this possible.
crease in the product demand causes warehouse inventory levels to drop at a rate faster than usual, a new manufacturing order can be automatically planned and released. Shipments can be automatically planned and com-
municated to third-party logistics companies in real time, and product demand planning can be re-evaluated to take into account the surge in the demand signals. 3. New business models such as Servitization: Perhaps the most disruptive impact IoT technologies have on the supply chain is that it enables new business models. Servitization—or selling products as a service—is a major trend that is disrupting many industries. Stemming from IoT-based monitoring and predictions, companies are able to sell a service with pay-as-you-go model, instead of selling a product. For example, an engine manufacturer can sell engine-hours of operation with uptime guarantees, instead of selling an engine and annual maintenance contracts. This allows their customer to shift their expense models from Capital Expenditure to Operational Expenditure (Capex to Opex) and change their consumption patterns in a fundamental way. Key Use-cases
Using a variety of sensors, IoT Cloud applications collect data from the SCM and transportation operations. This data is used for the following purposes: 1. Event detection: Sensor data is used to monitor various conditions such as high operating temperature, excessive vibrations, low fluid flows, overspeeding drivers, off-route driving, or low inventory levels. Combining one or more of these sensor readings and comparing against operating thresholds enables the generation of events and incidents. These events further trigger workflows in the SCM applications to automate mitigating processes. 2. Predictions: Predictive models are built using the historical sensor data fed into machine learning or AI algorithms. The real-time sensor data is then used to evaluate using these predictive models to create real-time predictions. Organizations can take proactive steps to mitigate the impact
www.ndtahq.com |
15
of any potential impending problems based on these real-time predictions. 3. Root-cause analysis: Sensor data is often used in conjunction with the contextual data from the SCM applications to find the root-cause of snags in the supply chain operations. Consider the 5M model-based root-cause analysis process in a typical manufacturing operation as an example. In order to identify the root cause of a defective product, a process engineer typically looks at the machine data (sensor data), materials/supplier data (sensor as well as contextual data), man/personnel data (contextual data), measurements (sensor data), and method (contextual) data. IoT can help analyze the machine data in the context of data from business applications. 4. Anomaly detection: By observing sensor data over time, we can identify the normal patterns in the supply chain. Any non-standard deviations from these normal patterns can be identified from the sensor data to trigger additional scrutiny to reduce potential issues in the supply chain operations. BUSINESS IMPACT Transportation and Logistics
The business impact in the transportation and logistics operations is driven by: 1. Fleet monitoring: Monitoring of fleet vehicles a. Location: Monitoring location of the vehicles at all times. This location information can be used to optimize the overall fleet, detecting route deviations, detecting unauthorized trips, etc. b. Condition: Monitoring the condition of the engine, tires, brakes, as well as operating parameters such as temperature and vibrations. This information can be used to detect any safety or operational issues with the vehicle. c. Driving technique: Monitoring for potentially harmful driving behaviors such as hard-braking or hard-cornering, and over-
16
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
speeding can help minimize the risk of accidents. 2. Cost management: a. Fuel cost management: Fuel cost is typically a major portion of the operating expenses of a fleet. By managing the fuel burn
tion is required for various goods such as food products, pharmaceuticals and livestock transportation. 5. Warehouse and Yard management: a. Many processes in the yards and warehouse are manual, and
based on vehicle, driver, route and traffic conditions, it is possible to identify major factors contributing to excessive fuel burn. By correcting these factors, it is usually possible to reduce the overall fuel costs of operations. b. Fleet level optimizations: Due to a global picture of location and condition of each fleet vehicle and the historical patterns, it is possible to use machine learning techniques to find most optimal recommendations that optimize the fleet operations. 3. Compliance: a. Using the data collected from IoT sensors can make it easier to comply with the latest regulations such as the ELD mandate. b. It is possible to automate calculations required for the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA)-based tax reporting. 4. Cargo monitoring: a. Monitoring the condition of cargo throughout transporta-
hence, error-prone. Using IoT, customers can automate several tasks and optimize several others. Some examples of automation of tasks are: automated inventory and asset condition monitoring. Examples of optimization include asset and cargo location monitoring and recommendation of optimized placement plans. IOT ENABLED LOGISTICS AND TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT
As shown in the following figure, IoT plays a pivotal role in the modern Logistics and Transportation Management solutions. Monitoring vehicles and cargo, as well as warehouse assets provides visibility into operations. Further, monitoring driver behaviors, workers in the warehouses and conditions of the vehicles can reduce business risks through increased compliance to policies. Since fuel costs and maintenance costs are primary contributors to operating costs, IoT helps monitor the fuel burn and correlates these
with IoT sensor data to help isolate rootcause of high fuel and maintenance costs. IoT also simplifies operations by monitoring and predicting business KPIs at various levels—from vehicle level to a fleet level. However, probably the most important contribution of IoT in the
2. Worker and machine safety: Worker safety and machine safety can be significantly improved by detecting presence of humans and machines, analyzing their work patterns and alerting human workers and/or stopping the machines when a potential-
changing configurations of production lines and materials. IOT ENABLED MANUFACTURING
As shown in the adjacent figure, IoT is key to achieving the promise of Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution. First, IoT provides real-time visibility in the operations of the machines, production lines, factories, and plants. Through the use of reactive and predictive algorithms, IoT can minimize unplanned downtime by identifying the set of machines that need maintenance before they break down. Business relevant KPIs such as OEE, or yield and quality metrics, are automatically calculated as well, as predicted using the machine learning and AI algorithms. Lastly, IoT can help improve the operations significantly by eliminating manual processes through automation, and by being proactive instead of being reactive through predictive machine learning technologies. Implementations
modern supply chain is the ability to eliminate manual processes through automated actions based on reactive and predictive alerts. Manufacturing
The forth industrial revolution is transforming entire manufacturing processes throughout the world. The key focus areas of this innovation are: 1. Predictive maintenance: Operating parameters from production machines are collected through an IoT network, and the data is analyzed in a cloud computing environment along with other data such as supplier information and operator information. Advanced machine learning techniques are used to create predictive models of the machine operations. These models can then be used to predict failures and this information is used to automatically set up maintenance schedules. This can significantly reduce unplanned downtime, which is one of the major causes of loss of productivity in a manufacturing environment.
ly hazardous condition is either detected, or predicted using Machine Learning algorithms. 3. Business model transformation: In the pay-per-use economy, there is an increasing trend of using productsas-a-service. Customers are demanding that instead of buying a large capital asset, they want to consume the services of that asset, and pay the manufacturer based on the actual usage of the asset. To enable this, IoT collects information about product usage that is driven into billing applications. In addition, proactive service can be provided by the manufacturer to maximize runtime of their assets, thereby increasing their profitability. 4. Dealing with customer demand variability: The growing popularity of hyper customized products and the dynamic nature of customer demand patterns are driving significant variability in customer demands. With IoT analytics, manufacturers can predict the future demands, as well as help manufacturers deal with
Most IoT deployments in the transportation, logistics, and supply chain follow three distinct types of maturity: 1. Connected assets: Many initial deployments focus on simpler use cases that answer routine questions such as where are my assets, how are they working, are there any incidents that I should be aware of, how is the utilization and availability of my assets, where can I find a nearest working asset, etc. 2. Predictive insights: After the initial set of requirements is met, these deployments shift to the realm of predictive insights. Automated machine learning and AI algorithms can be employed to detect anomalous behaviors, predict equipment breakdowns and recommend corrective actions. 3. Operational excellence: The most sophisticated deployments blend IoT in their business processes. They can do so by using IoT technologies to extend their business applications— such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), SCM, customer service applications—to the physical world of assets, equipment and vehicles. Oracle calls this process IoTification of the business applications. DTJ
www.ndtahq.com |
17
How BNSF is Leading the Way for DRONE Use in Rail An Interview with Todd Graetz
Director TS – Telecomm, Technology Services, BNSF By Sharon Lo, Managing Editor, DTJ & NDTAGram Photos courtesy BNSF Railway
18
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
I
n May 2014 it was announced that BNSF would be one of three companies to partner with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the Pathfinder Program, a public-private partnership designed to help the FAA determine if and how to safely expand unmanned aircraft operations in the United States. BNSF was tasked with exploring the challenges of using long range drones to inspect their rail infrastructure beyond visual line-ofsight in isolated areas. Todd Graetz has 15 years of experience with advanced technology including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)/ Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), wireless and fiber optic systems, telecom operations, and transportation communications. He is a member of the FAA’s Drone Advisory Committee and its UAS Identification and Tracking Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). He is also an active private pilot and UAS operator. DTJ: Thanks for taking the time to interview today. To start off, can you tell us about BNSF’s role in the Pathfinder Program? Mr. Graetz: BNSF’s role in the Pathfinder Program, which started in mid2015, has been focused solely on how a commercial entity could operate an unmanned aircraft—also known as a drone—over long distances, well beyond the line of sight of the operator. We were given that charge because out of a great number of organizations that may have an interest in that research, we bring some key elements to the table. First and foremost is our safety focus. The FAA knows we are going to be a safe operator and a safe partner. Second is our infrastructure and right of way, which creates a known, predictable flight path for the efforts. We kicked off the program in 2015 and we’ve had multiple milestones since then. In 2015, we developed the safety case and created the structure so that we could prove to both our research partner at the FAA and the industry as a whole that this can be done in North America,
in the continental United States, it can be done in lightly populated areas, and it can be done in a safe manner. And we did so working with another organization, Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing. We worked with their ScanEagle system and our resources, and we deployed the first longrange beyond line of sight civil operation ever in the lower 48 states. The next step after proving we could fly was to start talking about rail specific systems. That includes rail specific aircraft, sensors, software and systems—and that’s where the program evolved in 2016 and into 2017. We started creating and/ or co-developing a number of different technologies and systems that allowed us to perform the operation in a way and means that was conducive to railway operations. Some of the things we needed were an aircraft that didn’t require a runway or some kind of launcher, and sensors that have the precision and the capability to see small items on the right of way whether that be small breaks in the rail or changes in tie condition or ballast. We needed highly sensitive sensors and then we needed a way to analyze that data. Our role as the Beyond Visual Line of Sight Pathfinder with the FAA was focused on the flight technology, procedures and rules, etc., and how can this be done in a safe manner—that’s been the guiding focus of the partnership since day one and it remains as our partnership with the FAA continues. So we explored how to bring this to fruition and then more importantly, how do our efforts benefit the other railroads, how do our efforts benefit other linear asset operators such as pipelines and powerlines—and that’s our role. DTJ: Over course of the program, how has the technology evolved? Mr. Graetz: Back in 2015, if we could have just gone and used the standard military technology, we would have been a lot further down the road. But, unfortunately none of that met our needs of precision. We’re not at high altitude and we’re not looking around for people moving on the ground, we’re at low altitude and we’re lookwww.ndtahq.com |
19
ing at something that’s very small on the right of way so that required a lot of innovation. DTJ: And how does a drone inspection compare to inspections performed by humans? Mr. Graetz: We have a very high-quality maintenance program at BNSF. In many cases, we exceed the requirements given to us by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), so that puts a challenge on anything new whether it’s drones, automated geocars, or things we put on locomotives— we have to be better than human or more importantly, we have to provide the human with information that they otherwise couldn’t easily get for themselves. So that takes you to a level where you have to be better, in many cases, than either the human eye or better than human recognition. The whole technology has been focused on how to supplement what we are doing. We want to see how to give our humans tools to make their jobs easier, safer, and that much more effective for railway safety. That drove a lot of the technology requirements, so when you think about a drone inspection duty comparing to what a human is going to do in most cases we are doing something that is more difficult for the human to do. In these conditions it is certainly possible for a human to get there, but why wouldn’t you send the robot and do it a little bit easier then provide the human with information? We’ve been given some challenges and a lot of what we’ve done is supplemental which means we take the information our inspectors are seeing now and we’re just trying to identify, detect, or measure something from the sky. Someday that will give us the ability for the rail inspector to only have to get onto the track, be on the side of a bridge, under something, in a tunnel, or something like that when various sensor systems have indicated that the track occupancy is warranted or that hanging over the side of this bridge makes sense versus doing it in scale for all the right reasons. DTJ: Do you have areas where inspections are done solely by drone and/or do you see there being a day when all rail inspections can be performed by drones? Mr. Graetz: So because everything we’re doing today is supplemental, it’s an additive and has not replaced anything we are doing with humans or other inspections. 20
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
What we are developing right now is expanding the reach of the daily flight operations of our various drones. And we’re expanding that reach so that we can go out there and collect more data in a larger scale. We’re doing that in scale right now so that at some point down the road there might be a day where our human track and bridge inspectors trust the information they’re getting enough that they say ‘well I have to check this bridge today, but I’m going to send the drone first and then I’ll go on there only when necessary.’ That’s still a ways off, but that’s what we’re trying to get to—this becoming part of the tools that our workforce leverages just like they might leverage a special hammer or some special measuring tool—drones can be just another tool in our toolbox. DTJ: In preparation for talking with you today I read a bit about how difficult and sometimes treacherous track inspections can be so that sounds like a great goal. Mr. Graetz: Yeah, it can be. You know, the way we look at it is that drones are just part of a series of technologies. At our company, we’re looking at all kinds of things that can be done because our railroad is a safe, but unforgiving environment. So we want to add to our tool box, we want to make some track occupancy optional, and we want to empower our workforce to be better. Why not do that with things like drones? DTJ: What sort of data do you collect during inspections? Mr. Graetz: When you look at the data we collect there’s the obvious stuff—getting high resolution video, lots of photos of different things, but the real important thing about whatever we are collecting, whether it be infrared data, LIDAR data which is data you generate from sending multiple laser beams at something, or whatever it is, the core of it is that it has to be intelligent data. That means it has to be data that can be easily related to some other data points that we generate, it has to be easily mined, or it can be turned into something. One example of that would be if you take thousands of photographs of our bridge and it can be turned into a 3-D model of the bridge. Or, another instance of this would be analyzing the video stream coming from something on a locomotive of what a track looked like when the locomotive was going by. You can then check
if that date and time relates to something that the drone got in a still image and use the data so it can be easily related, mined, researched, and/or used to create additional inspection capabilities. The data is just the element, what’s important is how smart, how useful, or how relatable is that data to other things in our inspection system. For example, today a team of ours is meeting at the Southwest Division Headquarters in Belen, New Mexico. One thing that they’re going to be talking about is that they can get on the phone with us and say ‘I need to know what this switch, this crossing, or this piece of rail looked like on these days.’ We just have to get into our little system and say ‘here are the three images.’ Or it can be engineering saying ‘look the last time you guys were at that bridge— tell me what this segment looked like at this point, send me the video, send me the images.’ So we’re starting now to educate our workforce on what is available. DTJ: I would think this helps a lot with things like natural disasters where you are looking at changes over a specific timeframe. Mr. Graetz: Yes, that’s right, change detection is a big piece, along with mining the data, storing the data, and forecasting. There’s a group in our organization within Operations Research that is leveraging a series of data sets to ultimately build a predictive model. This is meant to look at things like whether we have to replace every tie in every subdivision every X number of years or if these ties we need to replace because they have the most prevalence to do XY and Z. That’s what we’re trying to get to with all of these different sensors. The nice thing about a drone is it’s not on the track and it doesn’t get in the way of anything so it can take pictures, it can get video, it can scan with lasers. That’s really what we’re trying to do—that’s the core of it. DTJ: I’d love to hear a bit more on the technical aspects of using drones. I know you need night vision, but what other features are required on the drones BNSF uses? Mr. Graetz: We’ve had to add quite a bit of technical capability to the existing systems. As I mentioned earlier, we jointly developed a number of our most critical systems. You mentioned night vision, and we do have to be able to fly at night which really means we have to have to be able to see with enough resolution at night the
same as we see during the day. We do that with your typical infrared cameras, different thermal imagery, and we have started putting on these extremely bright LED lighting arrays—even onto our smallest 15 minute flight time line of sight drones—to be able to look at railyards and bridges at night. So we’ve really had to perfect how we can fly at night in support of our efforts. More important than how do you fly at night, though is how to be visible to other aircraft or to people on the ground. That’s where a lot of our Pathfinder research has delivered benefits because we’ve created a series of systems and sensors that you can put on an aircraft, that allows that aircraft to now become visible to other cooperative aircraft, visible to air traffic control, and that is also being worked on going into 2018 as we start our expansion. In fact, just the other day there was a larger Cessna twin engine airplane flying between Albuquerque and Clovis, New Mexico. It decided to get some fuel
about 1,000 feet from our right of way at an airport. As that pilot got on the radio and announced his intentions, our pilots heard him and said ‘hey, just an advisory, this is N410BN, we’re at this heading, this altitude.’ The pilot thought for a second and you could hear him pause on the radio before saying ‘what are you doing so low?’ And our pilots explained that they were an unmanned aircraft patrolling the right of way of the BNSF railroad. But, this guy was talking to our pilots and he has no idea that they’re hundreds of miles away even though the drone is right near him. So those are some of the technologies that we had to develop—night flying,
aircraft visibility, air traffic control communications, amongst many other things. These all make it possible to put a drone into the air whether it’s in a flooding situation, there’s other aircraft, weather events or service interruptions, or it’s just day-today inspections of the infrastructure. DTJ: We’ve touched a bit on how the data collected is analyzed, but can you tell us more about that? Mr. Graetz: Yeah, we’re really proud of this part and it continues to evolve almost monthly. When I step back and I look at presentations we gave two years ago versus what we’re talking about today, it’s amazing how fast this moves. Early on we knew the flying object thing that has to happen and there’s going to be some difficulty there, we’re going to have to work with the FAA, and we’ve got to find the right sensors to do all this other stuff, but the real crux of the matter is that you’re going to generate a mountain of data
and the data has to be analyzed. As I said earlier, we’re taking smart images that can be related, but it has to be analyzed and it has to be analyzed quickly. So we had to develop machine vision systems that understood what a tie should look like and what it shouldn’t look like, what a rail should look like and what it shouldn’t look like, and from the most rudimentary basis we take literally thousands images in a single flight. Those images are then processed by a fairly sizable array of graphical processing systems and supercomputing technology that spits out reports that say okay, these are the areas of interest in the subdivision (subdivisions are about 200 miles of track).
The reports say here are the areas of interest, this is a picture of the area of interest, this is where it’s located and things like that. I talked earlier about the models of bridges and so forth, but the net benefit when you talk about what we’re doing in long-range flight and how we are adding subdivisions is about processing. In an average day we were generating just under a terabyte of data, and we’re about to add to that now to end up being about 3 terabytes a today—that’s a lot of data. And, we don’t give ourselves more than about 30 minutes to crank through that. So we really worked hard at refining the technology to analyze data and we’re not stopping there. Now we have a number of real-time products because it doesn’t matter if you find the broken rail if the trains have already gone over it by the time you send the data out. So we have to do that day and night in real-time as well. DTJ: Besides normal day-to-day inspections, in what ways is BNSF utilizing drones? Mr. Graetz: We starting to use it for a lot of environmental remediation efforts. We also utilize it to protect some parts of our infrastructure from malicious activity. We have leveraged them obviously in a service interruption standpoint too. One prime example of that is getting eyes in the air in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. This was also where a lot of our safety capability, aircraft systems, pilots, and procedures came into play because as you can imagine once the weather—and we were flying in some of that weather—but, once the weather died down everybody wanted something in the air, whether it was a news helicopter, the National Guard, or a drone so we were working closely with the FAA and getting our little pockets of air space protected so that we can operate. Occasionally will have a small service interruption, some kind of a small derailment or something like that. Drones are great to be able to get in there at the situation long before you put somebody down in the area to assess, get some volume metrics of what spilled, or where it is, and thankfully we don’t have to use those a ton. And then the other thing which has been nice is a lot of our customers have significant facilities alongside ours and sometimes it helps everyone in planning for something like a new service delivery, a new product, or expansion of a facility. We do a lot of aerwww.ndtahq.com |
21
ial work to give them that bird’s-eye view of how the whole system will work together. The other thing I’ll mention that I think is really interesting is a really simple thing you can do with a drone that has a very meaningful impact on rail safety. We have a fair number of locomotives that we keep in storage for surge capacity or some kind of emergency need. They have to be inspect-
Again, when you take a large yard that might be several miles north to south by several miles wide you can send up one of these simple drones and a few hours later we can hand the yardmasters and transportation people an analysis of what’s in the area. And little simple things like that go a long way in making the safety case and a little bit of an efficiency case, and we’ve just begun to roll that out so I’m pretty excited about what we will be able to do in our yards and some of our other larger facilities in 2018. ed, as they can’t just sit there for three years and we hope that when we bring them out they’re working. The mechanical department has to inspect them and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen locomotives all tied up in a rail yard, but there can be 20 in a line and 140 locomotives in a small area. To get on top of a locomotive you have to have fall protection, you have to have it set out somewhere, there’s a lot of things to do. But one day, the mechanical department came to us and said ‘look we’ve got 300 locomotives sitting at Kansas City tied up and ready to go, can you go inspect the tops of them and just tell us if there’s caps on them?’ So in two hours we did what would’ve taken them weeks and entailed climbing all over and all the other things that goes with it. It’s the little things like that go a long ways in providing that return on safety. One other thing we are really excited about is that we do a lot of yard measurement. We are required to know about certain assets—their locations, has that asset moved, is it too close to something, is it not applicable to a situation, or is it not compliant. Again, when you take a large yard that might be several miles north to south by several miles wide you can send up one of these simple drones and a few hours later we can hand the yardmasters and transporta22
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
tion people an analysis of what’s in the area. And little simple things like that go a long way in making the safety case and a little bit of an efficiency case, and we’ve just begun to roll that out so I’m pretty excited about what we will be able to do in our yards and some of our other larger facilities in 2018. DTJ: It sounds like this is really going to benefit work in your rail yards. Are there any additional ways you see drones being used by rail in the future? Mr. Graetz: We’re still fairly young in the use of this technology so we know there will be new ways we can find use of the technology, and in the future, we will begin to explore all of them. DTJ: What you all have done with drones is significant for the rail industry. How does that information get shared with other railways? Mr. Graetz: We have as part of our Pathfinder relationship certainly provided a lot of information that the FAA shares with other linear asset companies, but specific to rail we’ve actually been pretty collaborative with some of our competitor rails. While we might be aggressively looking for business in the marketing world, at the end of the day we have to be collaborative when it comes to moving freight. And we’ve been very collaborative on the technology side of the house. Obviously, we don’t share a lot of our proprietary things that we’ve developed, but there’s a very active dialogue right now with a number of the other Class I railroads and we are sharing lessons learned, benefits, and they’re doing the same things. So from a sharing standpoint, we’ve been very collaborative with others that would have an interest in using this specific system. And what we’re doing is obviously not for everyone because not everyone has the kind of right of way and assets we do, but for those who have a similar use case we’ve shared quite a bit of our findings. DTJ: What advice would you give to organizations looking to utilize drones in their operations? Mr. Graetz: I would say the best way to start is like we did—start with the safety case for why one would begin using drones. The reason I say that is that if you start with
the safety case, you also start with the mentality that you would not utilize drones to increase safety on one side of your operation all while increasing risk on the other hand. I think too many times people forget when they look at a civil-commercial type UAS operation, and there’s many growing especially in the line of sight world, to consider the risks. They don’t consider the safety case and they don’t manage the risk out of the operation whether it’s not using the right pilots, maybe not using the best aircraft, or the right system. So I think if you start with the safety case and you build your commercial capabilities around it you will end up being much better off. DTJ: Is there anything we haven’t covered that you would like to talk about? Mr. Graetz: One thing that may be of interest to DTJ readers is that as part of our Pathfinder arrangement, we’ve developed a number of flight agreements with various military organizations and have had some very positive interactions with the US Air Force in particular. We’ve actually even created a letter of agreement on one Air Force Base to operate in, around and through it. So what we’re helping to do is that as BNSF, and organizations like it, interact with organizations like the Air Force or Army that have airspace over our areas of operation, if we can develop ways of safely interacting with them then two things happen: First, others might have the same need and those who operate in proximity will be able to do so in a manner that does not detract from the defense mission of the airspace user. More importantly, think about the rise in drones, how many are registered and how many are operating. The US Military counts on military operating areas, restricted airspace, and other volumes of air need to train and accomplish their mission, and they feel like that’s somewhat at risk and that they are kind of under attack from their constituents. So what we’re trying to do in working with the DOD—at the Pentagon level, as well as at the base level—is to create and maintain those positive interactions. And this first letter of agreement that will be operated in and around Cannon Air Force Base is a start to what ultimately could help ensure that the military is able to continue to have control over the airspace that they need, all the while not standing in the way of transportation safety and related safety initiatives. DTJ
CUT AT LINE & MAIL OR FAX TO: National Defense Transportation Association | 50 S. Pickett St., Suite 220, Alexandria, VA 22304-7296 | (FAX) 703-823-8761
Costs are minimal, but the rewards are great! >> Contact NDTA for more information at 703-751-5011 or visit www.ndtahq.com <<
NDTA MEMBERSHIP
Maybe you know someone who would like to join. The National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA) is a non-political and non-profit educational Association composed of government, military, and industry professionals dedicated to fostering a strong and efficient global transportation and logistics system in support of national security. Membership in NDTA affords opportunities to serve and educate the community in your area of expertise as well as other special benefits.
APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP Name
CORPORATE MEMBERSHIP
Corporate membership in NDTA provides increased exposure and networking opportunities for those companies wanting to do business with the US government or military. Membership should be a key part of any business plan where the defense and government logistics, transportation, travel and distribution system is the target market. Corporate membership will offer your team the opportunity to be a part of the discussion and share ideas with top military, government, their execution teams, and industry leaders—the individuals who are setting and influencing the transportation, travel and distribution agenda for today and the future.
APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP
Position/Title Organization
Name
Mailing Address
Position/Title
City
State Zip
Organization
Work Phone
Mailing Address
Birth Date
Chapter Affiliation
City
Sponsor
Work Phone
Membership Type
Fax
Life $450.00
State Zip Email
Membership Type
Regular – 3 Years $150.00 Military/Government – 3 Years $135.00 Regular – 1 Year $55.00
Chairman’s Circle Plus (global or national company with multiple operating entities)
Military/Government – 1 Year $50.00
Chairman’s Circle (global or national operating company)
Young Leaders (under 35 years of age) $40.00
Sustaining Member (national or regional operating company)
Retired (not gainfully employed) $40.00
Regional Patron (small business or local operating company)
Student $20.00
Amount Remitted $______________________
Amount Remitted $______________________
Donation to the Foundation $______________________
Donation to the Foundation $______________________
Check #_________
Discover
Visa
MasterCard
American Express
Card No.
Check #_________
Discover
Visa
MasterCard
American Express
Card No. Expiration Date
Expiration Date
Cardholder’s Name
Cardholder’s Name
Signature
Signature
www.ndtahq.com |
23
NDTA NEWS NDTA Flag Flies Proudly at Kings Bay
R
DML Michael P. Holland, Commander, Submarine Group TEN, recently presented the National Defense Transportation Association Military Unit of the Year Award (US Navy Active Component) to TRIDENT Refit Facility (TRF) Supply Department to recognize their outstanding service in the field of transportation and logistics. The ceremony included the raising of an NDTA flag outside the TRF quarterdeck in Kings Bay, Georgia, to commemorate the award. RDML Holland thanked the supply team for their high standards and consistently strong performance supporting the submarine force!
NDTA Proudly Supports US Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots
I
f you stopped into NDTA headquarters this December you may have noticed the conference room was a bit more colorful than usual. That’s because it was full of children’s toys destined for the US Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program. Toys for Tot’s mission is to collect new, un-
24
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
wrapped toys during October, November and December each year, and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to less fortunate children in the community in which the campaign is conducted. NDTA headquarters has proudly supported this cause each holiday season since 2009 and, with the help of its members and friends, each year the Association has been able to increase its donation. Thank you to NDTA’s corporate and individual members, neighbors and friends whose support made this year a great success: Agility Defense & Government Ser-
vices, Avis Budget Group, Bennett Motor Express, BETA Consulting, Crane Worldwide, Dr. Delaney & Staff, COL & Mrs. Denny Edwards, EventRebels, Extended Stay America, FedEx, Gerry Gunter, International Auto Logistics, International Longshoremen’s Association, John Joeger, Maersk Line, Dr. Ann McDonald, Oakwood Worldwide, Omega World Travel, Universal Logistics, VA Family Chiropractic, VA Family Clinic, Visit Anchorage, the NDTA Washington DC Chapter and LTG Kenneth Wykle. Your kindness and generosity are much appreciated! DTJ
Colombo
Port Klang Tanjung Pelepa
EUCOM EUCOM
Riga
Rotterdam Felixstowe
Antwerp Canakkale Le Havre Germersheim Â&#x2018;essaloniki Genoa Leghorn Salerno
Seattle
NORTHCOM
Busan Kobe
Oakland Los Angeles
Kwangyang
Yokohama
Newark
Philadelphia Baltimore Norfolk Charleston Savannah
Houston
Algeciras Tangier
Miami
Nouakchott
Santo Tomas de Castillo Puerto Cortes
Middle East Service Persian Feeder Service Anatolia Feeder East Africa Service Transatlantic Service Transpacific Service Northern Distribution Network (NDN) Foreign
as
Brisbane
Manzanillo Balboa
Cartagena Panama
Buenaventura Manaus Callao
Lome
Pecem
SOUTHCOM
CENTCOM
Constanta Poti Bosperus Ambarili Port Izmir Izmit Mersin Iskenderun
Piraeus Marsaxlokk
Aqtau Hairaton
Baku
Towraghondi
Aqaba Umm Qasr Shuwaikh Shuaiba Dammam Bahrain Mesaieed Abu Dhabi Jebel Ali Salalah
AFRICOM
Sher Khan Bandar Kabul Kandahar
Kwan
PACOM
Port Qasim
Pipavav Jawaharlal Nehru Laem Chabang
Djibouti
Cotonou Apapa Douala
Colombo
Singapore
Port Klang Tanjung Pelepas
Mombasa Dar Es Salaam
Salvador Suape Toamasina Itaguai Santos Paranagua Itapoa San Antonio Montevideo Buenos Aires
Freemantle Sydney Melbourne
Burgas
Alexandria Damietta Port Said Caucedo
U.S. Flag Priori Routes
KlaipÄ&#x2014;da Hamburg Bremerhaven
Auckland
Port Louis Port Reunion Durban Capetown
Fre
Port Elizabeth
Global Challenges: American Ingenuity Weekly U.S. Flag P1 service to Europe, Middle East and Asia with dedicated U.S. Flag feeders
Greatest number of ships in MSP and VISA programs
Most extensive U.S. Flag port coverage
Only Global Carrier of Military Household Goods
Largest Global U.S. Flag carrier
For updates that could impact your cargo, please visit http://customercorner.maersklinelimited.com www.ndtahq.com |
25
LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES Building Confidence to Establish Leadership Captain Todd M. Fisk, USAF, Air Mobility Command
T
hroughout my career, I have been part of numerous speeches, discussions, and debates regarding the right way to lead people and organizations. I have always referred to people in leadership positions as leaders or “senior leadership.” Were they truly leaders or had they worked into positions that warranted authority? Over the past few years, I’ve started thinking about those I consider leaders and managers in various positions of authority. During this reflection, I arrived at two important conclusions that will drive my own future leadership style.
Energy leads to motivation, motivation leads to production and production leads to success. Creating motivation and empowering a young professional to discover their talents will make it easier for the older generation to embrace integration with this new generation. More importantly, this will foster a foundation of trust for increased independence to make decisions and carry the vision and intent of the organization throughout. – Capt Paul E. Stump, USAF
First, not everyone in a leadership position or supervisory position is a leader. Second, building confidence in people while they’re young helps establish future leaders. Building a team that takes action without micromanaging them will make your people invaluable; not allowing your people to make decisions or take action on their own will make them robots or responsive only to direct tasks. Leaders take action by training, focusing, and empowering the people around them to make decisions. The oppo-
site approach results in people not stepping up for fear of reprisal, ultimately limiting their individual leadership potential. Let your team make decisions on your behalf, as long as you have effectively communicated your intent. Start small to build confidence in your people so they can make decisions in the organization’s best interest. Below is a simple three-step process to follow: STEP 1: Establish and communicate vision and intent. STEP 2: Empower them to act autonomously based on your vision and intent. STEP 3: Trust your team! They will be wrong sometimes, but learn from mistakes. The following mental model helps put my thoughts and ideas into context. Taking the word “leadership” and breaking it down into three parts (using dictionary. com) helps to explain my thought process. “Lead” is defined as “to go before or with to show the way.” Train your team and demonstrate to them how you would like it done. Call this the “see one, do one” method. Subsequently, “leader” is defined as “a person or thing that leads.” An effective leader provides vision intent and puts each situation into context. There has been no better way to bring out the best characteristics of those on your team than to provide effective context when approaching a problem or task. “Leadership” is defined as “the position or function of a leader, a person that guides or directs a group.” At this point, your team has been trained and shown how to conduct themselves. They have been given a vision, intent and provided context. Now, empower the team to act and make decisions on their own, with guidance and mentorship as required.
An important aspect often talked about is how to inspire today’s younger generation and integrate them with an older generation that may be set in their ways. As a friend of mine, Capt Paul E. Stump, USAF, put it, “energy leads to motivation, motivation leads to production and production leads to success. Creating motivation and empowering a young professional to discover their talents will make it easier for the older generation to embrace integration with this new generation. More importantly, this will foster a foundation of trust for increased independence to make decisions and carry the vision and intent of the organization throughout.” The earlier confidence is established, the better chance there is to establish intrinsically motivated leaders. As a personal example, my team is currently rebuilding their mission. They were provided a vision and intent, a mission statement and lines of effort. Each team member was assigned an area of responsibility and empowered to own the process and decide the best way to get their tasks accomplished. Their challenge is to build an efficient and effective program that works for everyone. There is not enough time or capacity to build it all myself, nor is it beneficial for my team to sit back and wait for me to do it. Each team member is building their confidence and establishing themselves as potential leaders. My job now is to provide guidance and mentorship as required. When you let your people work for you, you will increase organizational morale and long-term success. As the newer generation of leaders begins and continues their climb into positions of authority, investing time and energy into their development needs to be a priority. To measure success, just try to objectively look at whether or not your organization would continue to operate seamlessly with you not present. DTJ
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed or implied are those of the author and should not be construed as carrying the official sanction of the Department of Defense, Air Force, Air Mobility Command or other agencies or departments of the US government.
26
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Job Searches and Recruitment Getting the Most from Your Capabilities through Resumes and LinkedIn Irvin Varkonyi, President, SCOPE Consulting ivarkonyi@scopedu.com
T
he past year has proven strong in job growth as the digital economy continues to thrive and the overall economy seeks more technical skill sets. Some 70 percent of recruiters surveyed by JobVite in 2016 forecasted strong growth in positions, especially in highly desirable technical fields. As you search for jobs, gain desired outcomes by getting the most from your capabilities through professional resumes and online tools such as LinkedIn. While you can continue to benefit by responding to job ads, companies now fine tune their recruitment online so that they find you, or rather your resume. Let me start by stating what should be obvious. It should be accurate, not only with respect to dates, names and such, but there’s no excuse for typos or the use of incorrect words. Spell check is good but it won’t make sure you’ve used the correct word. I experience this frequently in grading papers for my students at the universities where I teach as an adjunct professor. You might ask someone to read your resume to look for such mistakes. Jessica Hernandez, Executive Resume Writer, offers the following top ten best practices to develop an effective resume and job campaign1:
story grabs your attention. It does so with a compelling headline and some quick bullets that give you the most-important, need-toknow facts,” Hernandez says. Of course, you must still be diligent in using the written word—stay away from texting style prose. TIP #6
Stay away from filler type words like professional, success, results. Instead of saying you had a great success, states Hernandez, give an example of a success, using metrics to demonstrate your success. Enable the recruiter to understand your success through measurable results. TIP #7
Incorporate color into your resume. Nearly all resumes are now viewed online so jazz it up. Not that you need a rainbow of colors but perhaps some color coordination that enables the recruiter to See Prof. Devel. pg. 30
TIP #1
How fresh is your resume? Has it been more than a few years since you’ve updated it? You have accomplished much in your current job and should add more recent accomplishments. Even if you’re not looking for a new job, updating your resume and posting it online may attract recruiters who might seek you out. It’s always good to be wanted. TIP #2
Consider the culture of the companies that you are interested in joining. This can be done by talking with company mangers or checking out the company Facebook and LinkedIn sites. Determine if this culture is appealing to you and if you will be appealing to the company’s culture. TIP #3
Create or update your LinkedIn profile. Says Hernandez, “87% of recruiters report using LinkedIn FIRST when it comes to searching for qualified candidates. This needs to be the first place you direct the employer so that they can learn more about your accomplishments and culture fit for their company.”
CYBERSECURITY Increased port cybersecurity & interoperability through system & software integration
PROVEN EXPERTS Application System & Functional Experts supporting Transportation Financial Management
RMF Proven Risk Management Framework across air, land, & sea
GEOINT DEV/OPS Mobile app DEV/OPS supporting GEOINT systems worldwide
TIP #4
Keep politics out of your resume. Recruiters have personal political beliefs as you do. The resume is not the place to share your beliefs. TIP #5
The resume is meant to grab the recruiters’ attention. “Instead of using a career summary or profile at the top of your resume I encourage you to take the career snapshot route instead. We want to grab their attention and make them care. Think about how a news
www.feditc.com | 877-220-5929| 6243 West IH-10, Suite 500, San Antonio, TX 78201
www.ndtahq.com |
27
CHAIRMANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CIRCLE
These corporations are a distinctive group of NDTA Members who, through their generous support of the Association, have dedicated themselves to supporting an expansion of NDTA programs to benefit our members and defense transportation preparedness.
AAR CORP. + PLUS Agility Defense & Government Services + PLUS AIT Worldwide Logistics, Inc. + PLUS American President Lines, LLC + PLUS American Roll-on Roll-off Carrier + PLUS Amtrak + PLUS Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings + PLUS Bennett Motor Express, LLC + PLUS Boyle Transportation, Inc. + PLUS Crane Worldwide Logistics, LLC + PLUS Crowley Maritime Corp. + PLUS FedEx + PLUS Final Mile Logistics + PLUS Freeman Holdings Group + PLUS Hapag-Lloyd USA, LLC + PLUS International Auto Logistics + PLUS Interstate Moving | Relocation | Logistics + PLUS Landstar System, Inc. + PLUS Leidos + PLUS Liberty Global Logistics-Liberty Maritime + PLUS Maersk Line, Limited + PLUS National Air Cargo + PLUS Norfolk Southern Corporation + PLUS Omni Air International + PLUS Panalpina World Transport Ltd. + PLUS SAP Concur + PLUS Schuyler Line Navigation Company LLC + PLUS Senator International Freight Forwarding LLC + PLUS TOTE, Inc. + PLUS United Airlines + PLUS US Ocean + PLUS Western Global Airlines + PLUS AeroCapital, LLC ArcBest BNSF Railway Bristol Associates Central Gulf Lines CEVA Logistics Choice Hotels International CSX Transportation CWTSatoTravel DHL Express 28
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
Echo Global Logistics, Inc. Global Logistics Providers LLC JM Ship, LLC KGL Holding La Quinta Inns & Suites Matson National Air Carrier Association Portus R & R Trucking
SAIC Sealift, Inc. The Pasha Group Toll Global Forwarding Transportation Institute Tri-State U.S. Bank Freight Payment Union Pacific Railroad Universal Logistics Holdings, Inc. UPS
HONOR ROLL
OF
SUSTAINING MEMBERS AND REGIONAL PATRONS
ALL OF THESE FIRMS SUPPORT THE PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES OF NDTA
SUSTAINING MEMBERS 1-800-PACK-RAT AAT Carriers, Inc. Accenture Federal Services Admiral Merchants Motor Freight, Inc. Advantage Rent A Car Air Transport International, Inc. Airlines for America Alabama Motor Express, Inc. Al-Hamd International Container Terminal American Group LLC American Maritime Officers American Moving & Storage Association American Trucking Associations Army & Air Force Exchange Service Arven Freight Forwarding Arven Services, LLC Associated Global Systems Atlas World Group International ATS Specialized, Inc. Avis Budget Group aVolt Incorporated Baggett Transportation Company Benchmarking Partners, Inc. Best Western International Boeing Company C.L. Services, Inc.
REGIONAL PATRONS ACME Truck Line Agile Defense, Inc. Alaska West Express Amyx Bollore Logistics C5T Corporation CakeBoxx Technologies Cartwright International Cavalier Logistics Ceres Terminals Incorporated Chassis King, Inc. Columbia Helicopters, Inc.
Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group Chalich Trucking, Inc. Daybreak Express Delta Air Lines Enterprise Holdings Erickson Incorporated Estes Forwarding Worldwide, LLC Europcar Car & Truck Rental Eurpac Evanhoe & Associates, Inc. Extended Stay America Hotels FEDITC FlightSafety International General Dynamics/American Overseas Marine GeoDecisions Greatwide Truckload Management Green Valley Transportation Corp. Hanjin Intermodal America, Inc. Hertz Corporation Hilton Worldwide IBM Intercomp Company Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) International Association of Movers International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), AFL-CIO International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots Keystone Shipping Co.
KROWN1 FZC Kuehne + Nagel, Inc. LMI Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association Marriott International Martin Logistics Incorporated Mayflower Transit McCollister’s Transportation Systems, Inc. Mercer Transportation Company Meridian Global Consulting LLC National Motor Freight Traffic Association, Inc. National Van Lines, Inc. Northern Air Cargo Inc. Northern Neck Transfer Inc. Omega World Travel Omnitracs, LLC One Network Enterprises, Inc. Oracle ORBCOMM PGL Pilot Freight Services PODS Port of Beaumont Port of San Diego Ports America Pratt & Whitney Preferred Systems Solutions, Inc. Prestera Trucking, Inc. Priority Solutions International
Priority Worldwide Services PTS Worldwide Radiant Global Logistics Ramar Transportation, Inc. Roadrunner Transportation Systems Sabre Travel Network Savi Seafarers International Union of NA , AGLIW SEKO Aerospace & Aviation Skylease 1, Inc. Southwest Airlines The Parking Spot TMM, Inc. Transcor Transportation Intermediaries Assn. (TIA) Travelport TSA Transportation LLC TTX Company Tucker Company Worldwide, Inc. United Van Lines, Inc. USA Jet Airlines Vetcom Logistics Volga Dnepr Airlines Wally Park Wapack Labs Corporation Women In Trucking Association, Inc. XPO Logistics YRC Freight
Dalko Resources, Inc. DB Schenker Duluth Travel, Inc. (DTI) Enterprise Management Systems Erudite Company HLI Government Services JAS Forwarding John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences Kalitta Charters, LLC Kansas City Southern Lineage Logistics LMJ International Logistics, LLC MacGregor USA, Inc.
Madison Hospitality MCR Federal, LLC mLINQS Move One Logistics NFI NovaVision Inc. Oakwood Worldwide Overdrive Logistics, Inc. Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Patriot Contract Services, LLC Philadelphia Regional Port Authority PITT OHIO Port Canaveral
Port of Port Arthur Seatac Marine Services Staybridge Suites McLean-Tysons Corner Hotel TechGuard Security Trans Global Logistics Europe GmbH
University McKendree University
www.ndtahq.com |
29
Cont’d from Prof. Devel. pg. 27 read it more easily, such as using the same color for job titles or years at a company, or differentiating work experience, education and skill sets. TIP #8
Use visuals says Hernandez, “Our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Our society as a whole is becoming more visually dependent.” This can include your photo along with some graphics that can offer recruiters a quick view of your skills, your accomplishments or other. Note that visuals do not track well on applicant tracking software so when applying online use their ATS version rather than uploading your resume that contains visuals. TIP #9
Make sure to emphasize your experience that is most desirable to the recruiter. In other words, the recruiter does not need to see a huge list of experiences, but should be focused on those experiences that track the closest to their desired capabilities and experiences. Similarly, choose keywords that track closest to the experiences desired by the recruiter.
Cont’d from Pres. Corner pg. 7 TIP #10
Stating the obvious, but keep in touch with the company and/or recruiter. Follow up on your resume. The top seven industries that report the highest percentage of keeping in touch with candidates after they apply is as follows: • Communications 69% • Construction 69% • Technology 67% • Services 62% • Education 61% • Manufacturing 50% • Government 44% The use of LinkedIn, as mentioned above, is important. There are many sites where you can learn to enhance your online resume. Check out www.thebalance.com/how-to-use-linkedin-to-jobsearch-2062600, among others. And feel free to connect with me at www.linkedin. com/in/irvin-varkonyi. Good luck! DTJ 1 Hernandez, J. H. (2016, November 28). 2017 Resume Tips. Retrieved December 31, 2017, from LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2017-resume-tipsjessica-h-hernandez-executive-resume-writer/
| IN MEMORIAM |
It is with a heavy heart that NDTA reports the passing of two of its members. LtCol Robert John Joyce, USAF (Ret.)
Lionel Jetton
LtCol Robert (Bob) John Joyce, USAF (Ret.) passed away December 8, at the age of 92. Bob joined the Army after high school and had a military career that spanned 35 years including service in the Army, Army Air Corps, and the Air Force. Bob joined NDTA in 1948 and was an active member for nearly 70 years. He was one of the founders of the San Antonio Chapter, served as the Chapter President, and spearheaded its scholarship committee. He will be dearly missed. In 2010, NDTA ran an article on Bob in the DTJ celebrating his military service and lengthy tenure in the association. We have reposted that article at www.ndtahq. com/media-and-publications/blog/and hope you will take a moment to read more about his remarkable life.
Lionel (Ben) Jetton passed away December 29 at the age of 69, following a year-long battle with cancer. With his passing, NDTA and the San Joaquin Chapter lost a great supporter and member. He was always available to help at chapter events, including visiting local high schools to bring awareness of NDTA scholarships. On the national level, he spent several years volunteering at the NDTA Forum. Ben worked various jobs at Libby Owens Ford glass, in his local school district, and at the Army Air Force Exchange. However, he will always be best known for his work spreading joy in his community as Santa Claus each holiday season. May he rest in peace.
San Antonio Chapter
30
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018
San Joaquin Valley Chapter
In particular, we have sustained work with USTRANSCOM and Industry to improve cyber protection, resiliency and education through an established Cyber Committee. This work will continue and we will closely follow USTRANSCOM’s creativity to bring more protection and data capability through their cloud and Transportation Management System (TMS) initiatives. Read more about the Cyber Committee inside this issue of the DTJ. Our capacity to respond with speed and overwhelming force is not only dependent on the right equipment, but the right people. Being resilient, while ensuring capacity, is how we prepare for the future. NDTA’s trusted neutral space assurance where industry and DOD partners are represented is vital now and always will be. Looking to the future, NDTA will continue to develop new ways to build professional development opportunities for all interested, while also encouraging early and often communication to ensure our nation’s transportation and logistics goals are achieved. NDTA, working with key industry leaders will be looking to embrace the benefits of the NDTA Foundation, an arm of NDTA, which focuses on investment in our future industry leaders. You’ll hear more on this as we get ready for our 75th Anniversary in 2019. All this takes investment and innovation. Technology is changing the pace of logistics and driving down costs as we speak. And it’s not just the sexy and expensive stuff—it’s mobile, continuously refreshed, energy efficient, interoperable, one entry data flow and omnichannel. The economy continues to grow, but inflation is low. (Knock on wood.) Some economists think inflation is flat due to the efficiencies in the logistics chain. Many of our leaders often remark that a strong economy is an essential pillar to our national security. 2018 is shaping up to be the same—and we need to do our part to ensure we maintain positive momentum to bring industry and government together on critical issues facing all aspects of critical transportation and associated supply chains. DTJ
DTJ INDEX OF ADVERTISERS American President Lines, Ltd...............................31 American Roll-on Roll-off Carrier (ARC)...................2 Bennett Motor Express, LLC....................................4 FedEx Government Services..................................32 FEDITC.................................................................27 Landstar Transportation Logistics, Inc.....................3 Maersk Line Limited.............................................25 Vetcom Logistics.....................................................7
WE COVER YOUR BASES APLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dedicated U.S. flag services connect mainland U.S. with Asia, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, as well as U.S. territories, Guam and Saipan. As your trusted partner in ocean transportation for 170 years, APL delivers mission-critical supplies and equipment to our troops, on time and on target. To learn more about how we support the U.S. military, visit www.apl.com/usflag
www.ndtahq.com |
31
We’re not in the military, but we’re proud to serve the U.S. We take our job and yours very seriously. At FedEx, you can count on us for access to networks in more than 220 countries and territories and the flexibility to handle anything that comes your way. And you can trust that there’s pride in everything we do.
fedex.com ©2007 FedEx
32
| Defense Transportation Journal | FEBRUARY 2018