Our warrior ethos demands that we maintain a high level of readiness at all times in order to ensure mission success. This is especially important in the supply chain, where managing the flow of serviceable aircraft parts is vital to the readiness of America’s flying forces.
In response to the devastating impact Hurricane Michael had on Tyndall AFB, Air Combat Command stood up the Severe Weather Risk Assessment team, which included supply chain professionals from the 448th Supply Chain Management Wing and 635th Supply Chain Operations Wing. The mission of this two-month effort was to analyze the impact of severe weather events on our Air Force and the effects felt by associated disruptions in the supply chain.
The team analyzed more than 1,000 pages of case studies, after-action reports and lessons learned from severe weather events spanning the past two decades. All of these case studies and reports had one common denominator: the supply chain is often overlooked as an operational enabler, and this is especially the case when planning for severe weather events.
Severe weather events can have a catastrophic and long-lasting impact on the supply chain, ultimately affecting aircraft availability and mission readiness. This led the team to focus their analysis on two central themes: severe weather threats to the supply chain and base-level supply chain readiness.
The team concluded that a top priority to improving supply chain readiness during severe weather events is to incorporate Supply Chain Risk Management into our lexicon. This two-month effort provided the supply chain community with a great opportunity to highlight the importance of SCRM and showcase recent initiatives the 448th SCMW is developing to improve risk management capabilities.
In fact, the 448th SCMW is currently developing a web-based SCRM tool, which provides a structured and synergetic process used to evaluate, control and monitor supply chain risk in order to safeguard continuity and maximize operational effect.
The tool will enable the supply chain to identify risks, develop mitigation efforts and better enable supply chain readiness. Additionally, the SWRA team recommended updating asset prioritization business rules to add flexibility to how assets are distributed to bases. This recommendation ensures bases impacted by a severe weather event are able to recover their missions more effectively.
Finally, the team made several recommendations to strengthen command, control and communication processes throughout the supply chain enterprise in order to improve response readiness and shorten recovery time.
While the damage done to Tyndall AFB was extensive, Hurricane Michael provided the 448th SCMW with a great opportunity to assess severe weather risks to the supply chain, enabling the supply chain community to develop and implement innovative solutions ensuring the long-term effectiveness and continuity of the wing’s support to the warfighter.