When the Navy needs basic parts like bolts, it turns to the Defense Logistics Agency like the rest of the Defense Department. But when it needs a part with no application outside of the Navy — like a system that goes inside a submarine — that’s where Naval Supply Systems Command comes in.

With eight fleet logistics centers around the globe that manage roughly 430,000 items worth about $45 billion total, NAVSUP is constantly looking to improve its tracking systems so it doesn’t lose anything. That’s why the command is piloting a new kind of radio frequency identification technology.

The Naval Autonomous Data Collection System (NADACS) uses a mist RFID protocol, which forms a mesh network and provides real-time location. NAVSUP will also use improved passive RFID.

“We have a pilot that was just started this year down at Fleet Logistics Center Jacksonville, looking to incorporate also the Marine Corps solution, which is the Marine Corps Platform Integration Center,” John Ballou, automatic identification technology program manager at NAVSUP, said on The Modernized Warehouse. “It’s gotten some notoriety recently with the Marine Corps passing audit and being able to, with that clean audit opinion, they’ve credited MCPIC with really being able to enhance that. So we’re looking to take the goodness there with the MCPIC team and integrate it with NADACS as another means of data ingestion.”

Other tracking tools

But NADACS isn’t the only tool NAVSUP uses to track its inventory. Ballou said Navy Enterprise Resource Planning is the accountable system of record and the go-to for shore facilities to ensure an accurate count. He said other systems are also sometimes used on the supply side.

And Cmdr. Jason Harnish, a deputy division director for materiel management at NAVSUP, said One Touch Support is what he currently uses for worldwide location visibility.

“If I were on the deck plate and I’m looking for a piece part and I don’t have it, I would go into what’s called One Touch and look in there and see where it is in the world because you can put in the stock number,” he said on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “The SKU is what outside of the military, stock keeping unit, would be what we refer to as a NIN — national identification number. So I would plug in the NIN in One Touch and then there’s a tab in there that says inventory. And it would let me know where it is potentially in the world at a given time. So within a few hours of replication of data and all that stuff.”

Navy Working Capital Fund

All of these materials NAVSUP deals with, Harnish said, are Navy Working Capital Fund materials, the name given to parts that are unique to the Navy. Those also have special requirements; for example, Harnish said a certain percentage of those parts have to come from DoD’s organic industrial base, rather than from commercial vendor suppliers. That percentage varies based on the weapons system and what’s considered critical parts.

That also requires a standardized, specific approach to the acquisition process on the commercial side. Anything that comes from a commercial vendor has to include the necessary data to work across the entirety of NAVSUP’s enterprise.

Discover technologies and tactics that other federal agencies are taking to modernize their logistics and warehouse operations in our series The Modernized Warehouse.

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