The Canadian Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team’s Success and Strategy: Rooted in Principles of Flexibility, Readiness, and Communication
The Canadian Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) has officially been in existence since July of 1996. Since its conception, the logistics component of the DART has been in a constant state of evolution that has been heavily influenced by advances in technology, devolution of funding, and organizational changes such as the creation of the Canadian Forces Joint Operations Group and the Canadian Forces Joint Headquarters – the DART’s parent organizations. Despite the constant state of flux, the DART has successfully deployed its full team on two major operations: the first, Operation Central, was in response to the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras in late November 1998 and the second, Operation Torrent, followed the major earthquake that struck the heart of Turkey in August, 1999. The success of DART Logistics Operations is not the result of intricate time-consuming plans masterminded by the most qualified logisticians and operational planners of our organization, but rather it is the result of consistent practices rooted in basic equipment management principles.
To understand the nature of the DART’s challenges and solutions it is important to have a basic understanding of its composition. On a day-to-day basis the DART consists of seven personnel: a Deputy Commanding Officer, a Logistics Officer, three Supply Personnel, and two Mechanics. The overall state of more than 40 vehicles, three quarters of a million pounds of supplies, and any mission pre-planning, rests on the shoulders of this small cadre of personnel. When the DART is launched on an operation it deploys a 189-person contingent whose main focus is to bridge the gap between the disaster’s occurrence and the operational capability of the large Non-Governmental Organizations. The main features of the DART’s mission is the provision of 50,000 litres of potable water daily and the services of a ten-bed Medical Clinic capable of seeing up to 300 outpatients per day. The operations of the warehouse staff are done in concert with the requirement to maintain the DART at 48 hours notice to deploy to a disaster location. With its very nature in mind, it is not difficult to understand that the DART cannot afford anything but the most efficient operating principles as its foundation — flexibility, readiness, and communication.
Unlike any other logistics organization in the military or corporate industry, the DART is unique in that it will deploy 95 percent of its warehouse contents to a theater of operations, execute the mission using that equipment and materiel for up to 40 days, and then re-deploy the bulk of it back to the warehouse to prepare for the next mission. Given the variety of materials required to effectively operate the Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units, medical clinic, as well as house and defend the troops in an environment and situation that may be different for every operation, the DART must maintain a high level of flexibility. The DART has a pre-determined deployment plan that defines the most practical order of movement of materiel from the warehouse to the theater of operations, but that plan is not so binding that it cannot be changed to accommodate the different conditions of each natural disaster. For example, the population of certain disaster regions may be so impoverished and without local assets as a result of the disaster’s occurrence that they are not in a position to offer any assistance to aid agencies coming in, whereas other regions will have a wealth of resources to rent or loan. During Operation Central, many of the roadways were washed out or still underwater at the time of the DART’s arrival. There was a critical shortage of cargo-moving resources on the local economy, and what was available was offered at a very high price. Compare the situation in Honduras with that of Turkey where survivors of the earthquake that preceded Operation Torrent provided every means available to assist the DART’s troops with the movement of equipment from the airport to the area of operations, and for the most part did so free of charge. Flexibility in the prioritizing of equipment and vehicles allows the Commander to overcome the idiosyncrasies of each disaster relief operation.
With the exception of 25,000 lbs of medical supplies, all DART equipment is held in one 32,000 square-foot warehouse at Canadian Forces Base Trenton. The majority of the equipment is packed in plastic triwalls, organized by functional element and prioritized for loading on the aircraft. Maintaining the equipment at the required high state of readiness is the most significant challenge for DART logistics personnel, and would not be achievable were it not for the advent of technology.
During the initial building of the DART, operators at the grassroots level provided input on materials and supplies required to run the DART’s major components. This included everything from the nuts, bolts, lumber and tools required to build austere washroom facilities, to the spare parts required to keep the water purification units running. In 1999, DART staff introduced a bar coding system to allow the thousands of tiny components that together make up the whole of a DART Operation to be correctly identified and quickly located within their containers on the shelves of the warehouse.
Over this past year, this has been taken one step further with the input of key maintenance data that allows the supply staff to more readily action life cycle characteristics of the equipment and supplies. Since the DART’s participation in a disaster relief operation can never be accurately predicted more than five minutes in advance of the actual deployment, DART staff are critically aware of the necessity to have the equipment in solid condition at all times. Again, flexibility plays into readiness in that equipment that is undergoing maintenance must be covered off by implementing contingency plans for replacement or recall in the event a deployment occurs. Unlike an independent business, the DART is a small component of the entire National Defence organization, and must ensure compatibility with the organization’s main equipment management systems. That particular system is undergoing a significant overhaul and it remains to be seen what advantages and disadvantages it will have in terms of equipment management for the DART. Regardless of future advances in technology, the bottom line for the DART will always remain very clear; the equipment must be at no less than 100 percent ready for a deployment at all times.
Communication is the link between flexibility and achieving the 100 percent readiness that guarantees rapid deployment of all of the necessary components to enable mission success. During the deployment preparation phases, communication between suppliers, warehouse staff and holders of contingency equipment is clearly aimed at ensuring all major equipment is available and in working condition. Throughout the early phases of an operation, communication between members in theater and staff at the warehouse allows for the manipulation of equipment priorities in order to have critically required items flown in ahead of those less critically needed. For example, communication would allow the various components of the water purification units to be deployed prior to tents and housing supplies in the event there were stable quarters available in the area of operations. To facilitate decisions such as this, sophisticated communication equipment is shipped on the first flight and communication back to Canada is the top priority for the Commander’s staff once in theater. Communication plays an even greater role in the DART’s readiness to deploy on consecutive missions.
Approximately 40 percent of the DART’s supplies will be consumed during an operation. Items such as medications, chemical agents for the Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units, fuel, meals and bottled water will not re-deploy at the close of a mission and must be restocked in preparation for an upcoming deployment. Environmental factors play a large role in determining the rate of consumption of certain items making it difficult to accurately predict the amount of supplies for reorder; moreover, DART staff are mindful of the requirement to be fiscally conservative. To overcome this, communication between the theater of operations and the DART warehouse is maintained on a 48-hour cycle and supplies are ordered accordingly. With consistent communication across all levels, the DART will achieve all of its mission goals with the smoothest implementations of the required processes.
To some it might appear that the DART is moving towards the dangerous area of over-simplification. It must be emphasized that there are countless situations where flexibility, readiness and communication interplay to achieve a certain aspect of the mission process, such as selection of the aircraft, which considers dozens of factors that require the communication and debate among both Air Force and Army key players. Ultimately, it cannot be forgotten that the mounting and conduct of a major operation that is played out to the public through the eyes of the media is definitely accompanied with the hype, chaos, and stress inherent in the nature of the task. DART operations are not only unscheduled, but they are each characterized by their own set of exceptional circumstances. With leadership’s maintenance of the fundamental ideals of flexibility, readiness and communication, there will never be a situation in terms of DART Logistics that cannot be overcome.