President's Viewpoint
Logistics — Art and Science in a Military Context
Introduction
Victor S. Deyglio, The Logistics Institute
Since 1990, the Logistics Institute has enjoyed unique relationships with key practitioners in the Canadian logistics community. Among our proudest partnerships is that with the Logistics Branch of the Canadian Forces (CF) of the Department of National Defence (DND).
We formalized an agreement with DND in 1997, pledging mutual support in the development of logistics professionalism among Canadian Forces personnel. This important partnership hinges on “mutual support”: we collectively acknowledge the advantages each party has in working with the other.
Traditionally, industrial logistics is perceived to be a “different order of business” from military logistics. But mutuality has always existed: “service second to none” is core to successful logistics, whatever the context. The “for-profit” of business and “due diligence” of public service are two sides of the same service coin.
Cutting edge logistics takes place in the marketplace and on the battlefield. Some would ask: what is the difference? While individual life cannot compare to organizational life in terms of its intrinsic value, the social and economic lives of many depend directly on competitive success in the marketplace. Death comes mercilessly in small doses when you cannot feed your family because you are unemployed, but time and opportunity are not obliterated immediately by marketplace defeat.
On the battlefield the intrinsic value of individual lives is “front-and-centre.” The uniqueness of “military logistics” is not the process, but its impact. To paraphrase the words of an old limerick: without the nail that fastened the shoe to the horse of the general, the battle was lost. Death comes swiftly and irrevocably in military defeat: there is no time or opportunity to recover.
Logistics as practised by military personnel, is not simply battlefield logistics. If that were the case, there would be little mutual interest between “them and us.”
The right goods, in the right place, at the right time, for the right price, and supported by strong supply chain systems and processes, are as much a factor in the daily operations of the Canadian Forces as they are in any business. The right people with the right skills are just as important in operating, managing and directing CF logistics as they are in any enterprise.
Building the logistics profession includes CF logistics. We have much to learn from each other, and in this issue of LQ we have a unique opportunity to do so. Over the past several months we invited CF logistics professionals to talk about themselves: what they do and how they do it.
On a personal level, one of the great delights of working with DND/CF is the clarity of its organizational structure. Deciphering this “clarity of structure” however, has its unique challenges, especially for outsiders. I greatly appreciate the work of people like Mike Rafferty, a P.Log., an Army Reserve Major, and former Regular Force “trucker.” He is the Institute’s “inside man” at DND, and the person who orchestrated the CF contributions in this issue — no small task in the face of annual personnel relocations.
More significantly, I struggled with my own editorial submission for this issue. I realized that a “voice of the Canadian Forces” would contribute greater value than what I might have to say. But who should be that voice? After weighing numerous options, I invited a young person at the beginning of her military logistics career to speak about herself. I introduce Master Corporal Audrey Morales, Army Reserve and current Chief Clerk in the Logistics Branch Secretariat, Canadian Forces, National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ), Ottawa.