Weapon System Sustainment, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and Effective Industry Logistics Practices

Abstract

The Marine Corps weapon systems’ bill of material (BoM) frequently consist of thousands of National Stock Number items of supply. In the early acquisition phases and throughout a system’s life cycle, parts management of component items is critical to ensure maintenance actions and supply chain support. Program Offices do not maintain accurate, complete BoM parts data. In this thesis, I analyze the level of matching BoM accuracy through a comparison of DOD and Marine Corps BoM websites, which each intend to capture all items of supply for respective parent weapon systems. I further compare BoM data to technical publication parts listings and retail inventory stocks. To ensure responsive actions in the Operations and Support phase of acquisition, the service should apply Toyota’s supply-chain strategies and emerging technologies such as the cloud/lake, supply chain control tower, blockchain, and artificial intelligence/machine learning to improve control, coordination, accuracy, transparency, and maintenance of BoM data throughout all phases of acquisition. In exploring Toyota’s practices and 21st century business solutions, this thesis seeks to propose modernization of the integrated data environment (IDE) mentioned throughout the Product Support Manager handbook. The proposed IDE will be a collaborative government-commercial system that extends across all weapon systems, exists in the cloud, incorporates blockchain, and leverages AI ML across a supply chain control tower.