For the past 250 years, the U.S. Army has defended the Constitution and fought the nation’s wars. As we continue to transform and deliver ready combat formations, the Army’s sustainment enterprise continues supporting warfighters.

Nowhere is our focus on modernizing sustainment more apparent than in the organic industrial base—23 depots, arsenals and ammunition plants providing critical readiness for the joint force forward and from the strategic support area. The Army is leveraging the expeditionary capability of its organic industrial base, with 600 to 1,000 artisans working outside of their duty stations, overseas and in unit motor pools at any given time. These professionals bring technical expertise to help service members at the point of need and expedite the return of Army equipment to the fight.

In our hard-iron depots, arsenals and ammunition plants, the Organic Industrial Base Modernization Implementation Plan is in full swing after launching in fiscal 2024. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a significant and lasting impact to the future of the Army.

The plan includes an $18 billion holistic investment across 15 years to modernize facilities, processes and the workforce to bring the organic industrial base into the 21st century. We will infuse industry best practices and refine human capital management structures to maximize workforce skills and capabilities. In the first year of the 15-year plan, the Army executed more than 150 projects across its sites that manufacture, reset and maintain Army equipment.

Smarter Decisions

As U.S. Army Materiel Command continues to modernize our facilities, processes and people, we are working to ensure that units have the highest level of operational readiness as they leave training rotations for deployment. Through the Operational Readiness Program, we use data and analytics to predict equipment that is most likely to fail while units train and send organic industrial base flyaway teams to pre-position to fix that equipment and train soldiers to better maintain it.

While forward mobile teams are not necessarily new, now is the time to practice and codify a data process to make smarter decisions about where we position sustainers. Through this process, we inform the future of maintenance and how we will fight and win wars.

Materiel Command also is looking at lessons learned from Ukraine and how to best implement advanced manufacturing in our maintenance capabilities. This will help mitigate supply chain disruptions and empower soldiers to efficiently solve maintenance problems. Materiel Command is working across the sustainment enterprise to deliver a repository of advanced manufacturing data that is easier to access and more intuitive to use, and enables a faster certification process for new processes and parts.

The sustainment enterprise also continues to leverage lessons learned as it modernizes, building momentum in its collaboration and use of cutting-edge, advanced analytics tools.

Baggage Removal

The past cannot hinder us from looking forward. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George has emphasized the importance of unencumbering commanders and soldiers so they can focus on important warfighting tasks. In fiscal 2023, he charged Materiel Command to pilot a new program aimed at increasing equipment readiness through focused fielding, lateral transfers and divestiture.

The Rapid Removal of Excess (R2E) program was first implemented at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, and Fort Stewart, Georgia, where soldiers from active-duty units across both installations turned in items ranging from small electronics and general supplies to military vehicles at Modernization Displacement and Repair Sites. These sites accept equipment as is—whether a vehicle has a broken window or an electronic instrument has an inoperable battery. The equipment then is repaired at a depot, turned over to the Defense Logistics Agency or supplied for foreign military sales. R2E has since been rolled out to units of all components across Army installations.

Since October 2023, Materiel Command’s 14 Modernization Displacement and Repair Sites have received more than 450,000 pieces of equipment. We continue to work through what needs to be repaired, disposed of or demilitarized, all while sharing best practices and implementing processes to prevent the need for units to use the program again.

In the same spirit, we are launching a new program to allow soldiers to turn in excess Organizational Clothing and Individual Equipment (OCIE). The Rapid Removal of Excess OCIE initiative (R2O) will relieve soldiers from maintaining unnecessary, legacy and end-of-life individual equipment, improving readiness of OCIE across the force.

Materiel Command has deployed a new data and analytics tool to help Central Issue Facilities and units track what OCIE each soldier has and determine excess pieces to turn in. R2O unit commanders will pause training to allow soldiers time to locate, clean and take excess OCIE to Central Issue Facilities, where employees and experts from U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command will determine what’s reusable across the force or is ready for divestiture.

The command in December ran a pilot of R2O at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, and will expand to other units and installations throughout fiscal 2025.

Regional Focus

Materiel Command also is reforming and right-sizing Central Issue Facilities across the Army and moving individual exchanges online to gain efficiencies and better support Army modernization and readiness efforts. While inventory at each Central Issue Facility storefront will be smaller, it will be more optimized for units stationed at each installation. In addition, other items can be ordered by supply sergeants through the OCIE Direct Ordering program. About 30 Central Issue Facilities will become Central Issue Facility storefronts to help better manage large-scale OCIE issue and recoveries.

Continental U.S. locations will be operational this fall, and those outside the continental U.S will be operational by the fall of 2026.

Delivering ready combat formations also means continuing to improve quality of life for soldiers and their families, and key to that is modernizing the way we share information. The Army has developed a user-friendly and tailorable app called My Army Post. First announced in October 2023 and piloted at select installations in fiscal 2024, the app is being launched across installations with an Army presence.

My Army Post app, available free in Google and Apple app stores, has information about garrison resources including housing, finance, child care and more. It also provides information on resources like dining options and events happening on installations. We encourage feedback from soldiers, families and other stakeholders on what works well and recommended changes.

Food Choices

When it comes to installation food services, soldiers have spoken, and we have listened, developing and implementing initiatives and programs to drive needed change in how, when and where soldiers eat. The Army is working to give soldiers flexible dining options, including food trucks, kiosks, grab-and-go, meal prep and a new dining facility pilot, all intended to provide nutritious meals where soldiers live, work and train.

The service also is piloting new concepts for how it operates dining facilities and is working to expand to a campus-style dining model, where the “campus” is the installation and includes the commissary, post exchange restaurants and Army Morale, Welfare and Recreation locations. These efforts are focused on meeting soldiers where they are and providing them with flexible options for healthy meals.

Facility Investments

The Army also is continuing to leverage data-driven analytics to make informed decisions about facility investments—from barracks and work centers to child development centers, dining facilities and gyms. Now in its fifth year, the Facility Investment Plan process has matured. Materiel Command operationalized the Facility Investment Plan to unify the active Army’s planning for infrastructure investments in military construction and facilities sustainment, restoration and modernization over a 10-year horizon.

Materiel Command annually oversees facility investment efforts and recommends modifications to the plan based on guidance from the secretary of the Army to enable the most efficient use of available funding across more than 7,400 command-validated requirements each planning cycle. Leaders make data-informed decisions to prioritize and program money toward construction and renovation projects to enable the most efficient use of available funding.

For 250 years, sustainment has been the U.S. military’s strategic advantage. As the Army continuously transforms, so will our sustainment enterprise. We will continue to deliver ready combat formations, ensuring warfighters have what they need, when and where needed.

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Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan has been the deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Materiel Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, since December 2022 and the acting commanding general of Materiel Command since March 2024. Previously, he was the commanding general of U.S. Army Sustainment Command. He deployed multiple times in support of operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. He was commissioned in 1989 from Appalachian State University, North Carolina, as a Distinguished Military Graduate. He has two master’s degrees: one in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College, and one in military strategy from the U.S. Army War College.