Army efforts to transform the logistics enterprise center on using technology to drive precision sustainment, demand reduction and advanced power storage, said Lt. Gen. Heidi Hoyle, deputy Army chief of staff for logistics, G-4.

In remarks April 3 at the monthly meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army’s George Washington chapter in Arlington, Virginia, Hoyle said that with sustainment brigades now part of the Army’s transformation in contact initiative, experimentation with new technology is playing an important part in modernizing logistics and integrating new capabilities with combat formations.

Noting that transformation in contact is taking place over 18 to 24 months and is “really just the first phase” of continuous transformation, Hoyle explained that persistent experimentation is critical because it takes place outside of “traditional Army processes.”

“It is a time that does not have traditional Army processes behind it. … It is a time for us to prototype, a time for us to experiment and a time for us to get equipment in the hands of the soldiers,” she said. “I'm not talking about programs of record that take multiple years to develop. What I'm talking about is emerging technologies, things like unmanned aerial systems, things like countering unmanned aerial systems, things like autonomous delivery.”

Hoyle’s office works closely with Army Futures Command’s Contested Logistics Cross-Functional Team to address the most pressing challenges in modernizing the logistics enterprise.

Using precision sustainment as an example, Hoyle spoke of being able to predict when a part is going to fail by using existing data. “Predictive logistics is not about looking at past failures, and predictive logistics is not about [loading] up a vehicle with multiple sensors to be able to say that ‘This is going to fail,’ OK? It’s about using the data that is on the platform now,” Hoyle said.

In another example, Hoyle pointed out that over time, the Army has gotten heavier, wider and more fuel-hungry by building formations and adding equipment. This has made it harder for maintainers to do their jobs.

“As we’ve done all that, we didn't re-engineer how we conducted [maintenance] on those vehicles, so we made it harder to conduct maintenance,” she said, adding that reducing the demand for fuel will be essential to keeping soldiers safe on the battlefield.

When platforms became heavier, more soldiers hit the road to fuel them, she said, so “we are thinking about protection in different ways now, keeping the soldiers off the road, keeping the soldiers off the battlefield,” with autonomous delivery capabilities.

Experiments also are taking place with power and energy solutions, she said. “Right now, hybrid systems are what we believe and what we've observed in the exercises that we've been conducting [as] being very beneficial to how we conduct operations” and cutting down on the need for big, loud, fuel-hungry generators.

“Every single thing we do right now with technology, capability, new materials, 3D printing, advanced manufacturing is making a difference, and it’s going to keep our sons and daughters safe, it’s going to keep our grandkids at home and out of harm’s way,” Hoyle said.