The transitioning of the Defense Transportation System toward complementing best practices in supply chain management efficiently and securely.

THE TRANSITIONING OF THE DEFENSE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM TOWARD COMPLEMENTING BEST PRACTICES IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT EFFICIENTLY AND SECURELY
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Abstract
The Defense Transportation System (DTS) is in dire need of restructuring so as to better manage and improve its supply chain. To achieve this end, the U.S Department of Defense needs to predict and pre-empt problems long before they actually happen. Thus DoD needs to focus more on the enhancement of its domestic transportation management practices by incorporating private sector best practices to better enhance efficiency, transportation logistics and management and further integrate private sector transportation practices that can improve transportation efficiency and effectiveness. For this to happen, the top level management at DoD needs to commit themselves towards the implementation of best SCM and transportation practices aimed at cutting costs and boosting efficiency. ThusDoD will need to adopt transportation functions within its logistics division by decreasing the number of carriers and further leverage on high quality carriers to boost transportation system stability.
Introduction to the topic, problem or thesis statement
Thesis statement: The ability of the Department of Defense to effectively and efficiently manage its transportation system has been largely hamperedby the large number of carriers, lack of standardization, redundancy in automation and insufficient funding for oversight and transitioning among other factors(Prajogo, Oke & Olhager, 2016). Nonetheless, DoD has made significant progress toward decreasing the total number of carriers by contracting high quality and high performing carriers. The Defense Transportation Command (DTC) also needs to adopt some of the strategies used by the commercial sector which includes benchmarking of transportation systems, processes and realignment of costs with those of the private shipping firms (Page, 2016). This would help reduce redundancies while promoting cost reduction and efficiency through standardization and realignment of the Defense Transportation Systems (DTS)by incorporating commercial industry best practices.
Defense Transportation Systems (DTS) can be defined as the collection of transportation systems, activities and carriers that either work under the U.S Department of Defense or are contracted by the Department of Defense(Tseng, Burns, Simpson & Berkowitz, 2017).The DTS encompasses commercial and organic aircrafts, warships as well as other contracted commercial carriers working for the Defense Transportation Command. It also includes all other U.S military air and ocean operational terminals both within and outside the United States.
The military supply chain also falls within the domain of the US Defense Transportation Systems and uses supply chain management practices that are markedly different from the conventional supply chain management practices used by the commercial firms (Tseng, Burns, Simpson & Berkowitz, 2017). Some of the transportation best practices not supported by the DTS include Just-In-Time (JIT) that largely roots for less inventory holdingwhereas the Department of Defenses’ supply chain supports large inventory holding. Some of the large inventory military practices include ammunition dump and the oil depot that are commonly used by the DTC. Moreover, the military procurement practices favors reliability of supply in both peace and war time whereas the commercial sector largely favors cost reduction and use of modern technology as an enabler (Page, 2016).
Literature Review Background Research on the topic
The transitioning of the Defense Transportation System is an important antecedent toward creating an efficient, cost effective and highly versatile Defense Transportation System (DTS) for the US Military.The need for transitioning has been essentially motivated by competition among global transportation and shipping firms and their recognition of the importance of enhancing their SCM processes and activities with the view of gaining a competitive advantage(Prajogo, Oke&Olhager, 2016). Still, the ever ballooning cost of materials such as oil has increased the cost of transportation for both the military and the commercial transportation firms. This has been partly due to the rising cost of goods consumed in remote areas that has compelled transportation firms to implement a waste elimination strategy along their supply chain (Tseng, Burns, Simpson & Berkowitz, 2017).
Literature Review Outline
The literature review section will mainly discuss the relevant literature related to Defense Transportation System (DTS) and more importantly, it will provide a brief overview of the evolution of DTS. Moreover, it will also discuss the previous and current supply chain management practices used by the DoD and that used by commercialfirms. This comparative analysis will provide an important perspective on the current military and private transportation industry best practices. Other factors such as economic and social sustainability will also be reviewed. This section will be divided into two sections namely the introduction and the theoretical literature review section. The literature review will largely draw from relevant current sources published within a period of 7 years. Hence most of the sources (75%) should have been published between 2012 and 2018. This section will only use ...