CIO — As more troops arrive in Iraq, it is up to Lt. Gen. Robert Dail to make sure they have enough boots, fuel and guns. Dail is director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which provides supplies and logistics services to the military. When  he took the job seven months ago, the dust had barely cleared from critiques of the agency’s competence during the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, when it had failed to deliver crucial supplies such as generators, tires and food to the soldiers. The DLA also had been criticized by the Government Accountability Office for lax information security practices, including failure to assess system security risks.

The first component of a new ERP system had recently been phased in, connecting the agency’s 40,000-plus suppliers to its three major inventory management centers in Philadelphia; Columbus, Ohio; and Richmond, Va., along with many key sites around the globe. The system was designed to more efficiently manage supplies, demand and supply planning, order fulfillment, procurement, and financial accounting processes. Dail says it has allowed DLA to fulfill most orders more quickly and more accurately. But to Dail, a new ERP system could only be as good as the business model it supported. The early years of the Iraq War demonstrated that the agency’s traditional model of pushing supplies to the field from central locations didn’t work as well as it should. Delivering the goods still took too long, and sometimes there were severe supply shortages.

So Dail is on a mission to use that ERP system to turn DLA into a demand-driven organization that pushes supplies directly to the troops on the front lines. His model is FedEx, delivering orders within days and allowing customers to track them online. Being on the front lines also means the agency has to be able to get where the action is—quickly. Therefore, this summer, Dail plans to further test and implement a wireless supply chain system that can be deployed anywhere in the world and be online within hours. “The world requires that we buy things and deliver them when the [troops] need them. So, information becomes very critical,” Dail says. That means accurately forecasting soldiers’ future demand for items such as medical supplies, spare parts, food or clothing, and being able to get those items out fast. Dail spoke with CIO Washington Bureau Chief Allan Holmes about how he expects IT to be a major driver in the transformation of DLA into a customer-driven supply chain organization. CIO: What experiences molded your view that IT is a key ingredient in forming the strategy of an organization?

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