Technology modernization

Air Force Using Modern Logistics Tool to Track Assets Department-Wide

The Air Force said it is using a modern logistics and financial reporting tool to support the operations of its active-duty, reserve and national guard components.

The Integrated Logistics-Supply is a financial feeder system designed to provide business operations support for base-level supply and material management functions, the Air Force said.

According to the service branch, ILS-S accounts for more than 35 million assets valued collectively at $18 billion. The assets are stored across 1.7 million warehouse locations.

Staff Sgt. Gabriel Fox, a member of the Air Force team responsible for maintaining ILS-S, said that the system tracks almost every asset owned by the Department of the Air Force.

“Everything from dog food, weapons, radar parts, vehicles, aircraft, clothing items and paper,” Fox said.

The system’s capabilities include supplies management, account management, weapon system spares support, warranty management, financial reporting, inventory control, system maintenance, hazardous material management and communications security management.

ILS-S features a range of modern features, such as the ability to identify the best enterprise source of a required item. The tool’s automatic sourcing capability also allows it to save costs by identifying assets that have already been purchased, the Air Force said.

The Air Force added that the tool is available around the clock and processes more than 10 million transactions, including 1.5 million orders, each day.

Herbert H. Hunter Jr., an Air Force logistics readiness portfolio manager, said that ILS-S is only the beginning of the service’s logistics modernization effort.

He said that the Air Force will continue investing in new technologies that can improve mission readiness and drive down operational costs.