Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Bryant Maude | Soldiers with the 168th Brigade Support Battalion enjoy a dinner of Iraqi dishes with...... read more read more
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By Staff Sgt. Bryant Maude
316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, Public Affairs Office
CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq – When Capt. Curtis Yankie, the commander for Company A, 168th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Sustainment Brigade, and his team took over the management of the Iraqi Truck Company at Camp Liberty, the challenge was ominous.
The trucks were in bad shape, the drivers were disheartened, the facilities were archaic, and their reliability was unacceptable; something needed to be done.
"When we started out, we had an operational readiness rate of 60 percent," stated Yankie. "That translated to roughly half the time the mission didn't get done for one reason or another. The trucks were breaking down, the guys didn't want to go out and do their job." It was a mess.
This situation created additional challenges for Lt. Col. Todd Heussner, the commander of the 168th BSB. Every time an Iraqi truck broke down on the road it meant convoys were stopped, troops were vulnerable to attack, the mission was delayed, and additional Soldiers and trucks were needed to come out and recover the downed truck.
"When I looked at the ITC, and their inability to get the job done, I had to consider risk to the Soldiers and accomplishment of the mission," recalled Heussner. "Until we could get the ITC to make the necessary changes and improvements...we had no other choice but to shift ITC trucks to on base missions only."
This shift in mission provided a window of time where their method of offensive logistics, as it applied to the ITC, could be monitored and tested.
"Logistic operations is a fully integrated, proactive system of logistics support that anticipates requirements, synchronizes support, integrates deliberate combat logistics patrols with mission requirements, and improvises when standard support will not meet the requirements," declared Yankie.
With this in mind, Yankie and his team went to work and created a four-step plan that would ultimately transform the ITC to a proficient, reliable operation and get U.S. Soldiers back off the road for good.
"We had to get in here and build a team. So we started out with four focus areas; cultural awareness, training, improved facilities, and maintenance," said 1st Lt. Lawrence Jenkins, the ITC officer in charge.
The team started playing soccer with the drivers, taught them American football, organized monthly dinners, include them in training; anything to break down cultural walls and stereotypes.
"Every month we would come down here and the drivers would bring local food back from Baghdad like lamb, fish, chicken, and rice," recalled Jenkins. "The Soldiers would get in there with the drivers and eat local dishes, drink chi (tea with sugar and milk), and have a chance to bond."
Safety was another area. Each Soldier is required to maintain their annual training according to their command requirements. "So why not incorporate the Iraqi drivers into the training?" thought Jenkins.
"At first they were a little hesitant, didn't want to get involved with training, but now they do," said Jenkins. "We had a fire safety class out here and the Iraqi drivers showed up. They got a lot out of the training and really enjoyed it. Now they want to attend all our training. They learn how to be safe and how to take care of themselves out there on the road. The more they can do for themselves the better."
The team took it one step further when they decided to integrate the staff into combined facilities.
"We don't have the Army truck master office and the Sigma truck master offices, we are in the same offices working hand in hand," stated Yankie. "We no longer have these suspicions between the Iraqi drivers and the Soldiers. Due in part to the cultural awareness initiatives, including them in our training, letting them know we care, and also working next to them."
The team could see that this inclusiveness was having an impact, but until they dealt with the poor living environment and vehicle maintenance they would not impede the high turn over and downed vehicles; so facilities and maintenance needed to be addressed with management.
'When we arrived they were living out of their trucks or in little shakes," recalled Jenkins. "If they wanted to take a shower they would take a few bottles of water, crawl into a cement bunker and dowse themselves in an effort to keep clean; it was pathetic."
"I sat down with management and explained the facts. Until they improve facilities and maintenance they were going to keep losing drivers and money. If they wanted to succeed here, they needed to improve things," recalled Yankie.
As a result of these tough conversations the management decided to take some of their profits and invest it like the Americans suggested. They built five brand new living trailers, a dinning facility, a shower trailer with hot water, and a maintenance area.
"The drivers believe the company cares and they no longer wish to leave," said Jenkins.
"I like it here very much," said Muhammad, one of the ITC supervisors. "Things are better today and best tomorrow...the drivers are happy."
Morale was improving, turn over was dropping and the team was determined to improve vehicle reliability.
"We incorporated the Army business practices and the Army maintenance program here," said Yankie.
"They can perform maintenance on site," stated Jenkins. "Before, if something like a windshield wiper broke, they'd go all the way down to Baghdad to get it fixed. This would result in them being out three or four days."
The team helped them implement their own form of the Army Maintenance Management Program.
They recommended standardizing their fleet of vehicles, and house common spare parts on sight to reduce the need for travel to Baghdad to get service.
"They can do almost all routine checks and services here. The only thing they can't do is major overhauls like engine or transmission repairs and there are plans to move that to this site," stated Jenkins.
In his book "Good to Great" Jim Collins writes "If you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away. The right people don't need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by inner drive to produce the best results."
A good example of one person on the bus was Spc. James Murray, the truck-master for Company A, 168th BSB. Murray saw the need for a maintenance service pack for each type of vehicle in the ITC. On his own initiative, he created service packs, had them translated into Arabic, trained the drivers on how to utilize the service packs, and then monitored the results.
"What we've seen is a huge increase in reliability with these trucks. We've gone from a 60 to 98 percent OR rate," said Sgt 1st Class Steven Downey, Company A, 168th BSB. "They can get a truck in and out so much faster now that they have these checks, parts on hand, and maintenance facility in house."
"This has instilled pride in the drivers. They want to take care of their trucks, they know the company is going to help them fix it and they no longer want to take it to Baghdad or anywhere else to get it fixed," continued Jenkins. "These drivers clean and maintain their vehicles with pride...out of 52 bobtail trucks we only have one down."
In an operational environment where results speak louder than concepts, it is evident based on the results that this four-step plan is working. In addition to operational readiness climbing from 60 percent to 98 percent, there has been zero turn over of drivers in the past 90 days, there are 30 ITC trucks on the road every day and in the past six months have hauled $495 million worth of assets, 6.2 million gallons of fuel, driven over 150,000 miles, conducted 573 deliberate convoy logistic patrols that has taken roughly 7,180 Soldiers off the road.
"The results of this initiative inside the ITC are substantial," stated Huessner. "We as a battalion have increased our customer base - the number of units we support - by 40 percent, and at the same time, the number of Soldiers needed to support our mission has dropped by 30 percent. Alpha Company Soldiers have demonstrated to me that they understand the idea of offensive logistics support and they have seized this opportunity to implement it into the Iraqi Truck Company. It is exciting to see."
As a result of this success the Iraqi Truck Company project is expanding by two more contracts. In the near future you can look for even more Soldiers getting off the roads, more money in the hands of the Iraqi people strengthening their economy, and a greater chance that a transfer of logistics from coalition forces to the Iraqi people will take place.
| Date Taken: | 02.17.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 02.19.2008 12:15 |
| Story ID: | 16486 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 432 |
| Downloads: | 399 |
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