Photo By Cameron Porter | Hundreds of Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 secondary equipment items from Army Field...... read more read more
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ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. – Imagine this: You've stashed away a few treasured items, trusting they'll be safe and sound for when you need them. Fast forward to the moment you open the storage, only to find your belongings ravaged by critters, invading insects, or relentless moisture. It can leave you not only frustrated but also reaching deep into your wallet to replace what's been lost. Proper storage isn't just about stashing things away—it's about safeguarding them against the unexpected.
Now take that small inventory and multiply it by millions, even billions, both in item numbers and dollar value. Uniforms and personal gear, perishable foods, expensive mechanical and electronic gear. If nature can get to it, it will, and usually with unfavorable, perhaps even deadly, results for the Soldiers whose lives are counting on that gear. Fortunately, the U.S. Army Sustainment Command Packaging, Storage, and Containerization Center’s job is to keep nature at bay.
PSCC falls under ASC’s Support Operations directorate. ASC's mission is to sustain our Army, by ensuring that Soldiers worldwide have the necessary supplies, enabling a globally ready force. PSCC supports that mission by making sure supplies are shipped or stored the right way.
John Mayatte is the PSCC director at Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania. He and his staff have decades of experience in the proper packaging and storing of all kinds of materiel, in all types of environments.
A big part of PSCC’s job is “to ensure the condition of ‘secondary items’ in storage is known, the condition is recorded correctly, and the materiel is preserved properly to prevent degradation,” explained Mayatte.
“This is to ensure that our Soldiers are receiving equipment that is serviceable,” said Mayatte. “Without our package testing team, the Army couldn’t be certain that the equipment it was sending to the field was able to withstand the rigors of distribution and any austere environments in which it needs to function properly.”
Secondary items can be, but are not limited to, perishable and nonperishable food; uniforms; tents; tools and tool kits; electronics; some classes of weapons; industrial supplies; repair parts for almost anything the Army uses, including weapons and weapons systems; and the list goes on.
PSCC is not responsible for the actual packaging and storage of all these items. That is the job of individual units and supply organizations. PSCC is, however, the go-to authority when a command, brigade, battalion, or individual component needs to know how best to package it, store it and ship it – to keep it away from the elements and safe from the bumps and bruises that can occur during shipping.
With a 30,000-square-foot testing facility, PSCC even has an altitude test chamber which ensures packaging material can survive a long flight at high altitude. They also have a testing area which tests packaging for water intrusion and exposure to rain.
Mayatte said they also perform compliance inspections to ensure storage sites are meeting Army requirements for receiving, storing, packaging, and shipping Army assets. PSCC also reviews packaging operations and ensures personnel are properly trained anywhere Army materiel is located.
“We look at Army stock at wholesale Defense Logistics Agency distribution centers as well,” he said. “We evaluate and verify that DLA’s Care of Supplies in Storage procedures are implemented and effective.” COSIS is a program that aims to ensure items in storage remain serviceable and ready when they are needed.
Another vitally important mission done by PSCC is the proper transport and storage of hazardous materials.
“We provide HAZMAT transportation and related subject matter expertise to support various programs and projects across the U.S. Army,” said Mayatte.
PSCC works with other armed services to develop the most efficient procedures and policy of HAZMAT transportation throughout the military services and defense agencies.
Mayatte said viewing both Army and DLA’s processes gives them a broader picture of the supply system and it allows them to determine if there are any deficiencies that, if corrected, could improve efficiency and effectiveness throughout the DOD supply chain.
“One of the common things we find is the need for training,” said Mathew Felter, PSCC Packaging and Transportation Division chief, “to provide consistent knowledge throughout the packaging and supply community. For instance, we noted a huge variation and some overall challenges about COSIS procedures, so we developed a series of videos which are located on YouTube and on our website’s homepage.”
The videos are about 20 minutes long and cover a specific COSIS topic such as packaging remediation, care of Long Life Reusable Containers, and care of electrostatic discharge susceptible items. Felter said posting the videos helps reach people who might not otherwise get the training.
Use of the videos isn’t limited to the armed services. They’ve gotten feedback from small businesses on how those videos helped them understand how to comply with the packaging and preservation requirements found in Army solicitations they wanted to bid on.
“We also see a turnover of people at our Army sites, so we developed a hands-on Asset Protection Course that combines instruction on how to properly package to military standards with the ability to perform COSIS and ‘shelf life’ management,” said Felter. “When they’ve completed the course, students know how to inspect their stock and identify deficiencies which they can then quickly and inexpensively correct.”
These skills are foundational to readiness, according to Mayatte, because failure to catch and fix errors can result in the loss of mission-critical end items, which could conceivably cause mission failure. No matter the mission, routine or a matter of life or death, vital equipment must be ready for use, and the experts at PSCC have the knowledge and experience to make sure it’s successfully delivered.
To learn more about what services PSCC has to offer, including packaging instructional videos, visit their website: https://www.pscc.army.mil/Packaging-and-Transportation-Division/
| Date Taken: | 03.13.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.13.2025 14:37 |
| Story ID: | 492783 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 66 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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