U.S. Army In-Transit Visibility Case Study

Ensuring Warfighter Readiness And Safety

Food.Water. Ammunition. Gasoline. Uniforms. Vehicle parts. Keeping track of the resources vital to today's warfighter is a major challenge facing the Army.With thousands of containers and air pallets in transit on any given day, knowing what is in each one and where they are headed is essential to ensuring the readiness and safety of our military personnel. Since Desert Storm, the Army has made great strides in achieving that goal.

Working with Unisys for the past decade, the Army has developed and is continually enhancing an RFID system known as In-Transit Visibility (ITV). With Internet access to information on the status of shipments — including where they are, where they are going and what they contain — the Army can quickly respond to changes in battle plans so the warfighter has the supplies that are critical to his or her mission.

As the United States continues its deployment of troops in Iraq, the need for RFID technology is becoming increasingly evident. Kevin Carroll, the Army's Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), remarks, "We've made significant progress since Desert Storm in terms of asset visibility and the need for a policy regarding technology.We now realize that we must have an end-to-end business process on how to use information technology, and working with industry partners has really helped get the system working."