T

hose episodes of m*a*s*h when

Radar gets a load of swimsuits in the
dead of winter and a half-million tongue
depressors instead of medicine were
funny, but in real life, its no joke when
the supply chain breaks down and lives are
at stake. During the first Gulf War in the
early 1990s, the U.S. military found that out
the hard way.
In the Gulf War, the United States wasted
$2 billion. They shipped five containers if some-
one needed one in hopes of finding some-
thing. After that, they came back and said, Lets
address this, said Bruce Jacquemard, execu-
tive vice president of worldwide sales for Savi
Technology, in Sunnyvale, Calif.
U.S. military officials came up with a plan
to address the massive supply chain ineffi-
ciencies. The U.S. Department of Defense signed
a contract with Savi in 1994 to build out and
maintain its ITV (In-Transit Visibility) network,
now the worlds largest RFID (radio-frequency
identification) cargo tracking system, stretching
across 46 countries and 2,000 locations.
The system has worked so well that the
U.S. ITV network has become a model for allied
nations, and it could be a good proof of con-
cept to the IT departments of U.S. consumer
products and retail businesses that are now
just starting to experiment with RFID.
In 2001, following the attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, NATO got
BY RENEE BOUCHER FERGUSON
NATO ISNT WAITING FOR RFID TO CATCH ON; IT HAS ALREADY
BUILT A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN WITH THE TECHNOLOGY
RFID
:
LOCKED
& LOADED
RFID
:
LOCKED
& LOADED
Soldiers unload
a CH-47D Chinook
helicopter from a C-17
Globemaster III aircraft
in Afghanistan.
NATO RFID
SUPPLY CHAIN
AFGHANISTAN
KABUL
COLOGNE
BRUNSSUM
GEILENKIRCHEN
TERMEZ
UZBEKISTAN
GERMANY
N
E
T
H
.
Goods bound for Afghanistan are
tagged with ST-654 SaviTags.
Savis SR-650 and Symbols
SMR-650 readers log the
position of the cargo. Data is
transmitted through the Savi
SmartChain CMS, enabling
supply managers to view
where the cargo is along the
supply chain.
Supplies are routed to the Joint Force
Command Headquarters in Brunssum,
Netherlands, (below) and then to
Geilenkirchen Air Base in Germany, a NATO
Airborne Early Warning and Control Force
base. From Germany, supplies are airlifted
to Kabul, Afghanistan.
There is a
second supply
chain route from
Cologne, Germany,
to Termez,
Uzbekistan, and
then into Kabul.
Symbol SMR-650 reader
involved, sending troops and
supplies to Afghanistan and, in
the process, modernized its sup-
ply chain. The United King-
dom Ministry of Defence and the
Denmark Ministry of Defence
also built out ITV networks,
and the ADF (Australian
Defence Force) has started its
own initiative with NATO, as has
Spain and Israel.
Part of the history is that the
U.S., of course, is one of the
NATO nations. It had success
with RFID in other theaters. As
they began partnering with
NATO in Afghanistan, they
brought it to the attention of the
NATO community that we
could really benefit from RFID
with the ISAF [International
Security Assistance Force] sup-
ply chain, said Brent Bingham,
project manager for the NATO
Consultation, Control and
Command Agency, in Brussels,
Belgium.
A successful Phase 1 RFID
pilot was initiated in 2004, and
NATO is currently in the second
phase of an interim imple-
mentation to RFID-enable five
key nodes along its ISAF sup-
ply chain that stretches from the
Netherlands and two points in
Germany to Uzbekistan and
into Afghanistan. The goal: to
build out an RFID backbone, or
infrastructure, that other coun-
tries can hook into with their
supply chain systems and to
facilitate a standards-based,
interactive and interoperable
supply chain among allied
nations.
Despite the interim tag,
the system is fully functional and
will form the basis for a more
formalized Capability Package
that will provide a comprehen-
sive infrastructure with global
supply chain nodes in the future.
Its just that, in the war on ter-
ror, NATO found it had to act fast.
[NATOs] operations com-
mander requested the capabil-
ity to be there rather urgently
and didnt want to wait for pack-
ages, so thats where we come
in, said Dr. Levent Molla-
mustafaoglu, principal scientist
and logistics section leader for
NATOs Operations Research
Division, in The Hague, Nether-
lands. Because it is interim,
[the ISAF RFID project] has a
limited scope, limited nodes
in which it is installed for a lim-
ited part of the supply chain.
But what we are trying to pro-
vide is interoperability with
national systems.
Following a yearlong assess-
ment of its initial RFID back-
bone that Savi deployed for
NATO, the NC3A awarded Savi
a second contract in December
2005. Savi will upgrade and
sustain operational support for
NATOs ITV network, includ-
ing the build-out of additional
RFID tags and readers and an
upgrade to NATOs existing
software. It also calls for the
installation of Savis CMS (Con-
signment Management Solu-
tion), which will enable NATO
to maintain near-real-time
visibility into the supply chain.
For Bingham, the goal is for
RFID to become less of a gee-
whiz technology and more of an
integral component of NATOs
global IT infrastructure.
The old way isnt working,
Bingham said. Theres a lot
of motivation to have this be
the primary mechanism just
because commanders get
more I dont know answers
and shrugs of the shoulders to
the question [of Wheres my
goods?]. The primary metric
that has a value right now is
just to have visibility. Once
we have visibility, then well
figure out how to improve
the process.
ROAD MAP
Upgrading the network
savis cms 1.0 is designed to
keep track of and manage con-
signments tagged with al l
types of AIDC (Automatic
Identification and Data Col-
lection) devicessuch as sen-
sors, bar codes, and active and
passive RFID tagsfor allied
military organizations. It pro-
vides exception-based man-
agement alerts and support for
visibility of assets.
During its first phase, NATO
determined that the RFID-
based network met its Stan-
dardization Agreement, gar-
nering a stamp of approval from
all 26 member nations in
NATOs Infrastructure Com-
mittee. The approval allowed
member nations, or those with
NATO observer status, such
as Australia, to share the cost of
the overall project and, more
important, to integrate with
NATOs CMS system.
Our objective now is to
upgrade the network so that
member nations can use their
own tracking systems for
national consignments while
enabling them to be interop-
erable with NATOs RF [radio
frequency] network for multi-
national, joint-force opera-
tions, said Bingham.
Earlier this year, Savi began
upgrading NATOs existing sys-
tem with a routing code devel-
oped in concert with the NATO
Asset Tracking Group, a multi-
national group that sets stan-
dards for logistics and supply
chain processes.
The way we designed the
code is each RFID code has
i ts own ID tag. In the ID
header, we put in a unique
code, in concert with an ISO
standard, so when you write
that tag in the supply chain, the
owners routing code is written
in as well, said Eric Gill, pro-
gram manager at Savi. So
when [goods] go by a reader,
it doesnt matter whose tag it
isthe Savi Reader gets it.
The reader sends the tag infor-
mation to a local site manager
through the CMS server. When
the server receives the mes-
sage, the first thing it does is
check the routing code. If the
routing code belongs to NATO,
it accepts the message and sends
an XML message to NATOs
LOGFAS (Logistic Functional
Area Services) system.
If the reader picks up a mes-
sage that has a non-NATO rout-
ing code, it has a lookup table
that sends the message to the
owner nations server. What all
this means is that nations can
share their RFID reader infra-
structure, according to Gill, who
said Savis CMS system has been
very much designed around
international parameters.
The NATO ISAF suppl y
chain starts at the Joint Force
Command Headquarters in
Brunssum, the Netherlands. It
then flows to NATO Air Base
Geilenkirchen in Germany,
where cargo aircraft takes in
goods. From there, supplies
are flown to Kabul, Afghani-
stan. A secondary supply chain
route begins in Cologne, Ger-
many, and then moves to Ter-
mez, Uzbekistan, and into
Afghanistan.
Were presently about 25
percent of the way into the
site upgrade, said Gill. We
have done the server, and were
at Brunssum at the moment.
My engineering team will be
traveling to Afghanistan.
The Savi team is implement-
ing Symbol Technologies PDT
8146 mobile computers that
are attached to Savi handheld
readers. At the same time, the
team has added Savi Mobile
Readers that can
read bar codes in
NATO consign-
ments, as well as
RFID.
With military
consi gnment s,
particularly in
mul t i nat i onal
environments, an
automatic fixed
reader is very
valuable, accord-
ing to Gill.
Youve got one nation run-
ning it a couple months, then
another nation takes over,
Gill said. To have an automatic
system means less training and
reducing the logistics footprint.
NATO wants soldiers out in
the field, but there are more sol-
diers manning logistics, Gill
said.
Despite the supply chain
consisting of only five nodes, aka
supply transfer locations, the
logistics issues are complex. Each
country involvedthe United
States, the United Kingdom,
Denmark, Australia, Israel and
NATO itselfsends its own sup-
plies to support soldiers in the
Afghanistan theater. Each coun-
trys army has its own require-
ments and logistics processes,
and each uses its own supply
chain.
While NATO has not yet com-
piled any statistics,
Binghams group
estimates there
are many thou-
sands of spare
parts and pieces
ofequipment mov-
ing through the
ISAF supply chain,
both NATO-owned
and member
country-owned.
Once consign-
ments are
shipped to their starting points
in Europe and move through
the supply chain, there are addi-
tional challenges to contend
with, namely Internet connec-
tions, ever-changing personnel
and basic change management
issues.
Nothing is ever easy or
free, said Bingham. Weve
had some unique challenges.
When you start getting out in
Uzbekistanand, unfortu-
nately, even GermanyInter-
net connectivity has been the
biggest challenge. Weve had to
learn to anticipate and plan way
ahead in terms of getting those
things in place. You cant just
walk into a place and say, Turn
me on.
Increasing visibility
at the same time, there is a
lot of personnel rotation, so
its a challenge to keep oper-
ators up to speed and trained
on the CMS system. Wi th
the project to RFID-enable
each of the supply chain nodes
still in transition between
the pilot phase and fully oper-
ational in Phase 2, Bingham
said those out in the field are
still on a learning curve as
well.
A commander right now has
no visibility. He asks a question
and, 10 phone calls later, some-
one finally finds the consign-
NATOs Bingham: The primary
metric right now is visibility.
Links in NATOs supply chain
NATO RFID implementation along ISAF supply chain
Savi Readers: SR-650 placed at key transportation nodes
along ISAF network
SaviTags: ST-654 affixed to containers and air pallets
Symbol 8146 handheld readers
AIDC devices for allied military
organizations: sensors, bar codes, pas-
sive and active RFID tags, GPS
Savi CMS system that member
nations use to share information on
joint consignments; hosted at NC3As
facility in The Hague
CMS interfaces with the NATO
LOGFAS logistics IT system
Three-tier server stack that runs CMS, Sun Microsystems
servers running Solaris and BEA Systems WebLogic for the
Web application server
ROAD MAP
ROAD MAP
ment he is looking for, and some-
one can tell him when it arrives,
said Bingham. Our first met-
ric [of success] is that someone
will be able to look on the Inter-
net and say, We know where [a
consignment] was yesterday
because the tags tell us it was
there, and based on flight sched-
ules, it should be here tomorrow.
We still have to climb that hill.
NATO is currently tracking
tags to the CMS system and is
about 10 to 20 percent from full
visibility along the chain,
according to Bingham. That
said, expectations at the com-
mand level havent changed yet;
people still depend on phone
calls to track consignments.
But there is some momen-
tum. The logistics people,
theyre excited about what they
can see, said Bingham. It
makes them look good.
One major challenge NATO
faces with RFID-enabling pal-
lets and containers of goods is
security. There are guidelines
within NATO on what consti-
tutes critical information and
what will cause a document or
item to be an unclassified or
classified secret. The issue with
RFID is aggregation of key
pieces of information.
If you get all the key pieces
of sensitive information in
one place and available to a
snooper, thats where the risk
comes in, said Bingham. So
you either encrypt data or pro-
tect it so they cant tap in.
As a nation with NATO
observer status, Australia is
able to participate in NATOs
technology development ini-
tiatives, such as RFID. With
troops in Afghanistan and Iraq,
the ADF sends a fair amount
of supplies to the Middle East.
It works closely with the United
States and the United Kingdom
in moving repair parts for air-
craft, weapons, communica-
tions equipment, medical sup-
plies and protective clothing
through their supply chains.
At the same time, the ADF
is working to automate its
own supply chain with newer
technologies.
We wanted a better means
of ensuring the progress of
goods and services through the
supply chain and to allow full
visibility of certain classes of
goods, said Brigadier David
McGahey, ADFs director gen-
eral of material information sys-
tems, in Melbourne, Australia.
Some goods could move
through the U.S. and U.K. sup-
ply chains, and we knew that in
Gulf War 2 they had an RFID
supply chain in place. We were
keen to utilize that.
The ADF, like others in the
initiative, is using Savis tech-
nology, in large part because Savi
has interoperability through the
use of ISO 18000-7, according
to McGahey.
Along with implementing
Savis CMS system, the ADF is
in the midst of two adjacent
projects for ITV and warehouse
visibility. At the same time, it
plans to connect CMS with
its back-end ERP (enterprise
resource planning) system.
RFID [is] great technology,
but unless its interfaced into
transit, and back into ERP, you
dont get an end-to-end view of
whats coming, said McGahey.
McGahey said he expects to
have the initial supply chain
to the Middle East fully instru-
mental by the end of March and
the first 30 Australian check-
point nodes for distribution and
inventory facilities in place by
October.
Going forward
nato requirements stipulate
that by the end of 2006 all
NATO member countries will
have to have an interoperable
system that works with its RFID
backbone. The Capability Pack-
aging approval for a more
widely disseminated RFID pro-
gram is expected sometime this
year, with the earliest efforts
starting in 2007, according to
NATOs Mollamustafaoglu.
In 2006, we will concentrate
on interoperability, said Mol-
lamustafaoglu. Our idea is to
encourage all NATO networks
to get connected, whether they
use bar codes or RFID.
In this current interim phase,
NATO is working to solve issues
around Internet connectivity,
security and change manage-
ment so that when the full-term
capability is deployed, those
challenges are solved.
When you try to link dif-
ferent systems, technically it
is not a big challenge, said Mol-
lamustafaoglu. But the busi-
ness processes dont always fit
together. Reusability is not
always that trivial to be realized,
even with NATO.
Mollamustafaoglu said the
sheer fact that data may not
be reusable to other nations
is one issue to realizing the
bigger picture with RFID, as
are political procedural chal-
lenges.
All nations coming together
[is challenging], said Molla-
mustafaoglu. Even [ for] one
nation, the U.S., it can be a prob-
lem. Then add a multinational
component on top of that.
92
91
94
93
96
95
98
97 99
DOD, NATO and Allied RFID milestones
2000
Desert Shield/
Storm
DARPA funds
RFID research
Somalia
support
Haiti
support
Bosnia support
Germany
ITV server
GAO: $2 billion
savings
Pacific Theater
sustainment
Kosovo
Force
Hurricane
Mitch relief
Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan
Operation
Iraqi
Freedom
Office of the Secretary
of Defense RFID policy
RFID-ITV: 2,000 sites
in more than 45 countries
1.5 million active RFID tags deployed
DOD: Active RFID increases efficiency and cuts inventory
NATO pilot
Denmark Ministry of Defence
ADF implementation
Israel Defense Forces
implementation
NATO
sustainment
Spanish
Armed
Forces
U.K. Ministry of Defence implementation
1990 02
01
04
03
06
05
Source: Savi Technology
Reprinted from eWEEK, February 20, 2006 with permission from Ziff Davis Media Inc.
2006 Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.