US Air Force

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. With over 300,000 personnel on active duty, USAF physical assets include over 10,000 manned and unmanned aircraft, combat air vehicles, cruise missiles and ICBMs, based and deployed throughout the world.

What was needed

The USAF is held accountable for a vast number of assets spread around the world including aircraft vehicles, tools, and related equipment. Determining asset location and condition at any given time is crucial to USAF operations. At one time the USAF utilized manual data capture methods to collect asset information. A better approach was needed as multiple GAO audits showed that manually collected asset data was often inaccurate, untimely or missing. More recently, the USAF, like other military branches, has been asked to do more with less, leading to a reduction in the number of Air Force logisticians. Faced with smaller staffs, larger workloads, a quicker working pace, and a history of audit shortcomings and asset management inaccuracies, the USAF aggressively sought to automate asset tracking and logistics reporting.

Actions taken

Savi responded to the USAF’s requirements by creating a specialized version of its logistics informatics platform. This end-to-end system collected real-time information via bar-coded USAF assets, including asset location, status, and other data, from DoD-compliant active and passive RFID tags. After collecting and consolidating the data, Savi converted it into actionable operational information and presented it to USAF logisticians and decision-makers in the form of online or offline reports. The Savi platform was also easily integrated with existing USAF ERP and other back-office software systems for streamlined accounting and auditing.

Outcome

With real-time information at the fingertips of decision-makers, the USAF realized immediate benefits from its rollout of the Savi platform. During the pilot phase of deployment, USAF man-hours associated with locating accountable assets were reduced by 80%. In addition, over 99% of their assets were immediately located, and over $60K of accountable equipment was located off-site and returned to accountable units. With a fully automated data collection system, error-prone manual methods have been eliminated, further reducing manpower needs while improving the quality and accuracy of USAF asset data.