DOD seeks commercial firm to coordinate domestic freight moves.

The Department of Defense is proposing an initiative to coordinate and centralize the movement of its domestic military freight.

Industry representatives were briefed Aug. 4 on the Defense Transportation Coordinating Initiative in a meeting in Crystal City, Va. The military ships from 4,000 locations across the country to as many as 11,000 recipients.

The proposal adopts many practices used by commercial shippers when contracting for their transportation and distribution services. The proposal details a plan to develop efficiencies in the overall coordination and consolidation of military domestic freight shipments.

A contract for the first phase of the project could be awarded as early as late summer 2005.

"We are synchronizing everything that moves," said Lt. Gen. Gary Hughey, Deputy Commander, U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Hughey praised commercial firms who make over 95 percent of the military's estimated 600,000 domestic freight shipments annually.

"We simply couldn't do business without you."

The proposal fits neatly with the combatant command's new mission of being the Distribution Process Owner for the Department of Defense.

Goal of the initiative is performance-based contracts, reduction of non-essential functions, and adoption of commercial "best practices," said Bill Lucas, deputy to the commander, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Alexandria, Va.

"We want to provide end-to-end distribution solutions for our customers," said Lucas.

"The Army command will provide contracting and legal staffing to the initiative's project office."

Phase one of the project will involve shipments from the Defense Logistic Agency's 19 continental United States depots.

Annually, said Vice Adm. Keith Lippert, director, the depots of the Fort Belvoir, Va., based command make approximately 390,000 shipments with an estimated transportation cost of over $178 million.

Many industry representatives responded to the proposal with concern.

"There are still to many unknowns," said Leland Karras, executive director-government accounts, ABF Freight Systems, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah. "We want to know what are the responsibilities of the commercial coordinator in picking carriers?

"I think it is too big for anyone to get a handle on."

Consolidating shipments, said Karras, would provide efficiency but also delay movement of freight to customers.

Landstar Systems' Clark Hall, of Springfield, Va., also asked for more information.

"It is an interesting concept," said Hall. "There is fertile ground here.

"We have to know more about the initiative to respond better."

The National Defense Transportation Association will be one of a number of organizations with a membership of commercial transportation firms that will be asked to provide industry input.

"From the government perspective, it has merit," said Ken Wykle, president of the Alexandria, Va., association. "For the industry, there are a lot of questions to be answered such as the role small businesses will play."

Wykle said the association would use members of the association's Surface Transportation Committee to provide comments to the proposal.