Opinion: Changes in MTMC Mirror Industry

By Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Privratsky

ommander, Military Traffic Management Command

In this world of change, it is important for organizations to look at the horizon, to re-evaluate, to seek guidance, to consider ways of doing things differently. Today, change is taking place at the Military Traffic Management Command. And frankly, it is overdue.

As I go out into the world and talk to the customers of MTMC — military and civilian — I hear some of the same concerns: MTMC is not customer-responsive; it is too bureaucratic. These are issues we are tackling — right now.

Our targets? Streamlined organizations. Seamless processes. Smaller footprints and resources to do tasks. We are applying business efficiencies to make MTMC more adaptable, more responsive and more effective in the marketplace.

I know the importance of staying competitive. I know the pain when you are not. I know the importance of the customer. We, in MTMC, are reshaping for the future and we are doing so rapidly.

Let me give you some examples.

Last year, if you had walked into MTMC’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, you would have found many hard-working, dedicated employees. Unfortunately, you would have discovered them struggling through a bureaucracy of one supervisor for every six employees It will be a transformed place! One-third fewer high-grades, a supervisor- employee ratio of 1-to-16 and about 15% fewer people.

And we are getting better.

We are now processing one-time-only transportation awards [a single cargo action] twice as fast as we were four months ago. To date, if you counted the number of administrative, resource management and logistics folks in MTMC, scattered across the command, you would total several hundred. Today, if you compared MTMC battalions worldwide, you would find large, unexplainable variances in staff size, from 18 to 118 persons — and the 18 is in Southwest Asia where Lt. Col. Kevin Davis has to operate out of four locations in four countries every day. Today, if you compare MTMC Overseas Continental United States groups — the 598th in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and the 599th in Hawaii — you would discover similar difficult-to-understand variances that are not due to alignment or mission requirements.

All of this is under study now.

Recently, we transferred some strategic planning responsibilities to the Transportation Engineering Agency in Newport News, Va. TEA, the command’s engineering arm for planning, clearly has more capability than the headquarters in some areas.

We are now leveraging the true power of MTMC worldwide from multiple locations. I am very proud of the hard work to date. Streamlining must yield organizations that are responsive to customers. I believe we are on the right track.

We are providing on-site attention to some of our big customers. I would surmise that never before in MTMC history has so much attention been targeted at cost management as it has in the past six months — on simple things, like travel budgets, authorizations in the workplace, contract assistance and contracts for conveyance

I don’t know how our efforts will flesh out in terms of future rates, but I can tell you that as a result of a lot of attention to detail, MTMC at mid-year is executing about $45 million less than programmed costs. That is a full 5% off a nearly $900 million budget.

I feel good about that, too.

We talk costs a lot. We are working hard to drive down the expenses we put into the Defense Transportation System. I ask each of you to keep us honest. Keep the pressure coming our way. We absolutely could not perform our many varied missions — some with virtually no notice — without your assistance.

I sincerely believe that many of the answers to problems we are facing can be found in the commercial sector. I want industry to be part of the solution for the future. You may notice I am making more visits to the field to see our industry partners. In the past few months, I have visited numerous industry partners and learned a lot. Along with more than a dozen of my staff, I have visited the American Trucking Associations. We also have instituted “Industry Days” in our headquarters every Wednesday. We started on March 15 with Landstar System. A week later, APL came in.

The concept is simple: Key MTMC transportation managers are gathered together to hear from your firm. We want to hear your goals, your core processes, your problems, your successes. In this way, we will learn from you about who you are and what you do.

I ask you from industry to sign up and pay us a visit.

Open our Web site at www.mtmc.army.mil and the first screen you see invites you to represent your firm at one of these meetings. We’d love to see you there!

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