Transforming US Army Supply Chains

Chapter 2

The Immediate Problem

Why am I still throwing billions down this black hole called “spares”?

—General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, Army, 1999–2003

Despite exponential growth in both spare parts requirements and investment over the preceding 5-year period, unfunded requirements (UFRs) and associated back orders had been growing dramatically. In fact, at the beginning of FY2003, prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the cumulative UFR for aviation spares alone was in excess of $1 billion (Figure 1). Readiness reports had been relatively steady though slowly declining at the same time. However, there was growing skepticism regarding the accuracy of these reports. For example, during FY2001 while randomly inspecting units reporting ...