Without resilient supply chain management, the military risks wasting the hundreds of billions it spends each year on defense assets.
Key elements of supply chain leadership that will drive success in future conflicts include:
- Forecasting part requirements well in advance
- Adapting to rapidly changing environments
- Maximizing the use of technology, including artificial intelligence
AI-powered supply chain solutions address the challenge of resilience head on, ensuring that our forces maximize their success on the battlefield and taxpayers get the greatest return from their defense investment.
“AI-based logistics technology doesn’t just flag supply chain issues—it resolves them,” said Avathon Government President and General Manager Art Sellers. “That gives service branches full visibility and control over their supply networks, resulting in higher operational availability, faster turnaround and a more resilient force.”
Why defense logistics is more demanding than commercial logistics
—Army General Omar Bradley
The US has more than 750 bases worldwide and hundreds of different aircraft, tanks, ships and vehicles in service. Keeping this infrastructure supplied and operating effectively grows more challenging as new weapon systems emerge and legacy equipment ages.
A robust supply chain solution addresses logistics today and in the future, providing critical capabilities for handling fast-evolving defense challenges. Such a solution gives the military the edge it needs to win every phase of the logistics conflict, from optimizing maritime shipping and air movement effectiveness to prioritizing manufacturing that supports deployed units.
Another factor in defense logistics complexity is the vast array of parts that comprise a typical defense asset. For advanced platforms like the Lockheed Martin F35, that’s hundreds of thousands of parts and subassemblies from 19 nations and over 1,650 suppliers.
These parts are coming from fewer suppliers, leading to delays and high prices. Between 2016-2022, the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) supplier network declined by 22 percent.
The defense logistics challenge is immense and growing rapidly
What capabilities make for an effective supply chain solution? Experts sometimes refer to the “7R” formula—right time, right product, right quantity, right condition, right place, right customer and right price.
While the scope of global logistics is broad, the primary challenges for the military are supply-side management and manufacturing. That includes demand planning, resource allocation and sourcing of long-lead-time parts.
An industrial AI solution needs to enable logistics decision-making while also strengthening inventory management. That calls for advanced AI-powered analytics that enhance predictive logistics and decision-making, whether on the front line or in a manufacturing facility back home.
Everything needs to work together seamlessly
An effective contested logistics solution must integrate with existing systems and applications, working seamlessly with maintenance processes to understand:
- Which assets require repair
- What parts technicians need
- Where those parts are, and
- How quickly a technician can obtain them
That might even mean onsite 3D printing and robotic assembly of critical components to meet time constraints or overcome logistics bottlenecks. Success in defense manufacturing and warfighting means effective and rapid integration of supply chain processes with other critical activities like planning, training and maintenance.
An effective military supply chain solution tackles the challenge of contested logistics
In March 2024, the Air Force began focusing on supply chain challenges by expanding its partnership with the Ohio Aerospace Institute’s Digital, Research, Innovation and Experimentation (DRIVE) Consortium. The resulting contracts, in collaboration with Boeing and other DoD primes, have expanded the Air Force’s ability to deploy AI-based logistics solutions.
An effective supply chain platform incorporates the full range of capabilities from industrial AI technology, including:
- Computational knowledge graphs
- Data layer interaction via large language models (LLMs)
- Ability to interact with the data set using natural language
These capabilities open a new world of logistics functionality built on AI’s ability to ingest and understand data and transform natural language questions into actionable responses.
Resilient supply chains are effective supply chains
Industrial AI technology for the US military and its contractors enhances supply chain resilience, planning optimization and multidomain effectiveness. The ability to integrate diverse datasets, create meaningful insights and recommend courses of action enables shorter decision cycles and reduces the risk of adversaries compromising the military supply chain.
Avathon Government’s supply chain application redefines defense supply chain readiness. By combining predictive analytics, intelligent forecasting and integrated maintenance workflows, the solution delivers end-to-end supply chain performance.
From anticipating part shortages to accurately organizing delivery and repair cycles, the Avathon Industrial AI platform ensures the right part is available at the right time—and matched with the right skills—to keep mission-critical systems operational and combat-ready.
Learn more about how Avathon Government’s supply chain solution can improve the performance of critical defense assets.
