War Reserve Materiel Capability Assessment (WRM-CA)

Abstract

Abstract : The purpose of the War Reserve Materiel Capability Assessment (WRM-CA) program, sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), is to enable the Air Force to track, assign, and greatly increase the visibility of War Reserve Materiel (WRM) around the world. Currently, there is no Air Force system to organize, collect and utilize WRM data in a way that can be advantageous to potential users. The development of the system was based on the integration and analysis of information collected from AFI 25-101, WRM Tiger Team minutes and from users at numerous bases located throughout the Continental United States (CONUS), United States Air Force in Europe (USAFE), and Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), as well as first-hand observation of the WRM processes at those bases. In addition to describing the current process, users identified process problems and improvement ideas for use in the development of WRM-CA. In some cases, the improved system was then presented back to the users for their review and verification to ensure a solid foundation from which to build towards the final demonstration version of WRM-CA. WRM-CA is a decision support tool. The purpose of this tool is to provide decision support to logistics planners with the resulting benefits of reducing the size of deployment packages by locating and assigning WRM to deploying units. Previous experimental versions of WRM-CA were developed to demonstrate to the Air Force that a tool of this nature could assist in the deployment of units in a timelier manner, but those systems had limited functionality. After additional development and enhancement, the WRM-CA software tool is now robust enough to fully demonstrate the capabilities, effectiveness, and benefits to the warfighter.