Army in Iraq Hampered by RFID Shortcomings

Filed in archive Implementation on July 26, 2004

U.S. Army combat units were hampered last year because of failures in the DoD's automated supply chain management and tracking systems, including RFID.

Food supplies were barely met (yes, that soldier who was widely interviewed complaining about not having enough MREs probably had something to complain about after all). ammunition and spare parts were nearly depleted during combat. The military even had to raid Iraqi supplies for certain items like lubricants.

The culprits? One of them was the Army's inability to deploy transmitting devices with satellite dishes and readers to pull information from RFID tags.

A 542 page book called On Point detailing this and other logistics issues has been published at the Center for Army Lessons Learned website. (Note: cannot be copied, printed or downloaded.)

Hat tip to Dane, who sent this tip from John Robb's Weblog.