Logistics and Systems Warfare

Based on publications by Engstrom[1], Work[2], as well as Cozad et al[3], the concept of systems warfare, or system of systems warfare, or “systems confrontation” has caught the eye of Chinese military theoreticians. The systems in question are human-machine collaborative networks for command, firepower, information systems, reconnaissance, and supply systems[4]. These are used to achieve integrated joint operations[5], and victory is defined by the destruction of the enemy’s systems – the enemy “loses the will and ability to resist” once the operational systems are rendered nonfunctional[6]. China expects this to work not only for peer rivals but also will allow them to "win informationized local wars."[7]

Autonomous truck convoy from National Defense

How should the U.S. military’s logistics system adapt to all this? After presenting an example scenario set in the Taiwan Strait in 2034, Estevez, et al[8], provides several recommendations.

First, the U.S. should develop resilient supply chains by avoiding single points of failure, using redundant suppliers, routes, and transport modes. Linear supply chains must be abandoned as they are too easy a target for kinetic strikes or cyber sabotage.

Second, the military should coordinate with the military-industrial base to ensure needs are rapidly met. This would involve transparency into the suppliers’ business processes to allow tracking from component part acquisition to final assembly.

Third, AI and predictive analytics along with traditional measurements should be used to forecast and meet demands.

Fourth, "gig" transportation systems like DoorDash or Lyft should be used to deliver goods into the theater of operations.

Implementation of this fourth recommendation has been studied in joint experiments by US and UK military forces[9]. They have produced small drones and self-driving supply trucks that would be needed, but the scheduling and notification systems required to produce a "military DoorDash" were not mentioned in their demonstration.

Estevez, et al[10], provides a picture of what warfare would look like in the era of systems warfare: deterrence would be achieved out of respect for these systems (not fear of death or destruction), and defeat would be achieved by protracted exhaustion instead of decisive action.

Footnotes

[1] Engstrom, 2018.
[2] Work, 2020.
[3] Cozad et al, 2023.
[4] Engstrom, p. 25.
[5] Ibid, p. 13.
[6] Ibid., p. 15.
[7] Ibid, p. 11.
[8] Estevez et al, 2021.
[9] Dstl, 2019.
[10] Estevez et al, 2021.

Bibliography

Cozad, M. et al. Gaining Victory in Systems Warfare. RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA1500/RRA1535-1/RAND_RRA1535-1.pdf

Dstl. “The Future of Military Logistics | Coalition Assured Autonomous Resupply,” posted 19 September 2019, YouTube, 2 min. 17 sec., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YqJUJby0wg

Engstrom, J. Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare. RAND Corporation, 2018. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1700/RR1708/RAND_RR1708.pdf

Estevez, A., Marchese, K., Routh, A., & Mariani, J. “The Changing Character of Supply: Rethinking Logistics in an Era of Systems Warfare.” Modern War Institute at West Point, 9 June 2021. https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-changing-character-of-supply-rethinking-logistics-in-an-era-of-systems-warfare/

Work, R. “A Joint Warfighting Concept for Systems Warfare.” Center for a New American Security, 17 December 2020. https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/a-joint-warfighting-concept-for-systems-warfare

Longshoremen, Automation, and Obsolete Machines

Robots have replaced many workers in supply chains positions, and this was one of the issues for which the International Longshoremen's Association went on strike. In fact, ILA president Harold Daggett demanded “absolute airtight language that there will be no automation or semiautomation” in the contract they want to get with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMA) (Lynch & Weil, 2024). It is interesting that Daggett did not call for retraining of dockworkers, and he is doing nothing ameliorate the effects of automation on dock workers. Any good leader would do all he can for his men, and there are things that he can be doing: retraining, transferring his men to areas less likely to be automated, etc. Otherwise, Daggett's men will soon be nothing more than obsolete equipment.

They did go on strike, and one of the strikers' signs read "robots don't pay taxes." This only adds to the problem - most people not in a union would read this and deduce that people are paying too much in taxes.

Then there's Daggett's statement that "I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means." This came at the end of an interview with him on the YouTube channel ran by the International Longshoresmen's Association:

Guys who sell cars can’t sell cars, because the cars ain’t coming in off the ships. They get laid off. Third week, malls are closing down. They can’t get the goods from China. They can’t sell clothes. They can’t do this. Everything in the United States comes on a ship, they go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren’t coming in. The steel’s not coming in. The lumber’s not coming in. They lose their job. Everybody’s hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are… In today’s world I’ll cripple you. I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means, nobody does. (ILA, 2024)

This is more than bluster, it is an out-and-out threat aimed not at the USMA but at American society as a whole.

ILA President Harold J. Daggett

These three things - bad leadership, the calls to be tax chattel, and the leader's threat against America - are arguments in favor of automation, or at least reasons for the ILA to replace Daggett.

The ILA strike began on 1 October 2024 and ended three days later. The ILA and the USMA agreed to a 62% wage increase for the dock workers over the six year tentative deal. The issue of automation will be addressed in approximately 100 days, on 15 January 2025, after the election.

Automation of the type that ILA is rightfully concerned is limited to businesses large enough to afford robotics: Amazon, auto manufacturers, companies requiring large warehouses, etc. Smaller companies are immune to this form of automation, at least at present. Daggett can position his men at these smaller companies. Daggett can also have his men trained to repair the same automation systems the USMA so desperately wants. Irony, though, is something lost on Daggett.

References

International Longshoremen's Association. (2024, 5 September). A Candid Conversation With ILA President Harold J. Daggett On Wide Range of Important Topics [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=822WNvhQHKI

Lynch, D. & Weil, J. (2024). The Washington Post, 5 October 2024. Retrieved 6 October 2024 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/05/port-strike-workers-jobs-automation-union/

Review of “Exploring the Potentials of Automation"

Abstract

This is a review of Nitsche’s “Exploring the Potentials of Automation in Logistics and Supply Chain Management: Paving the Way for Autonomous Supply Chains.” The article is the introduction to a special issue of the journal Logistics devoted to the automation of logistics and supply chain management. It describes the motivations for doing so and the particular areas of logistics most amiable to automation. The article then describes five levels of automation that are available for supply chain managers, then concludes with brief summaries of the other papers in this special issue.

This review begins with an outline of the major concepts used in the paper, then examines how supply chain management theory applies to these concepts. The managerial implications of this paper are explored, and the article is summarized. Finally, the coverage of the issues surrounding automation is appraised.

Author’s Purpose

The purpose of "Exploring the Potentials of Automation in Logistics and Supply Chain Management: Paving the Way for Autonomous Supply Chains" (Nitsche, 2021) is to serve as an introduction to a special edition of the Logistics journal devoted to how and why logistics and supply chain management systems should be automated. As it is an introduction, it defines some of the concepts used in the other six papers in the special issue. Based on these six papers, the author derives a five-level system describing the degree of automation present in any logistics or supply chain management system. This five-level system is sequential, meaning that it describes a progression pointing to the ultimate state of automation, which the author believes to be completely autonomous self-directed systems. The author completes this introduction by providing brief summaries of the other papers contained in the special issue.

Background of the Issue

Logistics and supply chain automation is defined as “the partial or full replacement or support of a human-performed physical or informational process by a machine. This includes tasks to plan, control or execute the physical flow of goods as well as the corresponding informational and financial flows within the focal firm and with supply chain partners.” (Nitsche et al., 2021, p. 225).

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the motivations for automating logistics and supply chain systems were to improve supply chain responsiveness and resilience while minimizing operating costs. COVID-19 provided another motivation: eliminate the dependency on human control and input. COVID-19 thus moved the goalpost from automation to being fully autonomous. (Wuest et al., 2020, p. 6-7)

Automation comes in many forms, and Nitsche (2021, p. 5) defines five levels of automation. Ranking these from most amount of human involvement to least, these levels are:

Remote control – this is the least amount of automation necessary for remote work; humans are involved with every decision.

Systems for assisting the user – all steps in the process being automated are predefined; there is no ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.

Semi-automated systems with no self-learning – the ability to manage new situations is through “if-then” decisions, but the decisions themselves are predefined.

Semi-automated systems with self-learning - human intervention is only necessary in complex situations, and intervention becomes less frequent the longer the system is online.

Autonomous systems - human intervention is extremely rare; the system is self-learning, and is integrated into other relevant systems.

The author notes that fully autonomous systems are best able to overcome situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, since fully autonomous systems remove the impact that ill employees had on supply chain responsiveness and resilience.

Application of Relevant Supply Chain Management Theory

There are several goals for automating logistics and supply chain management. Of course, there are the desires to minimize costs and increase productivity. This latter desire is expressed through the concepts of supply chain resilience and supply chain responsiveness.

Supply chain resilience is the ability of the supply chain to “heal from disruptions.” The company must be able to respond to various types of disruptions and to quickly return to pre-disruption levels of throughput. One way of doing this is to use multiple suppliers and to trace dependencies among these suppliers – in other words, use a contemporary supply chain which involves multiple partners.

For an automated supply chain to be resilient, the company must have insight into the activities of its supply chain partners. This can hinder the conversion to automation, for it requires the company’s logistics automation system to work with those of its supply chain partners. This problem is not addressed in (Nitsche, 2021).

Supply chain responsiveness is the speed at which a supply chain can deliver demand. It can be calculated as the time needed to fulfill orders. In a sense, resilience is the opposite of responsiveness: responsiveness is the speed at which a supply chain operates under normal circumstances whereas resilience is the speed at which the supply chain recovers from abnormal circumstances.

There are numerous ways an automated supply chain furthers the goal of responsiveness. For example, the automated system can track items as they move through the supply chain. When a bottleneck occurs (Quigg, 2022, p. 59), depending on the level of automation the system can alert workers or interface with the appropriate supply chain partner’s supply chain system, thus resolving the bottleneck before this responsiveness issue becomes a resilience issue.

Responsiveness is a process performance metric (Quigg, 2022, p. 63), and automated supply chain systems should be able to calculate this metric since, again, it tracks items as they proceed through the supply chain. This is done by barcodes, RFID tags, etc. The automated system should present this information in the forms of dashboards or reports.

Managerial Implications of Article Findings

There are several important lessons a manager can extract from this paper. The paper includes a comprehensive definition of logistics and supply chain management automation, and a list of the advantages that automation can bring to the supply chain is provided (improved responsiveness, improved resilience, and minimized costs). All these advantages are the results of the successful completion of an automation process, but where to start the process?

For companies that have not yet begun logistics automation, the paper includes a wealth of information. While the paper does not include a step-by-step explanation of the process, it does describe the portions of logistics systems that are most amenable to automation (fulfillment, data exchange, and management). These are places to start. Automating a supply chain can be a lengthy process, and the process is described by various levels of automation (remote control, user assistance, semi-automated systems without self-learning, semi-automated systems with self-learning, and ending with fully autonomous systems). While the author recommends targeting a fully autonomous system, many benefits can be achieved at an earlier level.

The article explains some of the ways to measure the qualities of a proposed automation solution (technical maturity, system interoperability, data security, and quality). Finally, the article lists the people whose commitment is essential for the successful automation of their logistics system (top management, affected employees, and other stakeholders).

None of the disadvantages of automation are addressed in this paper. There are no estimates of either the total cost of ownership, or the financial benefits that come with automation, or the completion time. Also left unmentioned are the advantages and disadvantages to performing the automation using internal resources (software engineers, etc.) versus external contractors.

Given that modern supply chains consist of multiple partner companies acting in concert, the automation systems of the partner companies must be compatible. If not, human intervention is required for data entry or software engineers must develop “adapters.” Finally, there is no discussion of the need to thoroughly evaluate automation solutions before they go into production. Such systems are prone to hysteresis (feedback loops), which is the bane of many automated financial trading systems.

Finally, the paper makes a serious assumption about the abilities of fully autonomous systems. Can a fully autonomous system really anticipate black swan events and respond appropriately? We cannot expect fully autonomous systems to be omniscient, nor would we want them to be.

Summary of the Article and its Context

This article serves as the introduction to a special issue of Logistics devoted to logistics and supply chain management automation. The motivation for logistics automation lies in the need to reduce costs while increasing supply chain resiliency and responsiveness. The COVID-19 pandemic only increased the desire to not only automate logistics systems but to make them fully autonomous.

While automation can be applied throughout logistics, there are three fundamental dimensions that show the most improvement in operational effectiveness: fulfillment, data exchange, and management. For a company with no logistics automation, these three areas are considered the best places to start.

The article then lists five levels of automation (remote control, user assistance, semi-automated systems - no self-learning, semi-automated systems - with self-learning, and autonomous systems) with decreasing levels of human interaction. It is the last stage, fully autonomous systems, which provides the most durability against situations like the COVID-19 pandemic.

As mentioned above, this article is the introduction of a special issue of Logistics devoted to logistics automation, and there are six other papers in that special issue that address a wide range of subjects, from the impact of cloud storage and the internet of things on automation to the use of autonomous trucks for last mile delivery. This article concludes with brief summaries of those other six papers.

Conclusion

Nitsche’s paper (Nitsche, 2021) includes valuable information about logistics automation, most importantly on the various levels of automation. The paper is one sided in that it covers the advantages of automation while glossing-over the disadvantages. The lack of discussion on the drawbacks of automated systems, especially fully autonomous systems, is troubling, and thus this paper cannot be recommended as a reliable source of information for supply chain managers considering automation.

References

Nitsche, B. (2021). Exploring the potentials of automation in logistics and supply chain management: Paving the way for autonomous supply chains. Logistics 5(51), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3390/logistics5030051

Nitsche, B., Straube, F., & Wirth, M. (2021). Application areas and antecedents of automation in logistics and supply chain management: A conceptual framework. Supply Chain Forum Int. J. 22(3), 223–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/16258312.2021.1934106

Quigg, B. (2022). Supply Chain Management (1st ed). McGraw-Hill Create. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781307866025

Wuest, T., Kusiak, A., Dai, T., & Tayur, S.R. (2020, May 5). Impact of COVID-19 on manufacturing and supply networks—The case for AI-inspired digital transformation. SSRN Electron. J. 2020. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3593540