Mark Cammarere
Senior Scientist
Technology Service Corporation
Frankfort, New York

Logistic Site Planning And Operations Tool (LOGSPOT)

The rapid adaptation of mission plans is key to success on the modern battlefield. Although particularly true for combat forces, long-term front-line success also requires fully capable and aware force sustainment. Therefore this ability is critical for Combat Service Support (CSS). On the digital battlefield, the technologies necessary to achieve rapid adaptation include: data fusion, analysis automation, battlefield visualization, and collaborative planning.

These technologies are combined in the Logistics Site Planning and Operation Tool (LOGSPOT) that logistics commanders (at all levels) can use to optimize the layout of logistics sites and plan daily operations. Rather than relying on manual techniques, the tool is fully digital: capable of integrating information from electronic reports, directly connected field units, raster/vector terrain databases as well as imagery and tabular data from legacy systems. The tool is being built on ESRI’s customizable and networkable ArcView GIS, allowing the free and timely flow of logistics information up and down the command chain. TSC’s LOGSPOT concept (see Figure 1) allows logistics planners to optimize logistic site selection, layout, and operations based on: 1) terrain/weather considerations, 2) customer requirements, 3) logistics operating rules, 4) safety, 5) engineer support requirements, and 6) enemy threat by integrating the types of information shown.