The United States Army has a vision. Do you?

The headline for an Army News Service article reads, “Army must update logistics operations as part of modernization efforts.” The article details remarks made to an Association of the United States Army Institute Land Warfare breakfast in early November by Lieutenant General Aundre Piggee.

Piggee’s opinion matters: he is the Army's deputy chief of staff for logistics.

He drove home four points:

1. Self-Sustaining Brigade Combat Teams. Translating this into commercial terms, we need to delegate responsibility and authority to operating teams, and let the team run with it.

2. Additive Manufacturing, or 3D Printing, is a “game changer.” The benefit to an operating force operating thousands of miles down the supply line is real. The same opportunity exists in the private sector. A seismic shift may is coming. This technology might actually be more fundamental than Block Chain.

3. Global Supply Visibility: the Army has been working on this for years, and their system is now fully fielded. That was the easy part. Now that they have global near real time data, what are they going to do with it? Once again, the general is on target, saying “we have to make sure we are using all this data that we're pumping out to make good decisions."

4. Autonomic vehicles enabled by Artificial Intelligence are within reach, and some would argue that they are already here. How does this capability reshape logistics and material handling? Piggee offered an idea: autonomous vehicles could be a key element in resupply. Are we going to be able to do the same thing in the private sector? If we can't do it over the road, can we do it in the warehouse?

We have to give the General credit, and his thoughts should serve as a catalyst for any logistician.