A few months ago we raised some issues related to how ammunitions and small arms are managed in defense and how the ILIAS platform offers an instrument to support weapons and ammo management.
Since then, we’ve been consistently working on our capabilities to provide a sophisticated product representing the state of the art of ammunition management software. In practice, this is done by combining our logistics platform and our custom “health and usage monitoring system” (ILIAS HUMS) resulting in an end-to-end solution providing safety, quality, and control of ammo.
REDUCING HUMAN ERROR
During the ammunition supply process, failures are often attributed to human errors affecting the safety and quality of ammo and weapons.
Furthermore, these errors can be made at various levels of the ammo supply process.
For example:
- determine usability through visual inspection, which causes bad ammunition declared usable (unsafe situation) or good ammunition declared unusable (unnecessary costs)
- destruction of ammunition without registration, or the registration disapears.
- unawareness of the safety inspections, regulations or ammo storage conditions.
- release of blocked lots or wrong equivalent of ammunition.
Having said that, we must not forget that ammunition supply is only half of the story since human errors also affect the return of unused ammunition resulting in 30% of unusable ammunition as you can see below.
Returned ammunition status after visual inspection
As we have shown, human error combined with inherent problems in the supply process can have devastating consequences on the safety, maintenance and accountability of the ammunition or, more radically, in accidents involving the security of military serviceman and woman.
To counter these risks, we truly believe that all the defense organizations should use a technology that supports zero-tolerance in all the phases and actions of ammunition management by reducing human errors as far as possible.
AMMUNITION MANAGEMENT FROM FACTORY TO RETURN CARGO
We think that the combination of a solid Defense Logistics Information System (DLIS) and a Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) technology can provide an appropriate solution to trace and equip the servicemen and women with safe ammunition, in the right place and in the right amount.
Let’s see how it wor
ks:
Ammunition supply process with ILIAS HUMS
As soon as the ammunition arrives at the strategic depot, it is equipped with an ILIAS Smart Sensor that will capture reliable and accurate data throughout the whole supply process.
The Smart Sensor can be embedded in ammunition depot but also in the smallest unit of packing enriching your process with an actual insight on the real storage and usage condition of your ammo. The data are based on indicators such as humidity, shock and temperature, but also geographical position in near real-time thanks to our geofencing feature.
Furthermore, all the returned ammunition is also traceable allowing you to know the real condition of each item in your return cargo instead of the “theoretical” one.
BENEFITS
In a nutshell, our approach guarantees, against a small investment, a trustworthy, condition based and predictable information on your ammunition, but also several benefits that you can see below.
Safety: Enables actual insight in the condition of the ammunition
Zero-tolerance support: Decreases the possibility of human error in ammo management
Readiness: Increases availability and employability of ammunition through near real time overview
Efficiency: Decreases costs through a clear view on quality and expiration of the ammo
Security: Enable end-to-end traceability of weapons and ammunition
f you want to know more about ILIAS HUMS and ammo management do not hesitate to ask for a demonstration:
