In the second quarter of 2004, a German market research company contracted by Human Solutions carried out a worldwide telephone poll involving 50 of the world's best-known armed forces. By means of qualitative analysis and a poll conducted within a small circle of experts, the needs and the technical status quo of armed forces in the garment logistics sector were ascertained. Roughly 20 % of the garment logistics experts who were consulted also took part in detailed interviews and provided up-to-date information on current trends in the garment logistics sector to their telephone contacts.

Garment logistics is a vital topic for armed forces

Garment logistics encompasses the overall value-added chain and ranges from garment fitting and warehousing to logistics and the tracing of individual garments. For most of the participating experts, this relatively young segment now plays a comparatively major role. They rate it as being "important" or even "very important". Almost half of the best-known armed forces worldwide (23 named military forces) are extremely interested in this topic.

Armed forces focus on logistics optimization

One reason for the high rating of garment logistics is also rising warehousing costs - nearly all the experts stated this explicitly. Most of the participating armed forces also rated the optimization of garment warehousing as being "very important".

Roughly half of the participating armed forces are planning concrete programs for reducing logistics costs. Improvements in the garment logistics sector are mainly targeted using IT solutions, e.g., purchasing portals, E-procurement solutions or other computer-supported systems.

The potential of garment logistics has not yet been utilized to any great extent.

The impact logistics has is amply demonstrated in the software systems available today. In logistics, most high-tech armed forces already have IT systems in place. However, there are hardly any systems available (or none at all) for the management and fitting of uniforms. Logistics processes that are on the market today subsequently do not function universally (i.e., they do not encompass all the facets of garment logistics). Another fact is that savings potential, significant shortening of the fitting procedure time-wise and the minimizing of sources of error have not yet been utilized to a sufficient extent. The interest level is nevertheless high, because several of the armed forces participating in the poll are now planning to invite bids for garments logistics systems for their own organization.

Orders are for the most part sent by fax.

The available standards for ordering procedures are totally dependent on the technological equipment that is in place. Normally at this stage the logistics process will break down. Today most orders are still sent by fax, followed by email ordering. The automation of the ordering process - subject to compliance with authentification measures and the necessary security standards - is however relatively simple if the right system is in place - in future digital automation will be the solution for many of the armed forces. The minimal usage of telephone and post shows on the one hand that orders have to be placed quickly, while on the other hand authentification seems to play a major role.

Optimization of the recruit fitting process and of foreign deployment

Most of the armies that were queried by the experts outfit their recruits 'en masse'. That's why peak times exist - above all in the autumn, but in some countries the springtime.  Generally (but not exclusively), it is countries with compulsory military service that have peak times for the outfitting of recruits. Most armed forces do in fact need to optimize their garment logistics processes. The situation at the time of writing is that recruits are outfitted at as many as ten different sites. A digital fitting solution could prove invaluable for those armed forces which have compulsory military service, since bottlenecks and wrong deliveries can be avoided during the spring and autumn peak times -   and let us not disregard the optimization potential for armed forces with many foreign deployments and assignments (e.g., NATO missions). In this case, military personnel must travel to other countries that are very often in different climate zones - and very often they have to get there as fast as possible. With the relevant logistic solution, every member of these mobile armed forces will have properly-fitting and suitable uniforms waiting for him when he arrives at his destination. This is an important factor - because the exact fitting of individual items of clothing or uniforms is a basic requirement for the efficient operation of military personnel. This is the reason why the experts rate the exact fitting of uniforms so highly in the poll.

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