Sam PF's Journal - Logistics and life
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09:48 pm
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Logistics and life
A while since I've made a general update - not a whole lot to report it must be said - mostly the usual rounds of work and Swedish classes and choir practice and spending too much time on the internet and watching DS9.
I did spend a couple of days in Brussels the week before last, on work, which I'd totally meant to write about but you know how it is. I was at the European Defence Agency (EDA) confernce on "Commercialising Logistics?", which they'd invited SIPRI to send someone too, and which was of considerable interest as we're writing about the privatizing and outsourcing of military activities right now.
The focus of the conference was on the potential for outsourcing logistical supply for EU Crisis Management missions such as those in Chad and DRC.
As well as the general ideological predisposition towards public sector outsourcing in most western countries, the shortage of troop numbers available for expeditionary operations (and generally) makes outsourcing of this sort of thing look an attractive option for governments. Of course the US Army has outsourced most of its logistics for overseas operations - most notably Iraq - to KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary (through the LOGCAP contract), with extremely dubious outcomes - allegations of gross overcharging and corruption. Most disturbingly, there have recently been allegations of a KBR employee being gang-raped by fellow KBR workers in Iraq, and then put under guard by the company in a shipping container, and told she'd lose her job if she left Iraq for medical treatment. (She was let out by a guard who took pity on her.)
The British also have a major global logistics contract (CONLOG) with KBR although it seems to work somewhat differently, and I haven't heard anything in particular by way of scandals on that one. Y'see, the thing with these contracts is that you can't just s a fixed price for an agreed set of tasks to be done by the company, because the military don't know exactly what they'll be doing when, and what supplies and other services they'll need. ('Logistics' can include everything from supplying coke and doing laundry to maintaining military equipment.) So the US Army issues a series of 'Task Orders' to the contractor for each individual thing they want done. KBR get paid on a 'Cost-plus' basis, common in US military contracts. That means they get paid for all their costs, plus a percentage bonus depending on performance.
Now, can you maybe see the tiny flaw in this scheme? Namely, that the contractor has no incentive to keep costs down, in fact quite the opposite. Of course theoretcially it's supposed to be only 'reasonable costs allowed', but (as the US Government Accountability Office has found) the problem is the DOD haven't got nearly enough folks on the ground to do the monitoring. So you've had KBR charging ludicrous sums for packs of Coke and for doing bags of laundry and suchlike. US Government auditors, when they did take a look, found over $1bn of 'questioned and unsupported' costs.
Then there's the gang rape, which is probably a product of the general legal black hole that contractors in Iraq have been operating in, which the Blackwater shooting case drew attention to last year.
Now the KBR(UK) representative who was on one of the panels at the conference said that 'cost plus' is something of a 'dirty word' in UK government circles - the MoD worked out the tiny flaw a couple of decades or so, not that they've managed to achieve such a wonderfully cost-effective relationship with their private sector contractors. Not sure exactly what scheme they've got in place instead, but as I say I've not seen any scandals surrounding it yet.
The conference generally was quite interesting. I was somewhat surprised at the amount of scepticism that was expressed by some of the speakers - especially from the military - about the notion of outsourcing logistics, or at least about how far it should go. General Christian Damay, who was the Force Commander for the EU mission to Congo recently, related that they'd outsourced their logistics and it was rubbish. (Although the decision had been taken late in the day.) One German general expressed the opinion that while outsourcing stuff at the homebase was OK, it was probably not such a good idea in the actual theatre of operations. At any rate, they seemed to be aware of the potential problems with this sort of thing, including, crucially, the need to have a clear legal framework for civilian contractors working in theatres of military operations.
The best talk though was from Amer Daoudi from the World Food Programme, who'se the head of their Logistics Service. He was basically "We're the biggest logistical operation on the planet, we have 3,000 people doing this alone, we shift so many gazillion tonnes a year, we do it cheaper and faster than anyone else, over the worst terrain imaginable - you guys are amateurs!" (well, he didn't say the last bit.) Oh, and they use elephants where necessary to deliver stuff when the going gets really bad! He sort of stole the show.
Moving in rather fluffier circles, I found it very noticeable just how male-dominated the whole thing was. (Not that I should be surprised.) There were maybe an 10-15% of the participants women, but all the speakers, panellists, moderators, and all the people making questions and comments from the floor (quite a number) were men.
Also not surprisingly, very white - I think Amer Daoudi may have been the only non-white person there out of about 300. Though I can't really claim that the fluffier circles are often much better on that score.
That was the Wednesday - a week and a half ago now. Day after I had a meeting with someone at the EDA - basic info exchange as we are interested in similar things albeit from different perspectives; I'd hoped to arrange more but as that didn't work out, I very sadly had most of the day to myself in Brussels, which is a very pleasant city. Generally wandered round the central area near the Grand Place/Groot Maarkt, which is a magnificent sight with the huge medieval town hall and various other gloriously decorated buildings around it, and saw round the city museum there, which has a lot of good stuff.
With the continuing mild weather, gradually warming up as the rather feeble excuse for a winter draws to a close, I got out my bike last weekend, cycling as far as Brommaplan (about 12k) on the way to church before hoping on the tube. Of course this made it start snowing not long after, although that passed quickly enough, and was on the bike again today. (So look out for snow tomorrow in Stockholm!) Don't know if I'll start cycling to work regularly - not only is it rather a long way, but, which has never been the case in Britain, the bus is so much quicker as it goes direct almost to where I work. Also with the Swedish classes in a completely different part of the city two evenings a week, I pretty much have to use public transport for that. But I'll hopefully start using the bike a bit more.
I seem to be getting into something of a routine on my Saturday afternoons in town, but it is a rather nice routine. I call it the Route of Joy. First I go to Hötorget, where there's this huge hall with dozens of stalls selling food from Sweden and all round the world. Most of it is rather expensive, but at one Middle Eastern stall, calle La Gazelle, you can get a demi-baguette stuffed to the gills with a free choice of four very delicious hot and cold meze from a choice of dozens, all for around £3. (Bit more the way the exchange rates have been going.) So that's lunch. Then I wander over to the old town, Gamlastan, for the SF-Bokhandeln to browse around, buy books from time to time and see if the latest Buffy or Angel comic is out. Then on to Södermalm, the south island, where there's a very nice world music cafe to drink interesting teas in while listening to whatever CD they've got on and perusing my latest acquisitions. (The recent Buffy comic hadn't reached the SFB this time, but not far from the cafe is a comic shop that often gets them earlier and, squee be to God, they did indeed have it. (OMG Buffy/Satsu!!!!!) Varied my routine slightly today, wandering up the hill at Mossebacke, from which you can see out all over Stockholm - not that it's that high, but Stockholm is very flat. I know I need to get out more, but this is a rather pleasant routine it must be said.
In other news, my brother is now in New York, visiting our grandmother for 10 days before going on to California where he will be living. (As mentioned here which can be unlocked now I've sent him the tunes.)
Also I have finally got round to going to the doctor over my persistent sleeping problems. I basically tend to fail at sleep a lot of the time, which is not good for my productivity or general well-being. Getting a full examination next week. Should have gone ages ago, but I am an avoidant idiot.
Tags: family, life, logistics, war, work
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![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/43845954/1071362) | | From: | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nhw |
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| Date: | March 8th, 2008 11:07 pm (UTC) |
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Do give me a shout next time round!
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/47496584/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | March 8th, 2008 11:12 pm (UTC) |
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I will do! It occured to me just as I was in the airport, "Dear me, nhw lives in Brussels. Maybe I could still email him!" But then I thought, hmm, short notice much, and he has busy job and family so probably can't just drop everything. Which, possibly erroneous conclusion, but anyway will definitely remember before I actually get to the airport next time!
"We're [WFP] the biggest logistical operation on the planet"
Really? Is this for some very narrow defition of logistics? FedEx, for instance, must be an order of magnitude bigger than WFP?
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/23473396/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | March 9th, 2008 07:48 pm (UTC) |
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FedEx are generally moving around relatively small amounts of stuff to lots of different places. Logistics I guess is more about moving a large amount of stuff to one particular place. One problem is simply about getting from A to B. (Which may have its difficulties, though I don't know how out-of-the-way FedEx go to.) But when you've got to get a large amount of stuff somewhere, there's the whole problem of getting enough transport capacity, dealing with bottlenecks, etc. So I'm not sure FedEx would really count as logistics.
Okay, I guess that does make sense.
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