For years the Italian Army has been interested in a changing process due to international factors, such as the geo-strategic change, and national factors such as the rapid contraction of the lever revenue to the projection towards a professional instrument.
The Logistic Command responds to the need of following the change. It is one of the High Commands that is responsible for managing the activities related to the maintenance, provision, and transport and those related to the financial resources.
In the process of the radical change of the Army, also the logistic sector must be more responsive and flexible in relation to the new operational needs, by taking advantage of the possibilities offered by new technologies. To do that the Logistics must be projected on the net, becoming an INFO-LOGISTICS.
As a consequence a new logistic model has been improved with a more flexible organization chart, a more careful approach to the needs of the final user, an accurate optimization of the procedures and the involvement of industry. In that way there is an integrated computerized network that can permit to immediately detect any need and mobilize the bodies to satisfy it.
The INFO-LOGISTICS is based on an optimum use of the cutting-edge technologies in order to make the logistic processes automatic, continuous, flexible and prompt.
In that context the IT represents a source of information and an instrument to integrate the operational Units, the Support organization and the industrial apparatus. So the INFO-LOGISTICS is an open system that can integrate new additional organizational cells, in an inter-force and multinational context.
The INFO-LOGISTICS marks the transition from a sequential system of managing the Logistics to a "networking" organization. It is projected to a "global managing of information" that is based on the inter-change of data and experiences between the Armed Force and the Industry.
That innovation system has got the collaboration of the S3LOG consortium, formed in July 2004 by Datamat, Elsag and Vitrociset, aiming to create the first Italian industrial centre in the Defence Info-logistics sector.
S3LOG combines the specific skills of the three companies and it is the key partner, on a national and international level, for the design, the development and the complete realization of all the IT systems in support of the Defence "core business" but also for the management of the existent systems.
The main activity areas of the consortium are: advice service, development of IT systems and services for the logistic support to Weapons and Vehicles and the realization of applications for the optimum management of asset, resources and processes of the Defence Organizations and Operational Bodies.