A Little Military Inventory Question

[David Dunlop]

Thought I would toss this out there for all members with either current, or past, military experience, to see if there is a preferred situation to experience, or if it does not matter one way or the other.

You are in charge of a specific fixed equipment inventory, weapons, vehicles, tools, signals equipment for example. You have to do an inventory of your equipment. Ideally, everyone should be happy if your inventory shows you possess exactly the number of items you are supposed to be in charge of.

Now lets look at the two alternatives: you don't have enough items, or, to have two many. Is one situation worse to be in than the other, or do they both carry about the same weight of responsibility. I guess another way to look at it is if you had to be off in your inventory, would you have a preference for having too many items or not enough? Do the upper levels really care one way or the other?

David

[rob love]

When you are issued the piece of equipment, or toolkit, or whatever it may be, there will be an EIS (Equipment Issue Scale) which is a checklist of what is included. Any shortages upon issue should be recorded on a deviation record, along with the document numbers that the missing items are ordered on.

Sometime later, either at a routine check, an annual or special stocktaking, or return of the main piece of kit, the checklist is again referred to and shortages recorded.

Some items will be non-accountable, and some will be accountable. If the item is non-accountable, generally it just gets re-ordered. If it is accountable, then there may have to be a "loss of stock report". If the reason for the loss is rejected, you could be financially responsible.

Overages are generally just retained by the CQ or BQ, to be handed off to whomever is missing it. In the case of accountable items, they are theoretically brought on charge, although this is often not done.

During my years of service, the only time I saw guys have to pay for losses was when there was gross negligence.

Also, during a major stocktaking (ie: before a change of command), there are certain dollar amounts that are acceptable. If the dollar amounts are higher, then the level of write-off gets higher (ie to the CO, or even to the brigade commander) and there also may be a board of enquiry. BOIs are also held for losses of items that are mission essential and sensitive such as weapons. You do not want to be subject to a BOI.

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for that, Rob.

After 30 odd years in the investments industry I was curious as to how the Military dealt with these sort of issues. My experience had been that shortages of major items of office equipment were usually met with initial shock and awe, but quickly forgotten if you had a logical explanation for the variance. Usually your department moved locations and it got lost, or it was never part of your inventory in the first place and somebody else buggered the records.

Overages were typically dealt with with complete indifference and you had a great deal of difficulty getting rid of the unneeded item. You were usually stuck with it taking up space in your area somewhere, gathering dust, until the next time you moved and you hoped it got lost in that move. Or if you were really lucky, you could fob it off to another department that suddenly needed it in the worst way.

David

[rob love]

In the military overages can be a blessing. First, they show that supply has not been doing proper accounting procedures in the first place. Second, you can convert an accountable item that is accountable into a missing item that is also accountable. So if you are missing a 1/2 drill, the number can be converted over to a 1/2 impact gun that you are over. In the end it all balances out.

When I took over the maintenance account in KAF, the holdings were barely recognizable against what was on paper. Stuff had been sent out of KAF to the Forward bases, some possibly given away, some possibly stolen, some was thrown out. But as bad as the shortages were, they were vastly outnumbered by the overages. Some of it had been purchased by previous rotos and not brought onto charge by the supply section, some had been sent in error by the supply depots under the wrong stock codes, some had been removed from vehicles that had since been sent back. I spent almost a month trying to account for everything, then doing hundreds of conversions, then taking all the excess material onto charge.

Supply thought something fishy was going on so about 4 months into my contract, suddenly a team of supply techs showed up on a Sunday morning with orders to do a 100% stock-taking. They were told to expect to be there for at least a week.

I had two of them sit and eat ice cream while I took the third one around to view all the material. Everything had locations on my material in use report, and everything was in their locations. In the end, I was over a floor jack and a couple drills (those were buffers for potential loss). I was finished with them by the end of the day with the exception of a sea can loaded to the roof with material for a future project. Initially they wanted the sea can brought down and the material all removed for counting, but once they had spent the day and everything was very much in order, they were happy to just crawl across the top of the pile in the seacan and called it a day. I ended up with a commander's commendation for the results of that stocktaking.

End of the roto and I was out one half of a pair of jackstands and a pneumatic drill. Not bad for an account of over half a million dollars.

A year and a half later, on turn in of all the accounts at the close of KAF, the overages were astounding on many accounts. But one has to remember that units were there to fight a war, and sometimes the paperwork did not get done. Sheila Fraser, who was the auditor General at the time, landed in Kandahar at one point to do an assessment of spending in the Afghanistan conflict. On the night of her arrival, a rocket attack occurred. Suffice to say she was not too concerned any longer about over spending, and had a better understanding about why things like the AHSVS (Mercedes Actros Armoured 8x8) were purchased without tender.

For a story of her visit see here: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...n_mission.html

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Trying to figure out how the system works, eh Dave? So what are you looking to 'liberate' from some hapless QM?

[maple_leaf_eh]

When the brigade in Germany was shut down apparently there was a giant pile of extra found items on a corner of the parade square. If you were short three shovels, go look in the pile. If you had ten extra folding tables, leave some behind. Every unit had knowingly carried a lot of excess gear which perhaps rightfully belonged to someone else. Likewise, over the years as missions and equipment changed, not everyone kept all their bench seats from the M113s (for instance), but ahem, those are on the checklist and have to be there for the item to be turned in properly.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Rob mentioned the Material In Use report. It is a computer generated list of everything on the records as belonging to a unit. The problem is the NATO stock number and the item name are rarely sufficient to identify something. As Rob will agree, every single bracket, shelf, strap, fixture and fitting inside, outside and under a LAV III has a technical description. Seems simple, until a layman decides to inventory one (or turn one in).

The reverse is true for a desktop computer tower. How many hundreds of models are there? And how few stock numbers are there?

The problem gets murkier as Rob says when tools, kit and valuable equipment gets bought on the way into theatre, gets used, handed over but never accounted. No one wants to be The Guy who gets caught stealing or shortchanging another soldier, so with goodness in their hearts, stuff gets passed from roto to roto. For instance, I cracked the seals on a small seacan leftover from whatever US infantry division is in Hawaii. They'd been gone for 2 or 3 years, but this 4' deep aluminum container stayed behind. We used everything we needed. On another trip, me and a USAF Pte found some Canadian stickered computers. After much looking and asking, it was determined there were desktops sold to the Dutch when they assumed some level of command at least 2 yrs earlier, but never took home. I remember writing in felt pen, "Not Canadian stock. Written off (with the approx year)", so the next explorer wouldn't go through the same trail that I did.

[David Dunlop]

Sadly today, Bruce, equipment on base is far too new to be of interest to me. However, if someone was to walk into a little used warehouse on a base somewhere tomorrow and discover a dusty row of NOS, built in Saskatoon, 25-pdr Limbers...


David