Developing a Situation Awareness (SA) Environment for the Distribution Process Owner (DPO): Recommendations for United States Transportation Command - USTRANSCOM, Information Confidence

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this unique book examines issues regarding the U.S. Transportation Command. This paper will focus research and recommendations by asking three basic questions: (1) what should be the end-game objective for DPO Situation Awareness (SA)? (2) what is in the critical path to achieve the objective? and (3) how does the DPO get to the objective end-state? The following is provided as a start to answering those three questions. Successful SA for DPO decision-makers requires confidence in the information to enable effective DPO decisions. Integral to this trusted environment is the requirement for accurate, timely, and relevant information; subsequently leading to confidence and actionable decision-making. In turn, decisions based on confidence in trusted information lead to effective and efficient logistics actions being taken in support of global DOD operations. Therefore, USTRANSCOM should pursue information confidence as the end-game objective for DPO SA. That assertion leads to this paper's thesis that the DPO should articulate the need for information confidence as its fundamental requirement for an effective and successful SA environment. Considering information confidence as its primary objective will drive the DPO to understand all of the necessary critical path elements to achieve success.
Finally, addressing "how" the DPO reaches its objective, this paper will provide three macro-level recommendations for USTRANSCOM: (1) leverage pertinent SA industry research and adopt user-centered design as the foundation for a DPO SA environment, (2) adopt a knowledge-centric approach to DPO culture by defining ownership of information, processes, and business rules, and (3) address critical path concerns for DPO SA through appropriate governance forums. To better understand the importance of the three macro recommendations, this paper will highlight the need for the DPO to advocate development of information confidence factors as a micro-level recommendation for its SA environment.