Talk:Military logistics

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Hubbardaie asserts that my reversion of his edits constitute valdalism. That is not true, I simply disagree with his new focus on predictive tools which would be better handled in a separate article. Hubbardaie's changes do not improve the article but refocuses it on predictive forecasting which was not the intent of the orignial article.

Predictive logistics tools such as OPLOG Planner and Log Estimation Worksheet (LEW) and others have existed for decades. FBCB2 and Bluefor tracker now provide near real time logistics status. But reguardless of all of these models and tools it still comes down to the experience and gut feel of the logistician to determine logistics requirements

The point of the pre-edited article was regardless of the predictive tools used that, "Logistics is not an exact science. No mathematical formula or set of tables tells precisely what supplies or services will be needed, where and when they will be needed, or the best way to provide them. "

This is not vandalism. Per Wikipidia on Vandalism, "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia. For example, adding a personal opinion once is not vandalism — it's just not helpful, and should be removed or restated." Ehrentitle 16:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

• I'll take your word for it about what your underlying intent was. I have no basis to reject your claim that it was well-intentioned. All I have to go on is the content of your action. It appeared to me that you deleted something without actually reading what it said, checking the references or attempting in any way to understand the point being made. You simply saw that my user name was the same as some of the sources cited and assumed self promotion. Actually, if you would have just reviewed those sources without knowing who posted them, I'm sure an objetive person would say they were valid, notable, verifiable and relevant.

• That aside, your response still reveals an underlying misunderstanding about the point about "exact science". The "its not an exact science" claim is almost always a red-herring that mistates what science is really about. First, there really is no "exact science" if "exact" means infinite precision. Empirical observation is about reducing uncertainty, not exactitude. This is why peer-reviewed scientific journals require reporting measurement error. Furthermore, the fact that it relies on human judgement is, itself, not sufficient basis for saying there is no science at all. What is really important is that certain proven methods in statistics and decision modeling have reduced the error of human decision makers. In that sense, the science is about human judgement error-reduction and in logistics there is plenty of need of that. The sources I produced cite many other specific sources about research in this field, not all of which is mine. Don't worry, there is no original research here...this is all prior published research. The research I did for the USMC system CLC2S for fuel logistics was needed because it didn't actually have very sophisticated forecasting methods in place. In that case, the fact that it was unscientific was not just because human judgement was the ultimate override. The existing forecasting model simply had more error than it had to have and the new model reduced forecast error by more than half. If your point is that predictive tools would be better handled in a separate article, I might not disagree. However, it seems that these predictive tools are such a large part of military logistics that it would be hard to imagine someone being an "expert" in logistics without some knowledge of them. That is why I would opt to at least mention them in military logistics.Hubbardaie 16:46, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I concede the point on Logistics as a exact science. I think you would be better served by creating a separate article on Military Decision Modeling and linking it back to this page. I believe your edits do do border on self promotion. Even had I not known you were the author of this work I would have questioned it. Applied Information Economics is but one of dozens of models, simulation and predictive tools used by the US Armed Forces over the years to address supply chain and maintenance issues. I believe the article should focus more on logistician making informed decisions based on these tools rather than the tools themselves. Which begs the question why is your method more notable that say the Air Force's Logistics Composite Model(LCOM) for maintenance or other other military Logistics ERP programs? Ehrentitle 20:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll respond in more detail in a couple of days. In the mean time, I'll just say that AIE and ERP are apples and oranges. The first is a mathematical model, the second is software. Software can utilize such an algorithm but they are separate. If the only examples of logistics being at least partly scientific were the existance of software, I would agree that it has no basis in science. What makes it scientific is the way the algorithms in the software were created. My citation is one example of that.Hubbardaie 20:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I've reviewed the references and Hubbard's point seems like a legitimate entry. It may seem like a minor point on this broad topic but, on the other hand, I think the entire topic could be much, much bigger. References to this method would then probably evovle into being one section of a longer article. I would say leave it in and let the rest of the article grow around it.BillGosset 18:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I see the point. In retrospect, I can see excluding my point for an article that short. I could see it as a subsection or a separate article. The military logistics article should be much longer. I compared it to the length of the artillery page and infantry page. I think it should be at least as long as those.Hubbardaie 17:58, 30 June 2007 (UTC)