In response to the digital transformation and complexity of military logistics, the large number and diversity of its members, and to offer a standardized solution to the members, NATO developed the LOGFAS suite of operation enablement tools (click here to discover what is LOGFAS). LOGFAS supports complex military operations, from their planning to execution and sustainment, managing equipment, missions, and personal data in a standardized, independent, and nation-agnostic fashion.
Unified view of data: the LOGFAS data format
Most nations use their own data in their national systems to plan and execute logistics operations and manage sustainment of their forces. NATO developed a standardized system implemented within LOGFAS to support multinational operations. It allows NATO to provide members and partner nations unified and shared views of operations in a way that is understood and meaningful to all parties.
Taking advantage of this standardized system requires each nation to build and maintain processes and reference data to support consistent bi-directional flows of data between national systems and LOGFAS.
These requirements are even more crucial to and complex within nations with larger military offerings to multinational operations.
Building and maintaining the reference datasets is key to this standardization effort: reference dataset contains equivalence tables between national data and NATO ones. These reference datasets are used to translate national data into a LOGFAS format. Reference datasets traditionally include, but are not limited to details about organization, equipment, weapon systems, consumables, personnel, and geographic locations.
Extract and convert reference data from your national systems
At Nexus, we developed and have implemented the following integration workflow to help you extract and reference data from your national systems to feed LOGFAS:
- Identify national systems: we help you identify existing national systems containing your existing reference datasets.
- Analyze reference datasets: once located, these datasets are analyzed by our team of experts to evaluate their quality and consistency.
- Associate NATO LOGFAS identifiers to your reference data: , when applicable, we build and deliver your national LOGFAS reference databases (and LOGFAS identifier assignment guidelines to help your organization implement best practices and increase its LOGFAS-readiness.
- Extract and convert data: we understand how to pull data from the system and when applicable, we automate the generation of LOGFAS data.
Your reference data in LOGFAS: a key for interoperability
Once you have extracted and converted reference data from different systems, you now have access to a unified and consistent view in LOGFAS with all of your organization, equipment, weapon systems, consumables, personal, geographic locations, and other critical assets. With your reference data integrated in LOGFAS, you can now build high-fidelity and detailed deployment plans (DDP), with unit movements, their manifest and schedule.
Besides, when you prepare your data for LOGFAS, you are ready to support your allies and partners in your joint and multinational operations by providing accurate, consistent, and high-quality data.
When used in conjunction with JEDI MNLOGCOP, military leaders now have easily accessible high-quality data for sustainment planning and decision support, while also reducing staff’s workload. JEDI MNLOGCOP was used during the Joint Warfighting Assessment 21 to enhance multi-national interoperability.