Army Introduces Fuel Tracking Software

by | Aug 5, 2011

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The U.S. Army is introducing software to track where its fuel goes in the field.

The Tactical Fuel Manager program cost the Defense Department $4 million. The department spent $15 billion on fuel last year, the New York Times reports.

The Army hopes the new software will help it figure out how to cut energy use on the battlefield.

“A big thing we’re going to know for sure is what percentage of fuel is going toward installation energy, which is just a way of talking about generators and air conditioning, compared to the operational piece of it — what percentage of that is going into helicopters and tactical vehicles,” Col. Phillip VonHoltz, commander of the Army Petroleum Center, says.

Prior to the introduction of the software, the Army used a paper-based system to log the coming and going of fuel trucks in theatre. This was inefficient, inaccurate and open to fraudulent abuse, the newspaper says.

Using the old system, one staff sergeant was able to cook the books to such an extent that he stole $1.5 million of fuel in a three-month period before anyone noticed, according to the Times.

The software is currently being rolled out to around three dozen bases in Afghanistan.

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