Any Navy officer who has duties relating to lic works or public utilities will find it a ided advantage to know something about the ucture of the Navy supply support system. ile it is quite true that the Supply Department each Navy installation or activity has the ponsibility for providing material support the other departments of the activity, it is ally true that no supply officer can do a really icient job unless he has good cooperation from departments that he serves. The better the lerstanding on the part of the various departnt heads of what constitutes the supply system, how it is intended to operate, the more ective that system will be.

The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to esent a brief explanation of the structure of oply support for public works and public utilis, and to discuss general aspects of material ordination. The information given here will be especial value to the PWO in connection with s duties concerned with public works maintece.

NAVY SUPPLY SYSTEM

The supply support system of the Navy is ined as that which encompasses all having to with the furnishing and maintaining of matels required by the Naval Establishment. This pport system is an integral part of a larger Oply structure called the Defense Supply ency (DSA). The DSA and its relationship to Navy Supply System will be discussed later this chapter. Therefore the reader first will oriented to the two large parts of the Navy pply System.

One part of the supply support system consts of the technical bureaus of the Navy Departent who retain direct control over selected ms, including procurement, and inventory and Sue control; but with receipt, storage, and ipment usually remaining with the supply partment of field activities. Items may be pureau-controlled" because of high unit cost,

design considerations, special programs, or because a close watch is desired over the item. The other part of the supply support system, the Navy Supply System, managed by the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, is concerned with over a million items assigned to Supply-Demand Control Points to control. These items do not need the close attention given bureau-controlled items; and they include such categories of material as repair parts and consumable supplies. The Navy Supply System includes receipt, storage, and distribution to the consumer of all required materials.

In order to perform this responsibility for purchasing, cataloging, and distributing, the Navy supply system must have the data needed to accurately predict answers to the following: 1. WHAT will be required?

2. HOW MUCH will be required?

The intelligent cooperation of all Navy activities is a requisite, therefore, to the effective operation of the supply system.

Not only must the personnel of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts have the answers to the questions listed above, but they must also control the hundreds of thousands of items at all stages. Items must be given specific identification codes, so that requisitions are correctly understood, and activities receive the desired materials. Supply information must be coordinated, to avoid duplication of authority, responsibility, and functions; and even more important, to prevent "pockets" where authority, responsibility, and functions are not delineated. A smoothly operating organization is imperative if the right quantities of the proper items are to be available when and where they are needed for Navy installations.

The system works at four levels: departmental, bureau, supply-demand control points, and individual activities. The supply-demand control points are discussed later in this chapter, in the section on material control and distribution; and the field activity functions are discussed in the section on sources of materials.

At the departmental level, the responsibility consists chiefly of determining broad policy, and reviewing overall operation and performance.

Except for the limited number of technical bureau-controlled items, management control over most kinds of materials is vested in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts. In other words, the Bureau formulates policy for, and exercises general supervision over, all operations involving the cataloging, procurement, stock control, storage, transportation, accounting, issue, and disposal of various categories of supplies, equipment, and repair parts. In addition, BuSandA is assigned technical direction over certain categories of materials.

In general, however, technical direction is vested in some other bureau or office. Thus, BuShips has technical direction of electronics supplies; BuWeps has technical direction of aviation and ordnance supplies; and BuMed has technical direction of medical and dental supplies and equipment.

BuSandA has delegated to the Supply Departments established at Navy field activities the general responsibility of procuring, receiving, storing, distributing, and controlling the materials that are required by the particular activity, in the performance of its assigned tasks. These activity Supply Departments must also maintain. the necessary accounts for materials, unless there is a separate Fiscal Department that takes over these duties.

The CEC Officer assigned as a Public Works Officer should frequently consult with the Supply Officer at his activity, and should discuss with him the material support requirements of the Public Works Department. The PWO should also learn the basic procedures by which he is expected to acquire the materials to meet his department's needs.

In general, it is important that the PWO have a clear idea not only of what he wishes the Supply Department to do, but also of what the Supply Officer CAN do, within the limits of his delegated authority and his assigned responsibilities.

MATERIAL SPECIFICATIONS AND

STANDARDS

The Navy has established specifications and standards as guides to the characteristics and properties of materials. Inspections, testing packaging, and packing methods are incorporated as an integral part of the specifications. Pur chasing officers must follow existing specifica tions in all cases except when small purchase are made from dealers' stocks of acceptabl quality, or when unusual conditions make rigi compliance with specifications either imprac ticable or patently uneconomical.

Navy Department specifications are thos approved by all interested bureaus and offices o the Navy, and administered by the Navy Stand ardization Board. The publication, Index o Specifications and Standards Used by the De partment of the Navy, Military Index, volume gives applicable specifications and standards MIL (military) and JAN (joint Army-Navy) speci fications are those developed by the Office Standardization of the Department of Defens for use in the procurement of supplies used b all three military departments. Federal spec fications cover the characteristics of materia and supplies used jointly by the military a other governmental agencies.

IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION

Some type of material classification syste is imperative for orderly handling of vast stor of materials, and for acquiring, inspecting, sto ing, and issuing these innumerable items. T necessary controls are provided for in part by cataloging system, which embraces the identi cation of a supply item, the stock numberi of the item, and the publishing of supply doc ments and lists giving the identification of t stock number.

The items commonly used at Navy activiti are part of an integrated supply system esta lished for the Department of Defense. A sing catalog has been compiled of all items of sto for use in DOD activities. This is the Fede Catalog, in which items are arranged in grou and the groups further subdivided into class Each item has its Federal Stock Number (FS)

The various items carried in the Navy Sup System are given an additional identificat code consisting of a two-letter prefix to Federal Stock Number.

laterial Cognizance

The Navy meaning of the term "cognizance" ay be defined as a jurisdiction. In general is jurisdiction over major end items (items at e point of ultimate use) rests with bureaus and dependent offices; jurisdiction over repair arts and consumable items rests with specific ventory management offices.

A letter symbol is used to indicate the bureau r office having jurisdiction over each type of aterial. Table 8-1 (representing a partial listg of cognizant symbols) shows the applicable ognizance symbol for the types of materials of terest to the PWO: it also shows the cognizant reau or office, the supply-demand control int, and the stores account in which each specied material is carried. Discussion of the purse of stores accounts, and of the mission of pply-demand control points, will be found in bsequent sections in this chapter.

A "G COG" item, or G material, is conolled by the Military Industrial Supply Agency, you can see by reference to the table; N mateal is controlled by the Electronics Supply fice; Y material is controlled by the Yards d Docks Supply Office. Each of these different pes of items, or materials, is under the jurisction of a different bureau or office.

In the prefix to the Federal Stock Number, e first letter is the cognizant symbol indicating anagement control. The second letter is a action code, so-called, indicating to supply ficers the nature of the demand for the item. us, in a prefix GA, the G represents the litary Industrial Supply Agency, and the A presents field activity control.

Group numbers consist of two digits, folved by two additional digits indicating the ass. Thus, group 31 comprises bearings; and the number code 3110, the last two digits ditionally signify the class (that is, bearings, tifriction, unmounted).

To facilitate identifying numbers for which y the manufacturer's number is known, the deral Catalog has a section where manuturers' numbers are cross-referenced to deral Stock Numbers.

The following chart (representing the exple just given, of bearings, antifriction, ununted) graphically explains the composition an FSN:

(There may be an additional fraction code represented by an additional letter. For example, the letter B, following GA, indicates a material condition code. This is not likely, however to be of concern to a PWO.)

There are a few exceptions to the FSN composition as shown in this chart.

An FSN in which the second letter of the prefix (fraction code) is L indicates that the item is subject to local inventory control only.

An FSN having an additional letter code run in after the group and/or class number indicates an interim stock number (being used pending availability of a regular FSN) if the code letter is C. If the added code letter is L, this indicates that the stocking activity has assigned a local stock number, pending availability of an interim stock number.

MATERIAL STORES ACCOUNT

To maintain a proper control on funding, the Navy has a requirement that a definite account must be made of all materials purchased. This accounting is accomplished by carrying the dollar value of all items in a material stores account. For each cognizance and class of material, a separate ledger must be maintained; and the supply or fiscal officer must send periodic reports of the values of these ledgers to the appropriate Navy Regional Accounts Office.

In this system of accounting for the vast amount of material held by the Navy, several different store accounts are employed. Only two of these accounts, however, are of concern to the PWO: the Navy Stock Account (NSA), and the Appropriations Purchases Account (APA).

Navy Stock Account

The Navy Stock Account is the stores account in which record is kept of the value of all material financed by the Navy Stock Fund (NSF). There is a close interaction between the Account and the Fund, so that some confusion may exist as to their relative functions. It will help you to distinguish between them if you keep in mind that the NSF is concerned with money, and the NSA with material.

The NSF is a revolving, working-capital fund (a "pool of money") used to finance the procurement and maintenance of common supply items required for the support and operation of

Navy. These items, when purchased, become part of the NSA, and wait in inventory on a stockroom shelf until needed by an activity. When stock items are issued from the NSA, their cost is charged directly against the funds of the activity using them. Therefore, all activities ordering NSA material must be prepared to pay for all items received, with funds made available from the proper appropriation.

In this way, the NSF is reimbursed; you might say that while there is a steady outgo of money from the NSF to the sources of procurement, there is a correspondingly steady income of money from the activities using the procurement items. The procedure by which NSF cash revolves to NSA material, and back again to cash, is illustrated in figure 8-1.

You can readily see that items specifically anced by an appropriations act will differ lically from the type of common supply items t are in more or less constant demand and refore best handled through a revolving fund. The material entered in APA records may a highly technical item keyed to the program the Bureau of Ships, or the Bureau of Naval apons, for example. Again, it may be a type item for which the Navy demand is limited, in any event not broad enough to justify fincing from a working-capital fund.

The procurement of APA material is handled bureau level, and when these items are issued activities in the field, normally no charge is de against the activity funds. However, there e possible exceptions to this rule, since certain pes of materials are charged to activity funds. Since APA material is usually "free" as ewed from the activity level, the term has ined an inaccurate, but now generally accepted, e in describing other items (such as on surus lists) for which no charge is made against e activity allotment.

MATERIAL CONTROL AND DISTRIBUTION

The operations of the material control and stribution system of the Navy are in no way a sponsibility of a PWO; but, as mentioned bere, a general understanding of the overall plan lps the PWO to appreciate some of the oblems encountered by the supply office at his tivity.

The basic elements of supply support are ) determination of requirements, (2) procureent of necessary materials, and (3) distribuon to points of usage. All of these elements volve heavy responsibilities, and a multiplity of functions, but it would perhaps be fe to say that the distribution element is e most involved. Certainly if any breakOwn occurs in distribution, it can discount e most careful attention to the preceding ements.

Two types of agencies have been established > take care of distribution problems. One type responsible for control, the other for actual istribution.

The general policy of the Navy is to encourage he bureaus and independent offices to retain inentory control over a limited number of selected

items only, and to turn over the control of large-volume items of repair parts, and of minor components and assemblies, to inventory management offices known as Supply-Demand Control Points (SDCP).

These agencies perform only a control function, and do not actually store or physically handle any stock. They are supported by a system of reserve stock points, distribution points, and primary and secondary stock points (discussed later) to take care of the distribution of the items to the points of need.

Supply-Demand Control Points

The chief functions of a supply-demand control point are as follows:

1. It determines, or assists in determining, the items to be stocked on a periodic basis, usually a 3-month period.

2. It controls these materials, in order to have the proper items available when needed, and in the quantities needed.

3. It controls procurement, in order to properly schedule the acquisition of necessary quantities of each item.

4. It controls distribution, to ensure that items reach the point where they are needed; and it redistributes local excesses and surpluses.

Beyond procurement and distribution duties, the SDCP does research on identification, cataloging, stock numbering, and so forth. It also fixes standard prices and develops methods and procedures for recording and reporting stock status. All this involves current knowledge of storage availability and storage requirements, new requirements, obsolescence, and changes necessary to conform to new requirements and obsolescence factors. Thus there is a requirement for very close liaison with bureaus and field activities.

The SDCP performs an intelligent and effective service to Navy installations and activities. It regulates the flow of items by directing movements from manufacturer to ultimate consumer, in a process involving various echelons of storage.

Echelons

These echelons are generally four in number: reserve stock points, distribution points, and primary and secondary stock points. Echeloning