Photo By Joseph M. Lee | (From left) AMC Industrial Specialist Travis Themas, AMC Executive Deputy to the...... read more read more
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Leaders from Army Materiel Command detailed a new, integrated strategy to transform the Army’s Organic Industrial Base into a more agile, resilient and responsive force multiplier during a Warriors Corner panel at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium on March 26.
The discussion highlighted a fundamental shift in how the Army plans to manage workload across its network of arsenals, depots and ammunition plants to ensure the sites are better utilized and functioning at a healthy workload to meet current demands and maintain surge capacity.
“Over the last couple of days, we've been hearing a lot about a transformation effort that's been ongoing with the OIB,” said Travis Themas, the panel’s moderator and Industrial Modernization Lead for AMC. “There's a lot of different attributes that describe this transformation, some of those are adapt faster, innovate more, optimize how we deliver capabilities to the warfighters, modernize our infrastructure, adapt to advanced digital tools, and fostering industrial partnerships as we reimagine the industrial base for the future.”
Themas said at the heartof the new strategy is a two-tiered management model designed to synchronize and execute priorities across the OIB enterprise, initially focused on the 13 government-owned, government-operated sites.
Col. Matt Alexander, military deputy for the Army OIB Integration Office, explained the structure, saying the OIB Integration Office will serve as the strategic, Army-level hub to consolidate and prioritize requirements. This long-term planning is then passed to the OIB Operations Center, which functions at the AMC-level to operationalize the strategy, coordinate workload, and align modernization efforts.
“The fundamental problem we saw was visibility of how we workload the OIB across the acquisition lifecycle, so we’ve done several things to get at that,” said Alexander about how the strategywas developed after AMC conducted an in-depth analysis of the 23 OIB sites and determined that the each of the sites was underutilized.“We’ve identified a heathy range of depot labor hours for each site and had to reimagine how we workload the OIB throughout the acquisition process.”
A major pillar of this transformation is the Army’s push to strengthen collaboration with industry, academia and other government partners. Liz Miranda, the executive deputy to the commanding general of AMC, stressed that collaboration is essential to modernize aging infrastructure without relying solely on government funding. “We are actively pursuing several external partnership strategies with private industry and local governments. The Army cannot solve this alone,” Miranda said. “We need industry partnership to expand capacity and modernize our facilities.”
She highlighted several initiatives including enhanced use leases, public-private partnerships and rate reform. “We’re moving from strategy to action,” Miranda said. “We’re demonstrating that we can execute partnerships faster and more effectively than before.”
AMC is also expanding opportunities for industry engagement through OIB Industry Days.
“We must reimagine the OIB as a force multiplier, continuing to deliver combat-ready formations, developing critical warfighting capabilities, and optimizing our force structure,” said Themas. “This isn’t simply about acquiring new equipment; it’s about a holistic, continuous process of improvement.”
| Date Taken: | 03.27.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 03.30.2026 15:30 |
| Story ID: | 561572 |
| Location: | HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 11 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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