ASCI, PIZZA, "Q AND A," MILITARY PROCUREMENT

The Alaska Supply Chain Integrators, better known locally as “ASCI,” is a major business in our District 31 in South Anchorage. Formed in 1999, ASCI services include supply chain services, maintenance optimization, and process consulting. In plain language, the role of ASCI being an outsource for major firms such as British Petroleum for their procurement and logistics needs.

Scott Hawkins is the President, Chief Operating Officer of ASCI. I was part of a tour Scott provided today for some legislators and staff. It’s a large operation that provides good outsourcing services. One has to wonder if there is a place for more outsourcing for municipal, state, and federal government. Private business is typically more efficient than government in doing the same work – basically because a profit motive is involved, and that motive tends to spur excellence in performance to maintain the profit.

After the tour, Scott Hawkins invited in several of his rank and file employees for an unscripted and unexpected question and answer (“Q and A”) session with the legislators present during a pizza lunch. The Q and A covered a multitude of topics. I think all the legislators appreciated the opportunity to communicate with constituents, I know I certainly did.

ASCI’s procurement methodology was especially interesting to me.

I spent about four years in the US Air Force procurement “business.” In 1967, I was selected as one of six officers to attend the year long Education with Industry (EWI) at The Boeing Company in Seattle - part of the Air Force Air University. The course was generally considered by the military to be equivalent to a Master of Business Administration degree. During EWI, our seven Air Force students wore mufti (i.e. civilian clothes: worn by somebody who usually wears a uniform), and worked side by side with regular Boeing employees. Our Air Force group worked through most of the Boeing divisions, including the commercial air division (and a test flight from the jump seat of a brand new 737 airliner just rolled off the production line), work on the supersonic airliner (“SST”), and even the window fairing design on today’s 747, as well in the missile division’s design of missile fairing for the B52 bomber. Primarily, however, we worked on production and procurement issues.

After graduation from EWI in 1968, I was assigned to supervision Air Force contracting teams at Robins AFB at Warner-Robbins, Georgia (amazingly, part of my work was procuring snowplows for Alaska from Georgia!). In 1970, I was reassigned from Georgia to being th4e officer in charge of the Management Services Division of the old Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) at Dayton, Ohio where we tracked Air Force procurement activities worldwide. In 1969, I was assigned to the AFLC Inspector General (IG) Team. The IG did “no notice” inspections of Air Force procurement procedures throughout the United States. The highlight of my IG work was a five week trip to Nationalist China in Taiwan to inspect Chinese contract maintenance of US Air Force aircraft stationed there.

After my procurement duty in the Air Force, I was ordered to Vietnam in 1972, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, “procurement is procurement” – and it was interesting to see how ASCI provides procurement expertise right here in our District 31 in South Anchorage.

The photos show Scott Hawkins giving us the tour, and our legislative group answering employee questions.