RELO Roundtable…a gathering place

Anyone else remember the 1974 movie Houston, We've Got a Problem!?

It was a fictional drama about the third U.S. space flight intended to land on the Moon in April, 1970. A mid-mission incident occurred on board Apollo 13 when a rupture in an oxygen tank severely damaged the spacecraft and forced the lunar landing to be aborted.

The popular film chronicled the many unplanned crises that resulted when the emergency in space disrupted the normal work flow on the ground and placed additional stress on the already complicated lives of everyone in Mission Control. As I recall, only a couple of brief news clips released to the public and a narrator's solemn (but disinterested) voice dealt with the actual problem created by the potentially catastrophic explosion in the problem ridden space module.

It appears the U.S. military's Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) is using a page from NASA's playbook to report their beleaguered administration of the Defense Personal Property Program (DP3) prematurely introduced just before the start of the 2010 peak moving season. 

According to the SDDC website, the backbone of DP3 is the Defense Personal Property System (DPS) which was supposed to be designed to “automate and simplify” the permanent change of station (PCS) move process for military service members and their families worldwide. The Department of Defense (DoD), incidentally, started their 're-engineering' of the household goods procurement process in 1995.

Listen to the feedback and you get the impression the latest iteration has been anything but simple for the reassigned transferees, military shipping office personnel, transportation service providers (TSPs), local moving and storage agents, or even the relocating public who supports the government's $2 billion dollar personal property program through their taxes.

Currently the domestic household goods moving industry is experiencing unprecedented capacity shortages and service delays in many regions of the country. The problem is the result of several complex but closely intertwined factors.

First, the government initiated real estate stimulus and loan packages designed to help the U.S. economy recover from a three year old recession appears to be working. Business volume within both the full service and self service moving and storage industry is reportedly up substantially for most companies. This phenomenon will likely be extended until the end of summer since the President (and Commander-in-Chief) just signed into law an extension of home purchases eligible for the homebuyer tax credit from June 30, 2010 to September 30, 2010. ¹

Unfortunately, much of the full service relocation industry jettisoned or lost many of it's tenured, experienced workers and up to a third of it's qualified drivers and equipment over the last few years because of its continuously declining business volume. In fact, fewer American's moved at the close of first decade of the twenty first century than at any time since World War II.

Now these under-equipped movers are being forced to deal with a 30% increase in commercial and corporate accounts at the same time that the industry's largest customer, the Department of Defense, is trying to pump 12% more 'best value' domestic PCS moves into an already over-saturated specialized transportation system.

Not only is Uncle Sam issuing orders to move more service members worldwide, but the DoD is using a much, MUCH cheaper domestic type tariff to try to incent TSPs to participate in the higher relocation volume with 'world-class' service.

To exacerbate the situation, the property inspection, home loan application, and mortgage approval processes traditionally tied to household goods relocations have all been complicated and contracted by new government regulations and unforeseen economic influences that effect the entire mobility service industry.

Instead of receiving 45 to 60 days advance notice of a potential customer's pending move, the cycle time for carriers has been reduced sometimes to only several weeks in this new unexpected and unfamiliar real estate, financial services, and government procurement environment. 

SDDC's Heavy-Handed Response

Typically at the start of the peak moving season each May, much of the household goods transportation industry uses the unique pricing and transit schedules contained in their individual tariffs and contracts to control the influx of new business to support and provide quality service to all customers. These tried-and-true internal processes not only allow carriers to effectively and proactively manage the expected increase in shipment volume but they also encourage and reward qualified transportation service providers, their agents, and independent owner-operators for their diligent efforts at the height of the annual summer surge.

Despite the early warning signs that the full implementation of the DP3 household goods (HHG) program in April was premature, the SDDC ignored the repeated recommendations from the domestic and international HHG moving industry to delay the start of the newly re-engineered and untested military procurement process.

They opened the flood gates in May and then watched casually as the industry and it's customers drowned in the overwhelming volume of short notice bookings and blackout system deficiencies.

According to John Johnson, chief of SDDC's Personal Property Branch, DPS pushed 125,000 shipments through the untested system during just the first three weeks of June – historically the busiest month for movers during the entire year! If each shipment weighed an average of 6000 lbs, that's the equivalent of trying to move 2,000 53'-trailers of household goods for a SINGLE customer EVERYDAY for FIFTEEN business days during a period when every other family in America contemplating a personal or corporate relocation has made their plans.

Ignoring the new procedural shortfalls and access issues, officials at the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) began a media campaign in mid- June to encourage unsuspecting service members to take advantage of new DP3 self administered relocation counseling systems that were supposed to be designed to make the PCS process more convenient and efficient.

At the same time, the SDDC and individual military services began issuing a series of confusing (and, sometimes, contradictory) system communications threatening the moving industry with expensive corrective actions if the smaller pool of military approved carriers engaged in 'shipment refusals' and 'turnbacks' in an attempt to preserve quality service for ALL of their customers, not just military transferees and their families.

Damage Control – Too little, too late!

As if on cue, the SDDC's PR machine began cranking out timely, family oriented 'news' releases in early July pointing fingers at TSPs and their agents for creating the massive number of DP3 service failures system-wide.

SDDC … "attributes the problem to a large volume of shipments; poor coordination between carriers and companies responsible for local packaging and pickups; and a decrease in the number of drivers and moving equipment available to handle growing business." – John Johnson, in Wrong Move – Government Executive

Program administrators claim the industry was unprepared for the long expected conversion to DPS and failed to professionally manage the much lower priced military traffic with “world class customer support”. Sorta hard to do when you're operating in a brand new virtual environment long plagued with well documented computer glitches, inexperienced new staff, and slow learning curves on both sides of the aisle.

To help fix the industry's capacity problem and quickly resolve the TSPs administrative deficiencies, the program director of the Joint Program Management Office Household Goods System, the office responsible for the premature implementation of DPS, reminded all military service members involved a PCS transfer to complete a simple, new 12 question Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) within seven days of receiving their household goods shipment.

Released in April, the CSS assessment was announced just before the Department of Defense began the first, large-scale, longitudinal DoD-wide survey in May to assess quality of life issues impacting military families during and after deployments. Respondents to the Military Family Life Project reportedly are being randomly selected from 100,000 military spouses and 40,000 married service members from all Services.  

Posting in Family Focus Friday, an internal Defense publication, Col. Michael J. Miller strongly urged “every DoD servicemember and civilian” to share their feedback about their recent relocation experience so the brass at USTRANSCOM can “hear the ground truth”.

Translated in layman's terms, that type of timely, personal guidance to internal customers most affected by the disorganization suggests they should blame industry for the problems with DPS and file an expensive claim for the inconvenience that resulted from their improper administration of their employer's DP3 procurement program.

But the military spin doctors didn't just stop there.

John Johnson, the Chief of Personal Property Branch at SDDC, responded to a critical article posted at The Day Companies blog to share his thoughts about some of the causes of the industry's service failures from the government's perspective. Meanwhile the SDDC contacted an unsuspecting military chaplain who innocently expressed his frustration with his family's relocation experience at his personal blog to set the record straight about the real causes for his service failure.

Every new program release is going to have bugs to work out … just ask the crew of Apollo 13! Years later astronaut Jim Lovell reportedly commented that, given all the unplanned problems after the launch, it was a whole lot safer aboard the stricken spaceship than it was for all those involved in the tumultuous personal and operational issues on the ground.

Never-the-less, NASA still aborted the doomed mission … and then announced it a 'successful failure'!

Whatta you think?  Was the decision by SDDC to pull the trigger on the problem ridden DPS system a smart one for the military members whose lives it was designed to improve … right at the start of the moving industy's peak season? 

Share your thoughts in the informal poll below.  You DON'T have to be registered to vote.  

¹ Members of the military, foreign service and intelligence communities who served on official extended duty outside of the United States for 90 days or more at any time between Jan. 1, 2009, to April 30, 2010, already have another year to buy a home and claim the credit.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, those who qualify have until April 30, 2011, to sign a sales contract, and until June 30, 2011, to settle and close on the home. Both the $8,000 first-time and $6,500 repeat home buyer tax credits are included in the exception.

Related Articles:

DP3 – A moving industry conundrum – RELO Roundtable

Military hints at review of problem-ridden DP3 program – RELO Roundtable

‘Defense Personal Property Procurement Program (DP3)’ Category – RELO Roundtable

Popular Defense Personal Property Program (DP3) Forum Discussions – RELO Roundtable

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