Chapter 13: Balancing Procurement and Distribution
Developments of the Early War Years
During the early part of the war when the Army was placing great emphasis on mobilizing men and materiel, CWS officers engaged in operations had little opportunity to concentrate on administrative improvements. Many of them both in the Washington headquarters and in the installations were working fourteen or more hours a day, with certain headquarters divisions running two shifts of civilian clerks. Some officers set up cots in their offices and seldom went home. Since most supervisory energies were absorbed in mobilization operations, the development of up-to-date administrative procedures lagged far behind. To more rapidly bring about greater efficiency, General Somervell, the commanding general of the ASF, directed the various elements of his command to set up units, known as control divisions or branches, whose chief function was to conduct surveys and studies aimed at administrative betterment.
The principal managerial deficiency throughout the supply system was a lack of coordination between the demonstrated needs of the troops in the field and the capacities of the procurement and distribution systems. To provide the necessary coordination, officials would have to root out inefficiency and waste, those inevitable products of mobilization haste. They could achieve this objective only by acquiring and analyzing comprehensive and accurate information on field requirements and on the actual operation of the supply system. At the beginning of the war planners did not have the experience to determine even what kind of information they needed. As they gained that experience, the principal problem was to evolve reporting and coordinating procedures which would make it useful.
The Control Division of the chiefs office and similar units within the installations attacked this problem and did much to establish more business-like procedures throughout the CWS. Cooperating closely with the Control Division, OC CWS, was the competent staff of the Industrial Service (in July 1942 it was renamed the Industrial Division).
One of the Office of the Chief’s earliest administrative studies was aimed at eliminating excessive paper work throughout the CWS. In the summer of 1942 the Administration and Management Branch, Control Division, in conjunction with the Executive Office, Industrial Division, made a survey of the forms and records maintained in the Washington headquarters and at the installations. They found that the installations had independently developed their own forms, 90 percent of which could have been eliminated without loss of efficiency, and that there was a staggering duplication of records between the chief’s office and the installations.1 Yet, despite all the record keeping, or probably because of it, no one in the CWS could tell just what was in the supply system. What was needed was an improved method of statistical control.
This need became all the more urgent after the ASF began to compile monthly progress reports on procurement and supply. In gathering information for these reports, Headquarters, ASF, requested accurate data from the various technical services on the quantity of items: (1) to be produced; (2) actually produced; (3) on hand at points of procurement; (4) en route to depots; (5) received at depots; (6) in storage at depots; and (7) issued by depots. In the fall of 1942 the Chief, CWS, charged the Control Division with developing an accurate system of statistical reporting. He assigned responsibility for carrying out the work to a financial statistician commissioned from civilian life, Maj. Philip J. FitzGerald of the Statistics and Progress Branch of Control Division.
FitzGerald first undertook to draw up an accurate definition of a procured item. The CWS installations and contractors were employing a variety of criteria for determining when an item was actually procured. For example, certain munitions were said to have been procured before they had been proof tested—and it sometimes took weeks for them to be tested—while others were not considered procured until after they had been proof tested. In most instances end items were considered procured only after all components had been assembled. But some items were defined as procured even though all components had not been assembled into the end product. FitzGerald, upon investigation, determined that the
Officer personnel of the control division. From left: 1st Lt. Selig J. Levitan, Maj. Philip J. FitzGerald, Lt. Cot Llewellyn G. Ludwig, Colonel Kuhn, Lt. Col. Jacob K. Javits, Maj. Edward Mery, Capt. Lyman C. Duncan, and 1st Lt. James J Troy.
only sound criterion for describing an article as procured was the delivery of the “tally-in” by the Inspection Division to the Finance Office. This unique document not only described the article as combat worthy, but also established the CWS’s financial responsibility for the item. The Statistics and Progress Branch pointed out to the Industrial and Inspection Divisions, OC CWS, the desirability of reporting all procurement from CWS installations on the sole basis of tally-ins and by early 1943 this was accepted practice. From then on the CWS could accurately compare production forecast with production accomplished.2
By the summer of 1943 the Supply Division, OC CWS, was receiving copies of War Department Shipping Documents which accompanied all shipments of materials. On the basis of these documents the CWS for the first time compiled accurate statistics on materiel shipped to the ports of embarkation and other points in the zone of interior. With these figures, together with those on procurement, the CWS could calculate the amount of materiel in transit, the amount received in depots, and the amount shipped directly to the various units.
In mid-1943 General Porter set up a “Situation Room” in his headquarters where a representative of the Control Division, usually Major FitzGerald, briefed the chief and his staff on the data to appear in the monthly progress report. This procedure led the chief’s office to a greater awareness of the procurement and supply problems of the CWS and to closer cooperation by those responsible for supervising procurement and those responsible for supervising the storage and issue of materiel.3
The surveys which the Control Division, OC CWS, conducted throughout 1942 and 1943 indicated an excessive degree of centralization in the Washington headquarters. This centralization was due in part to lack of standardized procedures and organizations throughout the CWS installations. By the summer of 1943 the latter condition had been largely corrected,4 and it then became possible to decentralize many activities to the installations. The Central Planning Section, Industrial Division, OC CWS, headed by Lt. Col. Stanton D. Sanson, took the lead in the project. In the summer and fall of 1943 this section, in cooperation with the Control Division, OC CWS, and the commanding officers of the installations, drew up a decentralization plan which they labeled the 1944 Procurement Plan.
Under the new plan the Industrial Division, OC CWS, assumed the role of a staff rather than an operating agency. It prepared procurement schedules of end items for the installations, based on the Army Supply Program. In preparing these schedules the division consulted frequently with installation officials. Three weeks after the schedules were drawn up, a meeting of representatives of the chiefs office, the arsenals, and the districts was held in Washington for the purpose of arranging the manufacture and delivery of components which the installations could not procure within their own confines.
Under the 1944 Procurement Plan the chiefs office was no longer responsible for furnishing each installation with needed components; instead the districts and the arsenals dealt directly with one another, and the installation with whom the order had been placed was held responsible for delivery. Each installation was to procure its own components whenever possible. Each installation, moreover, was urged to write contracts for end items only, leaving the procurement of components to the prime contractor.5
The new plan was received enthusiastically by key officers in most installations. Typical of reactions to it were the remarks of the officer in charge of arsenal operations at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Col. H. M. Black:
The added responsibilities given to the Arsenals and Procurement Districts, in that they alone are responsible for controlling and maintaining adequate stock positions of all direct materials required for the production of CWS end-items, had tended to bring the Arsenals and Procurement Districts closer together for better cooperation. Services and requests for services are exchanged much more freely. At no time previously has the general stock position at this Arsenal on all raw materials been in such favorable condition, and this Arsenal feels that with the privileges allowed in the plan, this condition can be perpetuated.6
While the Industrial Division was devising improved procurement procedures, the Supply Division, OC CWS, was developing a better system of distribution. In the early war period the Supply Division had issued materiel on the basis of notices of availability from production sources, routing the materiel to the storage facility nearest the manufacturer. While this practice made for a certain degree of convenience, the materiel later often had to be reshipped. Supply Division would frequently discover that depot A, to which the item had been sent, had a surplus of the item while depot B, more distant from the original point of procurement, had a deficit; the resulting reshipment, or “back hauling,” from depot A to depot B was considerably more costly of scarce transportation and handling services than original shipment to the more distant depot would have been. After the Industrial Division, in mid-1943, came up with more accurate production forecasts, the Supply Division began planning distribution of newly procured items on the basis of those forecasts rather than on notices of availability. The result was a great decrease in the number of back hauls. A second innovation that led to a decline in the number of back hauls was the practice of correlating the stock levels of the depots with the troop basis of the particular theater that the depot served.7
Another malpractice that plagued the CWS distribution system in the early war period was cross hauling. A cross haul took place when a load of a specific item passed another load going in the opposite direction. A flagrant instance of cross hauling in the spring of 1944 led the Supply Division to take vigorous steps to eliminate the practice. Huntsville Arsenal had requested some 4.2-inch shells filled with HE for demonstration
Executive branch of the Industrial Division. From left: Lt. Joel O. Henry, Maj. Henry G. Baker, Jr., Lt. Cot Robert T. Norman, Col. Clarence W. Crowell, General English, Col, Lester W. Hurd, Lt. Col. Louis W. Munchmeyer, Maj. Stanton D. Sanson, Lt. Edgar St. Clair.
purposes. Upon receiving the request the Supply Division, OC CWS, telephoned Deseret Depot headquarters in Utah to ship the shells by fast freight. That installation thereupon arranged for attaching a freight car containing the shells to a passenger train heading toward Huntsville. About the time this train was leaving Deseret a freight train loaded with the same type shell was leaving Parsons, Kans., where the Ordnance Department filled chemical shells with HE, for Deseret. At an intermediate point, the west bound train was sidetracked to allow the east bound train to pass. From then until the end of the war the Supply Division waged an intensive campaign not only to eliminate cross hauls but also to encourage more frequent shipments of cargo direct from manufacturer to user.8
Advent of the Supply Control Program
Efforts to improve procurement and distribution procedures were not confined to the CWS, but were characteristic of other elements of the Army
as well. In the ASF these efforts were closely related to a program to conserve manpower and materiel that got under way in late 1942 and continued throughout the war period. By the end of 1943 procurement of initial equipment for the Army had been carried out and many categories of munitions were in good supply. The year 1944 was to see a concerted attempt by the ASF to balance procurement and distribution.9
In the early summer of 1943 the newly created government “super agency,” the Office of War Mobilization, requested each of the agencies engaged in government procurement to set up a board of review to study and make recommendations on improving methods of establishing requirements and of procurement practices generally. In response to this request, the War Department appointed a board, headed by Maj. Gen. Frank S. McCoy, USA, Ret. On 31 August 1943 the McCoy board submitted its report, including recommendations for more adequate screening of requirements and increased attention to inventory control. Several days later the War Department appointed another boald, headed by Brig. Gen. George J. Richards, to resurvey the following five specific areas of requirements determination: (1) the strategic reserve; (2) theater reserves; (3) stockpiles in the United States; (4) day of supply; and (5) maintenance, distribution, and shipping loss factors. The Richards board came up with fifty-seven specific recommendations which were incorporated into a general implementing directive issued by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, on 1 January 1944.10
After issuance of this document generally referred to as the McNarney directive, the ASF set up a system aimed at closer coordination of the various phases of procurement and distribution. Known as the Supply Control System, it was formally announced in ASF Circular 67, 7 March 1944. Its aims were summarized as follows by the Requirements and Stock Control Division, ASF, at the time the system was being put into operation:
The Supply Control System adjusts production to demands by requiring realistic estimates of equipment and weapons needed for:
Supplying troops newly activated.
Replacing losses due to wear and combat.
Providing special equipment for unusual operations.
Maintaining a proper level of supply in each overseas theater so that abnormal usage for short periods and interruptions in shipping will not endanger operations. These levels will average about 100 days of expected usage depending on theater location.
Maintaining a proper level of supply in U.S. depots so that fluctuating demands and production difficulties will not result in short supply. The maximum level of 90 days is decreased if production and issue experience justify less.
Building up a Strategic Reserve for emergency use. Estimates are checked against all pertinent factors including issue experience. From these needs stocks available in depots and returns of materiel from deactivated units, inactive theaters, and other sources are deducted. Production is then scheduled to meet but not exceed the balance of needs by months and quarters for a two year period.
The system further permits immediate quantitative identification of any stocks available for redistribution or disposal as surplus.11
The Supply Control System provided for two general categories of items, principal items and secondary items. For principal items a form was devised which summarized on a single page all important supply and demand information on a monthly basis for the three months preceding and the three months following the date of estimate, and for two quarterly periods and two semiannual periods thereafter. For secondary items a short form was devised. General instructions on the Supply Control System were published in an ASF Manual which went through several revisions.12 In Headquarters, ASF, the Requirements Division was merged with the Stock Control Division, with the new organization to supervise the administration of the control system throughout the technical services.
In conformity with the provisions of ASF Circular 67, the Chief, CWS, established a Materiel Planning Branch in April 1944 to compute requirements under the Supply Control System. There was a difference of opinion between the two Assistant Chiefs, CWS, over who should control the work of this branch. General Waitt, Assistant Chief for Field Operations, believed he should have the responsibility because he felt that the determination of requirements should be entirely divorced from procurement and supply activities.13 General Ditto, Assistant Chief for Materiel, maintained on the other hand, that the requirements function could not be separated from procurement and supply activities and that he should therefore have jurisdiction over the new branch.14 General Porter intervened with a compromise solution by directing that the Chief of the Materiel
Planning Branch, Lt. Col. Lyman C. Duncan, report to the Assistant Chief for Materiel, but that the Assistant Chief for Field Operations should supervise those activities of the branch for which he had final responsibility.15 General Porter apparently saw the need in this instance for a further application of the type of cooperative effort that had begun to develop in the Situation Room meetings. This is indicated by his action in appointing a Requirements Planning Committee, made up of representatives from the offices of the two assistant chiefs, to consider the supply and demand status of all CWS items.16
Shortly after the Supply Control System was inaugurated, the War Department revised its troop basis to include about 13,000 organizations. The Materiel Planning Branch computed requirements for these units on a Table of Allowances basis.17 It used a key punch multiplier to obtain the gross requirement of chemical warfare items by multiplying the number of units, organizations, and individuals on the current troop basis by the stated number of items listed for the unit, organization, or individual on the Tables of Allowances.
The gross requirement was the keystone on which estimates were based under the Supply Control System. It was modified for each item in accordance with one or more of the following factors: stock on hand, estimated special requirements, current issue experience, amount in the pipeline needed to maintain an even flow of supplies, production lead time, impending standardization of a substitute item, abnormal replacement rates of principal components, and required special handling or storage.
At no time during the war did the determination of requirements develop into an exact science. There was the ever present risk of sudden and unforeseen demands upon the supply system and only the rash and unorthodox supply officer would postulate that there would be no military reversals, no sudden changes in tactics or strategy, no initiation of gas warfare. Gentlemen of what might be called the “old school” of supply planners tended to favor the maximum production and issue of every item needed. War, they felt, was by its very nature wasteful and the fortunes of war should not be jeopardized by possible shortages of any kind. The “Supply Control” school of planners, on the other hand, stressed the
need for considering the limits of the nation’s natural resources and manpower, the relative importance of required munitions, and the intelligent use of all available logistics information. Until the very end of the war these two schools were represented in the CWS Requirements Planning Committee, although the views of the “Supply Control” group, backed as they were by the ASF, became ever more dominant.
The emphasis which the ASF placed on balancing procurement and distribution under the Supply Control System led the CWS to keep a more careful check on inventories. From April to June 1944 inspection teams composed of representatives of the Inspection, Technical, and Field Requirements Divisions, OC CWS, visited the various CWS depots and CW sections of Army depots to determine by actual count what material was available in the zone of interior for shipment overseas. With the assistance of depot personnel,18 these teams inspected all items in the depots, and classified them as active, inactive, obsolete, surplus, or unserviceable. They found that 40 percent of the items were in categories other than active. On the basis of the teams’ findings the chiefs office compiled a 10-volume report listing the items throughout all the depots.19 With this report as a guide, the CWS undertook a general house cleaning in its depots and sections to discard or declare surplus all useless items. Perhaps no single development during the war did so much to improve the quality of items stored and issued by the CWS.
Procurement and Distribution of Spare Parts
During the first year of war the CWS concentrated on the procurement of end items and paid little attention to the procurement of spare parts. The procedure for procuring parts was simply to divert a portion of components to the Indianapolis Depot or in certain instances to the Edgewood Depot or to one of the chemical sections of the War Department depots.20 The quantity of materiel being set aside as spare parts proved entirely inadequate so that by the spring of 1943 the Office of the Chief,
CWS, was issuing parts to ports of embarkation “on a hand-to-mouth basis.”21 Reports on spare part shortages from the theaters of operation were becoming alarming. In November 1943 CWS organizations in Italy actually set up manufacturing lines to produce spare parts and a year later CWS organizations in France did the same thing.22
By early 1943 the ASF had become seriously concerned over the spare parts situation throughout all the technical services and was conducting a number of studies aimed at a solution.23 It found that among the shortcomings in the CWS spare parts program, besides the delay in procurement, were lack of a complete system of stock numbering and identification, confused nomenclature, and absence of a definite procedure for checking estimates of actual usage in the field. The Chief, Control Division, OC CWS, in commenting on the findings of the ASF, admitted that unfortunately many of the criticisms were true, but added that efforts were being made to improve the situation.24
The first important step to improve the spare parts situation in the CWS was the activation of a Spare Parts and Catalog Branch in the Field Requirements Division in July 1943.25 This branch, headed by Maj. John L. Eddy and located at Edgewood, prepared standard nomenclature and price lists, compiled requirements of spare parts, and prepared the spare parts catalogs for issuance to the field.26 The catalogs contained photographs and sketches to permit easy identification in field use.
A further step toward the solution of the spare parts problem was taken as the result of an ASF policy announced on 6 July 1943. This policy provided that spare parts were to be issued to provide maintenance for not less than 12 months or more than 18 months and that such parts were to be delivered “simultaneously with equipment deliveries.”27 To carry out this directive the CWS made provisions in its Procurement Plan for 1944 to step up the production and distribution of spare parts. Under the
plan, the Industrial Division, OC CWS, was to furnish the installations promptly with lists of the spare parts to be procured by the contractors. In some instances the parts were to accompany the end item to the point of destination, in others they were to be shipped to the Indianapolis Depot.28
Another move to improve the spare parts situation came with the inauguration of the Supply Control System. In order to analyze the stock control position of each of the 10,000 CW parts, it was necessary to scrutinize carefully their procurement and supply status.29 To obtain the necessary data on spare parts as well as on end items, the Materiel Planning Branch was assigned the mission of collating the Stock Status reports and the monthly procurement reports.30
In spite of the various measures taken to improve the situation the procurement and distribution of spare parts was still unsatisfactory in the fall of 1944. For one thing the provisions of the CWS Procurement Plan for 1944 were not working out as successfully as had been anticipated. The list of spare parts which the Industrial Division, OC CWS, was furnishing the procurement districts contained items which had lead times varying from twenty days to six months and which had to be procured from various contractors. The task facing the districts of procuring, storing, and shipping the parts was complicated by the Industrial Division requirement for simultaneous shipping of all parts on any procurement list. The Industrial Division eventually eliminated this particular problem by drawing up shorter lists, each containing parts having approximately the same lead time.31
In the fall of 1944 the Office of the Chief, CWS, reached the conclusion that the spare parts problem would not be fully solved until all the various functions—requisition, initiation of procurement, and distribution—were centralized at the Indianapolis Depot.32 In late 1944 and early 1945
this centralization was carried out. All requisitions for spare parts were sent directly to the Indianapolis Depot instead of, as formerly, to the various CWS depots and sections. This innovation resulted in a saving in delivery time of from 10 to 30 days on parts produced by the CWS and of from 15 to 40 days on parts bought under contract. Indianapolis Depot established direct contact with the procurement district offices on packaging and shipping problems and in many instances dealt directly with the manufacturers of the parts in the districts.33
Improved Maintenance Practices
Greater emphasis on maintenance of materiel was a feature of the campaign to bring procurement and distribution into balance.34 In the period between the wars the quantity of chemical warfare supplies was extremely limited and consequently maintenance was not much of a problem. Most CW supplies were stored at the Edgewood Depot, which had access to the shops at the arsenal to do required maintenance. In the field the CW sections in division and company headquarters were responsible for first and second echelon maintenance while repair shops near the posts or at Ordnance Department depots carried on the higher echelon repairs.35 The CW sections normally consisted of one officer and several enlisted men.
In the first two years of the war more than 75 percent of all maintenance activities were third, fourth, and fifth echelon.36 Third and fourth echelon work was accomplished at the principal shop located at Edgewood Arsenal or at the other shops at Camp Sibert and Huntsville, Pine Bluff, and Rocky Mountain Arsenals. Fifth echelon maintenance or complete rebuild was generally done by contracting with the manufacturer of the item. In the case of the gas mask, the CWS awarded contracts to four industrial concerns who were not the original manufacturers.37 Because facilities were limited at the Chemical Warfare shops, it was also occasionally necessary to send equipment to commercial machine shops to expedite third
and fourth echelon rehabilitation.38 From 1942 until the close of the war twenty chemical maintenance companies were trained for the ground and service forces and fourteen companies were activated for the assistance of the Air Forces. These companies helped with the maintenance task in the United States, but by the late spring of 1944 all but one of the maintenance companies then in existence were serving at overseas stations.39
Thus, with an increasing maintenance workload caused by increasing stocks, the CWS was now beginning to meet serious maintenance problems. The existing shops were proving inadequate and the practice of contracting fifth echelon maintenance to the original manufacturer was proving to have drawbacks. One drawback was that certain items of equipment, such as the power driven decontaminating apparatus, came in several models and each manufacturer usually could repair his own model only. Another drawback to contracting was that a number of manufacturers estimated the cost of repair on the basis of a complete rebuild job which made CWS maintenance costs unduly high. Securing officers with the necessary technical knowledge to supervise maintenance operations was another difficulty.
These problems had arisen earlier in other technical services, and the Maintenance Division, ASF, had initiated two far-reaching programs in the search for solutions. One of these was the reclamation program which was defined as “the process of restoring to usefulness condemned, discarded, abandoned, or damaged property or components thereof by repair, refabrication, or renovation.”40 By the summer of 1943 this program was being emphasized in the CWS, with good results. For example, a number of WP shells had failed in proof firing and it had been found that there was an excessive quantity of water in each shell. To overcome this condition the workers tapped the shells at the nose by drilling a small hole and draining off the excess water. They then drove a tapered pin into the shell to form a closure. After these reworked shells were reproofed, they functioned in a satisfactory manner. Again, some arsenals had a practice of burying their worn out reactor coils. But Huntsville Arsenal developed a method of reclaiming these coils by dipping them (after they had been given some decontamination treatment) in refuse oil and then burning them in a hot fire for several hours. The arsenal sold the burnt iron as
scrap. The CWS extended this practice to its other arsenals.41 Another ASF program aimed at improving maintenance practices was the establishment of centralized maintenance shops. These shops, first activated in the fall of 1943, were under service command jurisdiction and repaired equipment of all the technical services.42 The centralized shops were organized along functional lines and included the following individual shops: automotive, armament and instrument, clothing and equipment, electrical equipment, machine, and paint.43
The CWS, like other technical services, was entitled to the use of the ASF combined shops, but at first hesitated to use them because the personnel was not familiar with chemical warfare equipment.44 Officials felt that trained CWS field representatives should be dispatched to the service commands to offer assistance on CW items. Beginning in the spring of 1944 a number of officers, selected on the basis of initiative and sound judgment, were sent out on this mission. Before departing, they were instructed to contact the directors of maintenance in the service commands to assist them in selecting the shops best equipped to handle chemical warfare items. They were directed to “inspect all large equipment such as the power driven decontaminating apparatus; smoke generators; compressors; equipment (water heater) for the power driven decontaminating apparatus; trailers; Chemical service trucks; cranes with swinging boom. ...” They were to render assistance to commanding officers of CW depots on technical matters relating to the repair, maintenance, and storage of CW items.45
The problem of fifth echelon maintenance was solved by setting up a fifth echelon maintenance shop at Rocky Mountain Arsenal. This shop was established in November 1944, but it was several months before it got into operation. In the spring of 1945, as redeployment planning for Pacific operations got under way, it appeared that the capacity of the Rocky Mountain shop would be inadequate for repairing materiel needed
in the Pacific and another fifth echelon shop was opened at Huntsville Arsenal.46
The return of overseas materiel necessitated the formulation of a plan for receiving, classifying, and repairing various CW items. In conformity with a directive from the Distribution Division, ASF, the Chief, Supply Division, OC CWS, drew up such a plan in the spring of 1945. This plan divided CW materiel into six categories and established receiving ports and classification facilities for each category. To illustrate, flame throwers, classified as Class B items under the plan, were to be received at the east and west coast ports and at New Orleans, and were to be sent to Rocky Mountain Arsenal for repair.47
The problem of securing officers to supervise maintenance work was met by initiating a two-week training course at Camp Sibert. This course was first given from 28 May to 10 June 1944 and was repeated on two occasions in the summer and fall of 1944. An officer with extensive experience in training maintenance companies was selected as instructor. The course covered both theory and practice in maintenance of specific chemical warfare items, such as pumps for decontaminating apparatus made by different manufacturers, M1A1 and M2-2 flame throwers, and the truck, crane, swinging boom, M1.48
In addition to the problems of spare parts and maintenance which the CWS faced in its efforts to balance procurement and distribution, there were problems of property disposal and contract termination.49 No sooner had the CWS procured its initial equipment than problems of property disposal began to arise. By early 1944 delay in disposing of inventory and industrial property was leading to delay in contract terminations throughout all the technical services.50
By the end of 1943, when the Army had completed its initial distribution of materiel, the CWS had finished the bulk of its new construction and had gained valuable experience in procurement, inspection, and distribution operations. The second half of the war witnessed greater stress on improvement of the supply system through adoption of more refined administrative procedures and through programs aimed at better maintenance practices and better control of spare parts. Problems of maintenance, spare parts, contract termination, and property disposal constituted potential bottlenecks to production.