New household goods shipment program ramping up this fall

Extra troops’ family items will transfer below a brand new system geared toward bettering service member strikes beginning subsequent month.

U.S. Transportation Command officers are including 16 extra installations for restricted native family items strikes, along with the 15 bases the place troops’ belongings have been shifting regionally below the brand new system since April, officers introduced Tuesday.

Officers are additionally beginning some interstate strikes at just a few areas as they roll out the brand new International Family Items Contract, which privatizes and centralizes family items delivery below one supervisor.

As this system retains ramping up, TRANSCOM expects to incorporate all home shipments by subsequent spring. Worldwide shipments below the International Family Items Contract will begin no sooner than September 2025.

TRANSCOM started the trouble to enhance the shifting expertise for service members and their households in 2018 after a very brutal shifting season. It goals to unravel longstanding issues similar to misplaced or broken gadgets, and an onerous claims system.

Whereas simply 94 shipments have been accomplished since April below the brand new contract, officers are glad with the outcomes up to now, Andy Dawson, director of the Protection Private Property Administration Workplace, stated within the announcement.

That present pattern measurement is just too small to make early conclusions, however the workplace reviews that just about all the 27 clients who submitted survey responses after shifting their items below the brand new contract rated their transfer expertise as glad or higher.

TRANSCOM awarded the $6.2 billion contract —value doubtlessly as much as $17.9 billion over 9 years —to HomeSafe Alliance, a consortium of firms. Work started in early 2023 after contract protests ended.

HomeSafe will likely be absolutely accountable for the shipments, bringing accountability to this system from the time a shifting firm is assigned, by way of packing, hauling and unloading, to dealing with any loss or harm claims. As earlier than, the work is completed by shifting firms, however they signal as much as do enterprise with HomeSafe.

If service members qualify to be included in strikes inside the new system at this level, they may robotically be positioned into it.

Some members of the shifting business have warned that HomeSafe is providing decrease charges to shifting firms below the brand new system, and that it’ll have an effect on the standard of service members’ private property strikes, even forcing some firms out of enterprise. TRANSCOM and HomeSafe officers have disputed the quantity of fee cuts which were cited by some business members.

In an August op-ed, Jack Griffin, chairman and CEO of Atlas World Group, Inc, questioned the necessity for a sweeping system overhaul, and stated the brand new contract might make the method of shifting extra strenuous for navy households. He stated the shifting business has made “important enhancements” in customer support in navy strikes over the past a number of years, with higher communication and on-time deliveries, and discount in misplaced or broken property.

“There isn’t a backup plan when this dangerous and pointless experiment fails,” Griffin wrote. “Navy households will likely be left to maneuver themselves, taking over the stress and logistical challenges of a change of station on high of all the opposite calls for that include being a navy household.”