Tapestry earns five-year contract for GDMS

Tapestry Solutions has received a five-year follow-on contract to support ground transportation In-Transit Visibility (ITV) for the US Army's logistics operations in Afghanistan, the company announced on 13 April.

The Global Distribution Management System (GDMS) vehicle tracking system is map-centric software that tracks vehicles carrying transport equipment, fuel, medical supplies and other cargo in real-time as they pass hazards and checkpoints and provides emergency/panic warnings to support contractor personnel in life-threatening situations.

GDMS acts as a central data-fusion system and gateway, giving users real-time visibility, tracking metrics and accountability for logistics. The system features graphical displays of mission data, including vehicle locations on topographical maps with the capability to provide accurate location data.

A centralised database at the heart of GDMS links cargo movements with vehicle-based transponders. The global positioning system transponders send signals to commercial satellites, which are relayed to a ground station and then sent to Tapestry's Tactical Operations Centre in San Diego, California.

From the centre, the data is sent back to the customer for a real-time view of truck movements throughout the region. As an incident analytics tool, GDMS is used by intelligence personnel to analyse attacks on tracked vehicles and includes an instant playback feature allowing for course-of-action analysis.

In addition to managing transportation movement requests, GDMS can capture actual delivery time, correlate actual to scheduled requirements, validate demurrage charges, finalise shipments and support invoicing.