A Multinational Logistics Support Center (MLCC) officially opened Feb.1 in Prague, Czech Republic, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) said.
At the same time, a virtual MLCC application developed by the EUCOM J4 Logistics Support division was unveiled, the command said in a statement. The application is hosted by HarmonieWeb and uses Microsoft Office SharePoint technology.
Senior military representatives endorsed development of multinational logistics initiatives at the 2008 NATO summit in Latvia. One of the major challenges facing logisticians is that multinational logistics are often uncoordinated and, to address this, the Czech Republic offered the idea of creating a multinational logistics coordination center.
In October 2009, senior logisticians from Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, United States and the Czech Republic formalized their support to cooperate with the establishment of MLCC to enhance multinational logistics cooperation through the signing of a Letter of Intent.
The MLCC provides real-time visibility of logistics events to other countries; reduces cost of coordination of events between countries through virtual environment capabilities; and provides a central repository of logistics events data readily available to all countries, the command statement said.
With the virtual tool and the physical facility both in place, nations can submit logistics requirements for education, training events and exercises in one central location.
MLCC will serve as a permanent contact place for U.S. allies to get and manage necessary information and test tools for information exchange in a virtual environment.