Mr. Chairman, basically procurement is through Mr. Ross's organization, and they bring most of the assets into our depot. I take care of the national depot here in Canada and I project this equipment into the theatre through the distribution process, which is worldwide and very complex, and we do the retrogrades, meaning bringing back all of that equipment. Once in theatre, it then goes to the theatre commander. General Grant in this instance is representing people taking responsibility of the kit there.
Part of my task is to make sure that we understand the full supply chain from the manufacturer to the theatre, understand the level of stocks, and understand whether in time and space we can bring it into that theatre at the right time and at the right place to make sure we don't compromise operations. We call it total asset visibility.
This is something my command is looking at. We're looking at all the assets there and trying to determine in fact what those choke points are. What we're seeing now, Mr. Chairman, as we procure many of the items, is that many of those items are procured worldwide off the shelf. I thought our supply chain would come from Canada to the theatre, but in fact we needed to have those critical pieces of equipment go directly into that theatre, so our supply chain in fact very often starts from the manufacturer and goes into the theatre of operation.
It's the first time that many of those capabilities are being exposed to this climate. It's 50-plus degrees, with very fine dust that gets into the mechanics and so on, so it's extremely difficult to forecast what is going to break. It's almost an art to understand what will break in three months and six months.
I monitor this very closely back through the supply chain to see if we have the repair parts in our depot in Afghanistan or in our depot here in Canada. If not, we see what the manufacturers have in their stocks, and how in time and space we can we bring it into that theatre. Just the right amount at the right time is something that I'm looking at, and I have this for every capability in that theatre.