Imagine that the view you have is of the earth's surface, like a Google satellite map, and with a single click you can zoom in to any portion of the world where you have logistics or resupply responsibilities. A single click and you can instantly obtain an accurate logistics situational assessment of a broad, wide-ranging area.

Click again and your view and focus narrows even more. At this new level, you get a more detailed, local assessment of the logistic situation, say of a particular country. Click once more and you're presented with a picture of the logistical situation of a particular city or perhaps a company within that municipality.

Sound like the far off future? Not at all.

The hardware and software to accomplish the "futuristic" scenario just described has been developed and is available for use practically worldwide. And the implications are phenomenal in terms of the production, moving and storing whatever types of materials a given company might require. But there's a big problem looming for those who might mistake these modern tools for cure-all logistic wonders.

Granted, much of the hardware and software capabilities available in today's marketplace comes to industry from military applications where the concepts were battle-tested and proven effective in all types of terrain and environments. And the software and hardware has been refined to the point that now most of these "futuristic" applications can be run on a simple hand held device like a Palm pilot.

These applications literally allow the operator to "see" the logistic situation of the entity that is being examined and to quickly assess and make reliable logistic estimates based upon the scenario presented. But, guess what. The system isn't perfect.

In fact, the system is far from perfect because it's reliability hinges on something that often times proves quite unreliable