IBM's machine-learning system called Watson is helping the U.S. Army's Logistics Support Activity (LOGSA) in Alabama learn which of its Stryker combat vehicles is heading for a parts breakdown and when. That predictive power is part of the reason IBM has won a re-competition of a contract to support LOGSA at Huntsville's Redstone Arsenal.

The $135 million LOGSA contract is one of two IBM has now with the Army in Huntsville, and IBM says it has saved the Army about $1 million a month since the LOGSA work ramped up. The other contract, also at Redstone Arsenal, is for the Army's private cloud.

"LOGSA and the Army can now take advantage of the technological innovation that cloud offers – especially cognitive computing and analytics – so that the Army can continue to reap cost savings, further streamline its operations and deliver services to its clients," Lisa Mascolo of IBM said in a statement.

"Over the past four and a half years, LOGSA has benefited from the business and technical advantages of the cloud," LOGSA commander Col. John D. Kuenzli said in a statement. "Now, we're moving beyond infrastructure as-a-service and embracing both platform and software as-a service, adopting commercial cloud capabilities to further enhance Army readiness."

"When Gen. (Gustave) Perna took command of the Army Materiel Command, he said we cannot conduct tomorrow's operations using yesterday's processes and procedures," Kuenzli said. "He has since emphasized understanding the leading indicators to readiness and getting in front of the Army's logistics challenges. The services we have received from IBM and the potential of IBM Watson ... truly create new possibilities for LOGSA to deliver cutting-edge business intelligence to give the Army unprecedented logistics support at efficient and affordable means."

The increased work and presence is leading to new IBM hiring in Huntsville, and a new IBM office building will open near the arsenal early in 2018. "Expanding office space is not an insignificant thing at IBM," said IBM's Dave Hathaway, vice president for defense and intelligence. He said the company sees growth potential at the arsenal and in Huntsville.

In the Stryker project, IBM fed maintenance records, manuals and other data from about 10 percent of the Army's Stryker vehicle fleet into Watson. "We were teaching Watson to see patterns in the data and correlate the data to arrive at predictions" about which Stryker's would fail and when, said Tim Kleppinger, IBM's vice president and senior client partner for the Army and Marine Corp. "Thirty, even 60 days out we could determine which vehicles would break before they broke."

(Updated Sept. 8 at 4:15 p.m. CDT to make a minor change)