Are logisticians over reliant on automation to solve sustainment problems??

Sir, I think you will see a much more profound atrophy of this skill when you and the new 07s see the next DATE rotation. We've become comfortable with 14 DOS on FOBs in theater and do not understand sustainment on the move in contact.  ROM is something foreign to too many units. Staffs fail to produce adequate estimates for CLs I, III, V, maintenance, medical, and struggle in positioning of headquarters to synchronize, integrate, and facilitate sustainment operations.All WfFs need to remember the necessity for analog backups and good old-fashioned staff work in lieu of automated systems that get hot, break, need contractors, etc.

Do we rely on automation to develop log estimates? I guess that depends on what you define as 'automation systems' - the Army really has automated the process in terms of developing a log estimate - LEW, OPLOG Planner, QLET, and the CASCOM Rates Portal, are great tools to help develop an estimate but they are all tools. Overall the Army has become dependent on automation with the reliance on CPOF, MCS, FBCB2/BFR, and other Command and Control systems. Unfortunately, our Army has not done a good job in creating, retaining, and passing on historical data to better develop a logistics/sustainment estimate. Further, the reliance on contracted support in bot Iraq and Afghanistan and the ability to not require units to develop estimates and plan for operations above the platoon level has created a tactical army that has lost the ability to plan/estimate our sustainment requirements. Now the Sustainment Community, and the Army, has become very reliant on automation - we cannot go very long without a VSAT to send maintenance data, order supplies through SARSS, or provide LOGSTAT data via BCS3/Excel.Our Army, the DoD, and our society have become reliant on automation systems...this phenomenon is nothing new and if you look at our reliance on technology over the last few years it should not be surprising. 

I would answer yes they are.  I dealt with this very problem early in 2003 during OIF1.  I was one of a very few individuals able to perform my logistical functions because I knew the processes and procedures of the "manual" system.  It took several months before the automation caught up during these early stages of the operation.  The few "old timers" that had a solid understanding of logistics were able to function in the absence of automation support.