Defense logistics agency issue - KMI Media Group

The Defense Logistics Agency has long sought to save money for
the U.S. Department of Defense by aggregating the purchasing power
of the military services and agencies on millions of items of parts and
supplies. In an era of tight military budgets, and with drawdowns from
theaters of operation further constricting spending, the DLA’s missions
of savings and efficiencies have become all the more emphasized.
The practices employed by DLA’s land and maritime supply chain
group in Columbus, Ohio, are examples of how innovative acquisitions
and contracting strategies can pay off for DoD as a whole. The fact that
two supply chains, land and maritime, came to be managed together
was coincidental, but it has yielded synergies which promote savings
and efficiencies. The group has also developed synergies with industry
partners, primarily in the form of long-term contracts and strategic
alliances, to drive down costs and gain efficiencies. The vendor companies,
for their part, work consistently to do the same.
“The DLA land and maritime group’s overall mission is to support
two supply chains for DoD,” said Ben Roberts, DLA’s deputy director,
land supplier operations. “The land supply chain involves largely spare
parts to repair or rebuild land-based systems like tanks, HMMWVs and
MRAPs. On the maritime side, we also manage spare parts to support
maritime system and there is also a heavy component of electronic
parts that cross different types of weapons systems.”
Management of the two supply chains coexisted in Columbus
before they were organizationally aligned in 2005. “The workforce was
already here,” said Roberts. “We do get some efficiencies managing the
two supply chains together.”
“There are OEMs, distributors and manufacturing representatives
that we do business with that are common to both the land and
6 | MLF 6.5
Land and maritime suppLy chains innovate
to generate efficiencies.
By peter BuxBaum
mLf correspondent
maritime supply chains,” added Stephen
Rodocker, director, DLA land
and maritime strategic programs.
Overall, the group manages some 2.4
million items, as many as 67,000 of
which generate significant activity.
“DLA has the enormous task of
providing the armed services and
other agencies the full spectrum of
logistics and technical services,” said
John Bryant, vice president and gen-
John Bryant
eral manager of joint and marine
programs at Oshkosh Defense. Oshkosh is one of the largest suppliers
of wheeled tactical vehicles to the U.S. military.
“DLA provides over 80 percent of the spare parts to keep equipment
mission ready,” Bryant added. “DLA has long leveraged competitive
contracts to keep costs down. But at a time of drawdowns and
shrinking budgets, there is additional pressure to lower costs. All this
is happening as the volume of equipment coming back and in need
of repairs is increasing.”
Oshkosh has had a strategic supplier alliance with DLA since 2008
through which the company supports the agency with parts supplies
and services. “We collaborate very closely with DLA,” said Bryant. “We
incorporate lean strategies to lower costs and improve quality and we
incorporate advanced demand planning and quality control to provide
parts the customer needs at very affordable rates.”
Besides providing advantageous pricing, Oshkosh’s alliance with
DLA has reduced wait time for orders, more accurate demand
www.MLF-kmi.com