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# DLA expands support to Marine Corps supply, maintenance units 

By Beth Reece

Less excess materiel, reduced inventory costs and decreased lead times are among the benefits of two new Defense Logistics Agency drives to improve support to Marine Corps customers at maintenance depots and supply management units.

DLA already manages supply, storage and distribution functions at Air Force logistics centers and Navy fleet readiness sites as a result of 2005 Base Realignment and Closure decisions. Although DLA had by 2013 assumed management of storage and distribution for the Marine Corps, service officials now want to harness the agency’s expertise in supply management.

“As we start managing their supplies, we’ll be able to see their demands and true usages, as well as when something is ordered but not used. And by seeing their unfiltered requirements, we can link back to the supplier base and help them make better decisions on what and how much to order,” said Vance Avera, chief of strategic planning and stock positioning for DLA Logistics Operations.

That would significantly reduce excess inventory costs for Marine Corps industrial sites that turn in about $30 million of surplus materiel every two to three years. 

“That’s a quarter of the value of their total inventory,” Avera said. “With DLA taking care of supply for them, we can help them avoid the cost of buying and storing that excess material.”

Instead, that money can be spent in areas such as maintenance, added Jim Lippstreu, program manager for DLA Logistics Operations.

“If I’ve got that additional money to use on other things, then instead of fixing equipment so it barely works, I can fix equipment so it’s fully mission capable,” he said. “I may be spending the same amount of money, but now I’m able to invest it more wisely.”

Consolidated inventory is another benefit. At Albany, for example, DLA runs two warehouses within 1 mile of the maintenance depot. One contains DLA-owned inventory; the other houses materiel owned by the Marine Corps. Merging those will drive costs even lower, Avera said.

DLA’s logistics experts can also help the Marine Corps better plan contingency stocks. When the service incorporates new systems, for example, officials determine the number of spare parts needed to repair and maintain them in the next three to five years. 

“We have the intelligence on how long it takes to get parts from the vendor and acquisition lead times, where the service doesn’t quite have all that. We can then factor that into what’s already available in the pipeline at a nearby depot,” Lippstreu said. “The service doesn’t need to have 40 or 50 days of supply on hand when DLA has maybe a year’s worth, and part of it is located right up the road.”  

Standardizing retail across the service’s supply management units could increase inventory sharing among Marine Corps customers, as well. 

“Currently, if one SMU has a high demand for a part that another SMU has in inventory but isn’t using, there’s very little sharing, because those items are bought with different pots of money. By DLA owning it, we can easily move those parts between the different locations,” Lippstreu added. 

The end result is better collaboration between DLA and the Marine Corps, as well as a service-wide approach to logistics, Avera said.

“This really expands our collaboration,” he continued. “It’s not just DLA making decisions, because as we look at stock levels and make determinations on what to buy and where to put it forward, the Marine Corps can alert us to upcoming deployments or contingencies we may not know about to fine tune our solutions.”

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