# Distribution’s Future Plans director receives DLA Superior Civilian Service Award

/ Published March 16, 2017
NEW CUMBERLAND, Pennsylvania, Scott Rosbaugh, director of DLA Distributions Future Plans directorate was presented the DLA Superior Civilian Service Award by Twila C. Gonzales, Senior Executive Service, DLA Distribution deputy commander on Mar. 3.
“Mr. Rosbaugh’s inspiring leadership and tireless efforts resulted in substantial and enduring contributions to the national security of the United States and the readiness of our armed forces,” said Gonzales.

As DLA Distributions director of Future Plans, Rosbaugh has a large impact on DLA’s strategic position throughout the worldwide logistics network. He led his personnel to manage numerous programs and projects of immense influence and long-range benefit. 

As terrorist groups and rebel movements continued to shake the Middle East, Rosbaugh tasked his Central Command planners with devising an innovative, resilient and adaptive storage and distribution operation to support warfighter requirements. They effectively developed seven different options to support joint customers from Bahrain with flexible and tailorable Material Processing Centers linked by reliable ground transportation networks.

Forward stocking material in overseas distribution centers brings significant reductions in transportation costs. Every ton shifted from air to surface modes of transportation saves the Services more than $13,000. Historically, annual replenishment by air to the African Command Area of Responsibility is over 600,000 pounds at a cost of $4.5 million. By setting up a Theater Consolidation and Shipping Point and a Material Processing Center in Djibouti, it is expected that 62 percent of air replenishment will shift to surface means, saving the Services $2.5 million annually. 

Rosbaugh and his team worked to document the capacity, utilization and surge capability of seven separated storage and distribution facilities in Europe, to include the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and the Defense Commissary Agency distribution centers and cold storage facilities. The team identified excess capacity within the current two million square feet of storage and distribution space.

To determine the military value of that space, Rosbaugh and his team developed storage and distribution criteria, as well as a metric weighting approach, in accordance with mission requirements and force laydown. Consolidation scenarios were then built based on the capacity and military value assessments. 

With the Disposition and Distribution or D2 initiative, storage and distribution missions were transferred from 16 DLA Disposition Services sites to DLA Distribution. Rosbaugh personally developed and supervised the plan to transition nearly 200 employees, eight buildings and dozens of pieces of material handling equipment valued in excess of $5 million. 

“The plan was executed flawlessly, enabling the integrated sites to realize an immediate improvement in production by more than 10 percent across the network,” according to Gonzales.

In conjunction with DLA Headquarters and Disposition Services representatives, Rosbaugh’s team participated in numerous CONUS and OCONUS site visits, tracked site execution and liaised with site leadership and the DLA Headquarters and Disposition Services team leads. 

Rosbaugh’s role as the DLA Distribution champion lead to exceeding the goals, resulting in more than 135 local improvement projects, 35 enterprise level projects, a reduction in gross warehouse space by 350,000 gross square feet and savings for the organization to date in excess of $6 million.

The Navy was attempting to retire a warehousing software application, U2, at its New London and Cheatham Annex locations; the goal was to replace U2 with DLA’s Distribution Standard System without creating turbulence for operational units. To that end, Rosbaugh and his cross-functional team developed an implementation plan that projected both initiatives to be completed to standard by their advertised operational dates.

Rosbaugh’s efforts led to successful launches of DSS at New London and Cheatham Annex without any degradation of readiness in the supported units. Additionally, New London’s on-time processing of Material Release Orders rose from 63 percent to 97 percent due to the project team’s Subject Matter Experts taking time to instruct employees on DSS functionality.

Afterward, Rosbaugh established a weekly working group meeting to review each functional area to ensure all improvements remained on track. Most importantly, he was the architect of a repeatable process that could be followed in other distribution locations.

“Mr. Scott Rosbaugh has a sterling reputation throughout the highest echelons of DLA and the Department of Defense for his knowledge of logistics and distribution,” said Gonzales. “In constant demand for his technical knowledge and leadership development experience, he is often asked by DLA to brief senior leaders from other federal agencies and Services. His demonstrated devotion to our personnel and to our institution, as well as his distinguished record of performance, clearly set him apart and reflect great credit upon himself, the Defense Logistics Agency and the Department of Defense.”