# April Employee of the Month Award recipients achieve excellence in process improvement

/ Published July 12, 2021
Richmond, Va., 
Hiccups in distribution and material orders are no match for Defense Logistics Agency Aviation’s April Employee of the Month Award recipients. With their out-of-the-box strategies and dogged determination, Timothy Beveridge and Leslie Stanley are standout contributors to their respective lines of business. Beveridge was selected in the general schedule (GS) 10-13 category and Stanley was selected in the GS 1-9 category.

As a quality assurance specialist in the Supplier Support Division II of the Supplier Operations Commodities Directorate for DLA Aviation Beveridge focused on tracing, identifying and fixing a critical shortfall between DLA Distribution and Aviation Enterprise Business System material release orders for RTV, also known as return-to-vendor material within the Enterprise Business System. This shortfall affected 25 material release orders weekly.

“DLA had mis-shipments when retuning material to a vendor,” Beveridge said. “I isolated each step and measured the outcome in each related system to find the shortfall in data transfer.”

As a result, Beveridge was able to improve the accuracy of the return-to-vendor process to near or q total of 100%.

In the month of April alone, he investigated over 135 QNs, or quality notifications, with a value of over $3 million in material, supporting over 2,432 backordered items. Beveridge’s efforts influenced the material availability of critically needed material for platforms, weapon systems and production requirements.

Beveridge’s nominator, Chester Keeton, chief of the Product Assurance and Verification Branch in Beveridge’s division, said the result of such improvements is a scalable and lasting process improvement across the enterprise, specifically, DLA Headquarters, DLA Distribution and DLA Land and Maritime.

“Timothy is the epitome of professionalism and competence, while simultaneously motivating others to excel,” Keeton said. “His knowledge and ability to bring diverse elements together and find solutions resulted in cross-process improvements and over $51 million in savings.”

Beveridge said his prior service in a U.S. Air Force special operations unit gave him insight into what his current clients need. This experience, along with the ability to help find solutions for teammates, drives him to ensure clients receive the materials they need.

Beveridge is also something of a pioneer. He is the first to hold this position in the division, which allows him the opportunity to establish himself as a leader in process improvement for the team. 

“My overarching goal is to take quality processes and continuously improve them over time or create new methods to better assist DLA Aviation’s quality assurance needs,” he said.

Despite being a “party of one,” Beveridge said his success is still dependent on others. “I rely on a vast network of aviation and distribution people to accomplish my goals.”

Sustainment Specialist Leslie Stanley from Industrial Planning and Support DLA Aviation at Jacksonville at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, also relies on a network of people to help her accomplish her goals. Through collaboration with demand planners, product specialists, customer service specialists, order fulfillment and the Integrated Product Team of Fleet Readiness Center Southeast, she works to ensure material requirements are aligned and available for production schedules.

Her duties span a broad range of activities involving material supportability analysis and the continuous oversight and health of material stock levels required for the shops supporting various aircraft engine production lines throughout FRCSE.

“Leslie spends numerous hours per week researching items to maximize material availability, preventing backorders, identifying items requiring forecast, and validating replacement factors and quantity per assembly changes,” said her nominator, Damon Heemstra, supervisor section chief, Industrial Planning and Support, DLA Aviation at Jacksonville. “An invaluable team player, she recently conducted a review of assigned planner codes using the material supportability analysis tool.”

 Her discovery identified 102 parts associated with the F404 turbofan engine that had no usage history, sales orders or demand orders, causing significant data corruption for the F404 engine program.”

Stanley conducted a thorough analysis and data clean-up effort and was able to deactivate the suspect NIINs, leading to accurate material status for the F404 engine.

Heemstra said Stanley’s meticulous management of 1,360 items has resulted in a maintained 96% material availability success rate. 

“Leslie provides continuous research and corrections for numerous other engine platforms, utilizing the material supportability analysis tool to ensure that purchase requests and purchase orders are accurately generated to reduce backorders,” he said.

Stanley points to her supervisor section chief, supervisor and teammates for helping her accomplish these tasks. 

“My goal is to continue to be efficient and effective and support DLA’s vision, mission and values.  I would like to see that my work is helping to accomplish the larger objectives of DLA,” Stanley said.

**About DLA Aviation Employee of the Month**Employee of the Month is awarded to DLA Aviation non-supervisory civilian employees. Two recipients are selected based on individual general schedule pay levels – one from GS 1-9 (Category 1) and one from GS 10-13 (Category 2). Recipients receive a coin, a certificate of achievement from the DLA Aviation deputy commander and a cash award.