# AOP Review targets improving trust, transparency, communication, performance

/ Published Oct. 25, 2016
Richmond, Virginia, 
Defense Logistics Agency Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Andy Busch met with DLA Aviation  senior leaders during the fiscal 2017 DLA Aviation Annual Operation Plan Review hosted by DLA Aviation’s Commander Air Force Brig. Gen. Allan Day Oct. 14, 2016 on Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia. 

Day opened the event and presented a snapshot of the overall mission and focus areas going forward into fiscal 2017. Topics presented throughout the morning covered the strategic plan elements: people and culture; warfighter first; strategic engagement, basic business, and retail excellence. The common focus of the briefings emphasized improving trust, maintaining and improving transparency, improving communication and overall performance.Resiliency and culture were two major items discussed throughout the morning.

“Throughout the day, you will hear the terms CPI [continuous process improvement], which is part of achieving process excellence ... leadership at every level owns it” said Day. “All leadership and employees are responsible for helping come up with and implement ways to improve our culture.”

Day said DLA Aviation had great progress in fiscal 2016 and attributed that success to CPI, being transparent and seeing and hearing how we do business day-in and day-out.

DLA’s director provided guidance as leadership presented updates on business strategies used in support of the agency’s strategic plan.

In reference to senior leader feedback, Busch said senior leadership were very pleased with the cooperation DLA Aviation is demonstrating and their ability to embed with leadership’s processes. He added there are still challenges ahead, but DLA Aviation’s contributions and input to senior military leaders has been part of their conversations and the feedback he’s getting is good.  

Busch added DLA Aviation’s Captains of Industry efforts and the things the DLA enterprise is doing to get performance based logistics attributes into thelexecon (economic analysis) of the sustainment community and are very well received. 

Among the other topics covered during the briefings were: the DLA Deployment Support Team; executive mentoring program; the career broadener program; the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certification program; streamlined processes; resiliency; the Voluntary Protection Program; the Nuclear Enterprise program; service support initiatives; additive manufacturing updates; and delinquency reductions.

DLA Aviation’s business certification and professional development courses are two of the ways aviation is developing and growing the workforce. DLA’s Army Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Tobin said, “DLA’s promotion rates are above every single one of the services.”

During the resiliency briefing, Air Force Tech Sgt. Janet Pelayo, materiel management career broadener said, “One hundred percent of the [DLA Aviation] workforce has been trained on resiliency and the sustainment phase will kickoff on DLA Aviation’s Resiliency Day Nov. 15. “It is important to keep resiliency in the forefront of our culture,” said Pelayo. There will be quarterly activities scheduled to help employees practice different aspects of resiliency.

“The resiliency program is going well from an agency perspective, and I believe will pay dividends,” said Busch.

In discussions on culture, DLA Aviation’s Deputy Commander Charlie Lilli stated, “Some of our remote locations have some unique challenges. This year we are going to hold leadership accountable and help them to develop action plans to achieve measurable improvements.”

In demonstrating process improvements, DLA Aviation’s Air Force Customer Facing Division shared a video presentation demonstrating the steps taken during a 5-day Continuous Process Improvement event held on Sept. 19. The demonstration covered current processes used to review mission impaired capability awaiting parts order fulfillment and discovered ways to make improvements.  The outcome of the event resulted in consensus to create local job aids or modify in place Order Fulfillment Business Process Analyst generated job aids with greater detail to be used by their personnel. An action plan was developed laying out a schedule to create job aids, conduct training, and develop a sustainment plan to ensure implementation. 

Another briefing demonstrating process improvements and retail excellence was given by DLA Aviation’s Deputy Director of Supplier Operations Floyd Moore on actions taken to reduce the delinquency rates.  He reported as of December 2015, the delinquency rate was at 15 percent, but after corrective actions, that number has been driven to an all-time low of 12.10 percent.  “Sometimes it’s about sharing information,” said Moore. The Supplier Operations Directorate team partnered with Business Process Support Directorate personnel to develop a delinquency reduction call team referred to as Project One. These calls ensured suppliers were on track and also let DLA Aviation know 60 to 90 days, prior to a contracts due date, of the contracts in jeopardy of being delinquent in order to take corrective action to prevent or mitigate the impact to the warfighter.

The Supplier Operations Directorate engaged with the top 25 delinquent suppliers that had the greatest impact on back orders resulting in a 17 percent decrease in delinquent contracts with back orders, Moore said.  Busch said DLA items of concern for the future are budget and ownership issues, the imminent change of administration, and the ability to respond to the indefinite sustainment plan for some of the platforms.

The military services briefings recapped events from fiscal 2016 and plans for fiscal 2017. 

The Marine’s briefing highlighted, in respect to the “move the needle” guidance, during fiscal 2016 the out of reporting (grounded aircraft) was reduced from 145 to 104.

“There are so many great things happening across the agency and the impact that we are having in the Department of Defense is noticeable and is moving in a positive direction,” said Busch. “There are still a few more things I will be asking you to work on, but you are doing great job.