Improve 

Customer

Service

Decrease

Direct

Material

Costs

Decrease

Operating

Costs

Achieve

Audit

Readiness

Rightsize

Inventory

tracking progress

BIG IDEAS

LOGLINES

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY NOVEMBER – DECEMBER 2013

Special Pullout in This Issue

Director’s Guidance 2014 
from the

DIRECTOR

Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek, USN

Director, Defense Logistics Agency

Disposition Services doing exceptionally 

heavy lifting supporting current and 

retrograde operations. And recall that we’re 

a year out from Hurricane Sandy – an event 

where you showcased DLA’s extraordinary 

ability to rush huge volumes of relief to our 

fellow citizens. Finally, you’re doing things 

you’ve never done before like executing 

more than 5,000 reverse auctions for all 

manner of goods and services and saving 

the taxpayer almost $2 billion.

I’ve said it many times, “Nobody does 

this better than DLA,” and you are proving 

it. So to take the Big Ideas to the next level, 

we have established a Big Ideas website. 

This will expedite communications between 

DLA Headquarters directorates and 

primary-level field activities on proposed 

suggestions. Some suggestions have dealt 

with transportation of items, pallets, 

security and DLA-stocked items, and most 

submitters have been detailed in their 

submissions. In fact, one of the submitters 

said we ought to make better use of old 

furniture, and that’s exactly where all 

my office furniture came from – DLA 

Disposition Services. And while that may 

not be “big money,” it’s money nonetheless 

I

t’s been about a year since DLA focused 

on our “Big Ideas” and moved out 

smartly to significantly improve support 

to the warfighter and dramatically reduce 

our cost of operations and cost of material. 

And I’m absolutely thrilled to report that 

support to the warfighter across all our 

supply chains is better than it was this time 

last year, and we’re well underway toward 

saving $13 billion over the next six years. 

This issue of Loglines is an update 

on our Big Ideas and highlights the great 

things happening all over DLA. In Strategic 

Network Optimization we’re making huge 

progress in disposing of excess inventories, 

rationalizing our infrastructure, putting 

material in the right places all over the 

world, and changing our forecasting 

models to ensure our rightsizing efforts 

are institutionalized. In Afghanistan all 

the supply chains are in overdrive with 

DLA Energy, DLA Troop Support and DLA 

and every little bit counts. So if it’s an idea 

that only saves a little, we’re interested in 

hearing it because every Big Idea started as 

someone’s Little Idea.

None of this progress would be possible 

without the hard work, dedication and 

commitment to mission that every DLA 

team member has. You have proven, once 

again, that there’s simply nothing DLA 

cannot do when it comes to logistics. Keep 

up the great work, and keep pressing on 

how to significantly improve support while 

dramatically reducing cost 

Thank you for all you do. I am 

very proud of you and honored to be 

DLA’s director. 

Headquarters, Defense Logistics Agency Office of Public Affairs 8725 John J. Kingman Road Suite 2545 Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6221 703-767-6200 E-mail: loglines@dla.mil

DLA Director

Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek

DLA Vice Director

Ted Case 

Chief of Staff

Renee L. Roman

Director, Public Affairs

Douglas Ide

Deputy Director, Public Affairs

Jack Hooper

Loglines is the authorized publication for the Defense Logistics Agency’s workforce of federal civilians, active-duty 

military and Joint Reserve Force augmentees at agency activities worldwide and industry customers of DLA. Contents 

of this publication are not necessarily the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. government, the Department of 

Defense or the Defense Logistics Agency. 

LOGLINES

Official Flagship Publication of the Defense Logistics Agency

Managing Editor: Kathleen T. Rhem

Editor: Jacob Boyer

Layout/Design: Paul Henry Crank

Writers: Beth Reece

Sara Moore

Amanda Neumann

Loglines is prepared electronically, using desktop publishing applications; no commercial typesetting costs are 

involved. Photos not credited are courtesy of agency sources. Submissions and correspondence may be sent to 

the address below:

LOGLINES STAFF
CONTENTS

Loglines l November - December 2013 1

A Conversation with ... 13

LogPoints 16

I am DLA Back Cover

DEPARTMENTS

BIG IDEAS:

TRACKING PROGRESS

November - December 2013

4

10

17

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

www.facebook.com/

dla.mil

www.twitter.com/

dlamil www.dla.mil

www.youtube.com/

dodlogisticsagency

DLA on the Web

21

What’s the Big Idea? 2

Within a year of taking charge of DLA, Vice Adm. 

Mark Harnitchek set a series of five goals to help the 

agency save more than $13 billion over six years.

Be Smart Buyers of the Right Stuff 4

The items DLA procures for the military services and 

other customers make up a large part of the agency’s 

budget. Getting better prices from vendors and 

contractors means passing savings to warfighters.

Clean Out the Attic 10

Reducing excess inventory and infrastructure is 

helping to save money and other resources. Now DLA 

has to make sure the attic doesn’t get filled up again.

Improve Process and Productivity 17

DLA is set to double Defense Department-set savings 

goals for the agency by reducing operating costs and 

becoming more efficient in its business processes.

Delight Our Customers 19

The results of a broad-ranging customer survey are 

helping inform changes to how DLA supports its 

military service customers.

Prove It! 21

Audit readiness has been a major focus of DLA leaders 

for more than a year. The agency is set to be audit 

ready by 2015, a full two years before the target set for 

the Defense Department.

What’s Your Big Idea? 25

A website on a DLA employee intranet includes a 

variety of tools to help employees refine and submit 

ideas that contribute to the director’s five Big Ideas
2 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

Story by Jacob Boyer

s Defense Logistics Agency 

Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark 

Harnitchek approaches the end 

of his second year in charge of 

the agency, the focus on his “Big 

Ideas” initiative is more crucial than 

ever. The Defense Department’s budget 

is shrinking, and Harnitchek wants the 

agency to continue delivering on his promise to “significantly improve performance 

while dramatically reducing costs.” 

In May, the director expanded his 

plan for DLA to save $10 billion over five 

years to one that is looking for $13 billion 

by 2019.

A “Writ large, the mission at DLA stays 

the same: It’s getting the stuff out to 

our customers across all those supply 

chains and doing that at the least cost,” 

Harnitchek told the agency’s workforce 

during a Sept. 17 Director’s Call. “I need 

you to do that. The only problem is we’re 

going to have to do it with less money.”

Five Big Ideas are shaping the way 

DLA delivers on its promise: decrease 

direct material costs, decrease operating 

costs, rightsize inventory, improve 

customer service, and achieve audit 

readiness. When Harnitchek announced 

them as DLA’s way forward in April 2012, 

he said it was up to every member of the 

agency to make them happen. 

“What I’m asking all of you to do is 

help us figure out how we’re going to do 

this,” the director said. “I’m not asking you 

to be cheap or to short the customer, but 

to figure out a way to have something that 

cost $1 last year cost 80 cents this year.” 

Harnitchek’s fiscal 2013 Director’s 

Guidance laid out how he and agency 

leaders planned to achieve those 

ambitious goals, and leaders and team 

members across the agency have worked 

to execute those plans. Tools DLA was 

already using, like reverse auctions, 

and initiatives the agency was already 

involved in, like Strategic Network 

Optimization, were enhanced to save 

even more money. As of September, 

the director said, reverse auctions had 

already saved more than $1.6 billion in 

fiscal 2013.

While the increased emphasis on 

existing concepts has contributed to the 

effort, new ways of doing business are also 

coming to fruition. Employees involved 

in the First Destination Transportation 

and Packaging Initiative have identified 

millions of items that will no longer need 

to have military-specific packaging added 

before shipping, saving material and labor 

costs. As DLA planners work to shed the 

agency’s excess inventory, new forecasting models are helping them better 

predict warfighters’ needs for sporadically 

requested products.

Efforts are also being made to 

improve DLA’s interactions with its 

customers. A far-reaching survey with 

senior leaders across the military services 

gave DLA Logistics Operations a good 

look at what the agency does right 

and where improvements are needed 

when it comes to delivering supplies to 

warfighters worldwide. The results of 

that survey are driving efforts to increase 

What’s the

Big Idea?

As the Defense Department maintains its 

schedule to achieve audit readiness in 2017, 

DLA is projecting it will have its first full audit 

completed in 2015, two years ahead of the 

DoD target.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Lacordrick Wilson
Loglines l November - December 2013 3

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jimmie Crockett

communication, increase responsiveness 

and proactively engage the agency’s 

customers.

In audit readiness, DLA’s team is 

leading the Defense Department in 

meeting former Secretary of Defense 

Leon Panetta’s goal to have the entire 

department fully auditable by the end of 

fiscal 2017. DLA is projected to be ready 

for its first full audit in 2015, a full two 

years ahead of the DoD schedule. 

These initiatives and more will help 

DLA navigate the uncertain budgetary 

environment the Defense Department 

faces, Harnitchek said. A large portion of 

the agency’s budget is tied to the cost of 

buying materials. Although operations 

will be streamlined, he said, a large chunk 

of the $13 billion in planned savings will 

come from there. 

“We’re about a $45 billion outfit here; 

about $5 billion is the buildings, the people, 

“Writ large, the mission at DLA stays the same: It’s getting the 

stuff out to our customers across all those supply chains and 

doing that at the least cost.” 

— Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek

Sailors inventory boxes at a DLA warehouse in 

San Diego. The First Destination Transportation 

and Packaging Initiative has reduced the need 

for military-specific packaging, saving the 

services material and labor costs.

warehouses, salaries and [information 

technology]. The big number is the money 

we spend to buy things,” the director said 

in September. ”We’re certainly going to get 

more efficient in the cost of operations, but 

that’s not where all the money is. There’s a 

big effort here to have us cost a lot less than 

we did a few years ago.”

In the introduction to his fiscal 2014 

Director’s Guidance, Harnitchek wrote 

that DLA’s workforce continues to build 

on the solid foundation laid down in 

previous years and said the “focused effort, 

hard work and dedication” are why the 

agency continues to succeed in its goals.

“As we face the significant fiscal and 

strategic challenges ahead, we must 

remain resolute and continue to lead the 

way in innovation and transformation,” 

he wrote. “Acting together, with 

enthusiasm, optimism and focus, we 

WILL continue to achieve great things. 

What you do makes a difference so keep 

charging. I am proud of you and this 

great organization.” 
4 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

Decrease Direct Material Costs

Be Smart Buyers

of the Right Stuff

Story by Amanda Neumann

t’ll take several methods of driving 

down costs to meet Defense Logistics 

Agency Director Navy Vice Adm. 

Mark Harnitchek’s intent for DLA to 

“be smart buyers of the right stuff.”

As one of Harnitchek’s five “Big 

Ideas” implemented in March 2012, DLA 

is working to decrease direct material 

costs. This is a large part of efforts to 

shed $13.6 billion in expenditures by 

2019. Methods DLA is using to drive 

down costs include: reverse auctions, 

value management, strategic sourcing, 

I and improvements to the agency’s 

procurement systems and processes.

Although the agency has already 

reached or exceeded most of its targeted 

goals for fiscal 2014, which include 

savings from both fiscal 2012 and 2013, 

improvements can be made in some 

areas, said Tim Stark, head of the functional group for material cost reduction 

in DLA Acquisition.

“We’ve done really well starting 

up,” he said. “The targets get more and 

more aggressive as you go forward. And 

although we’re doing great, we’ve got a 

long way to go.” 

Reverse Auctions

A large portion of the savings come 

from reverse auctions, which have saved 

DLA more than $1.6 billion over the 

past year, Harnitchek said at his Sept. 17 

Director’s Call with agency employees. 

In reverse auctions, sellers bid online 

for contracts. These can be contracts for 

either instant procurements, for items 

needed to send directly to a customer 

or to be stored by DLA, or for long-term 

contracts for a term usually lasting five 

years, said Carmen Pillitteri, a business 

process analyst at DLA Land and Maritime.

By allowing sellers to view the lowest 

offer and bid against it, the process creates intense competition between firms, 

which drives prices down, he said.

“Since it’s a competition-based event, 

we need to have at least two vendors that 

are quoting and that are competitive with 

each other,” Pillitteri said. “When they 

log in, they see their own price and they 

also see the current lowest price on the 

procurement. They don’t know who their 

competitors are, and they don’t know 

how many competitors they have in the 

auction, but they see the prices and have 

an opportunity to lower their price.”

Auctions run for no longer than an 

hour, Pillitteri said.

REVERSE AUCTIONS

Regular auctions have multiple buyers bidding toward one source supplier. Reverse auctions 

are a Web-based pricing tool that fosters competition between contractors to reduce the price 

the government pays for a particular item. By requesting an item from multiple suppliers, DLA is 

able to get those suppliers to bid against each other to give DLA the best price.
Loglines l November - December 2013 5

Photo Courtesy DLA Land and Maritime

“We set it up, give the [sellers] two 

days to prepare, run it for a half hour to 

an hour and then it’s done,” he said. “If 

someone bids in the last few minutes, the 

time will be extended by five minutes, so 

every vendor has an opportunity to put 

in their best price. But it’s a very definite 

and relatively short timeframe. That’s one 

of the best parts about it.”

DLA requires reverse auctions for 

procurements of $150,000 or greater, but 

reverse auctions can be used for procurements at any price, Pillitteri said. For 

instance, DLA Land and Maritime temporarily changed its local policy to require 

reverse auctions on procurements at the 

$25,000 threshold, providing a substantial 

increase in reverse auction opportunities. 

As a result, the organization conducted 

seven times as many reverse auctions 

in fiscal 2013 as it did the previous year, 

resulting in savings of $28.5 million by July 

2013. This sum far exceeded the DLA Land 

and Maritime target of $3.3 million in savings by the end of fiscal 2014, he said.

Held almost daily, reverse auctions 

have also worked well for other DLA 

field activities, including DLA Aviation, 

which has already exceeded its fiscal 2014 

goal of $4 million. From October 2012 

to July 2013, DLA Aviation conducted 

241 reverse auctions, 49 percent of 

which were successful and saved the 

organization $27.96 million, said LaKisha 

Andrews, DLA Aviation’s reverse auction 

program manager.

“DLA Aviation’s contracting officers 

have done a great job embracing the 

use of reverse auctions, which has been 

a great benefit to the successful push 

of [DLA] Aviation’s overall savings,” 

she said. “Two of our most successful 

auctions were for parachutes and 

turbines. The parachute yielded savings 

Decrease Direct Material Costs

Decrease Operating Costs

Rightsize Inventory

Improve Customer Service

Achieve Audit Readiness

DLA’s Big Ideas

Obtaining Technical Data Packages used to manufacture spare parts allowed DLA Land and Maritime’s value management team to increase competition 

when procuring parts for up-armored construction equipment, like this heavily armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozer. Previously bought sole-source, the 

competitive technical data packages have led to a total of $1.6 million in savings to date.
6 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

of $7 million, and the turbine yielded 

savings of $2.1 million.”

DLA Energy is also using reverse 

auctions to get better prices and 

increase competition in awarding fuel 

contracts, said Anthony Thomas, policy 

chief of the Procurement Planning 

Branch in DLA Energy.

In fiscal 2013, DLA Energy achieved 

$400 million in savings by using reverse 

auctions.

“We’re using this tool across the 

different business areas where we think 

it’ll add value and help us get better 

pricing,” he said.

Value Management

With a goal to promote competition, 

value management is a systematic 

process of reducing material costs while 

retaining the same or better quality, 

reliability and function.

At DLA Aviation, F-15 Eagle aircraft 

wire harnesses have garnered the most 

savings through value management, 

helping the organization easily meet its 

fiscal 2014 target of $14 million, said 

Ralph Newlon, deputy director of DLA 

Aviation’s Engineering Directorate.

“Five years ago, DLA Aviation 

Engineering worked with the Air Force in 

Warner Robins, [Ga.], to fund an effort 

to revise and complete the technical data 

they already had so we wouldn’t have to 

buy these items sole-source,” he said. 

“Once completed, we used that technical 

data to break out the item through a 

source selection process. We ended up 

selecting a new contractor ... whose prices 

were just about half of what [the previous 

vender’s] were. To date, we’ve saved about 

$48 million over the past two years. We 

expect to save about $60 million total.” 

By July 2013, DLA Aviation had 

saved $42 million, in part due to another 

successful effort: creating additional 

sources for ballistic foam, used to prevent 

explosive vapors in Air Force A-10 

Thunderbolt II aircraft wings, Newlon said.

“Several years ago, our Air Force 

customer helped us to realize the 

manufacturing process for that foam was 

going to be phased out, so we had to find 

a new ballistic foam out of necessity,” he 

said. “We worked with and funded the Air 

Force’s research and came up with a new 

foam, which created a new national stock 

number and a sole-sourced item. Anytime 

you have a sole-source situation, prices 

tend to be a little bit higher. Now, we have 

a second source on all [types of] the foam. 

So far, we’ve awarded three contracts 

against those NSNs, and we’ve saved 

$200,000, but it’s very early in the savings 

window. Over the six-year window, we 

expect to save about $12 million just by 

adding that [additional] source.”

Strategic Sourcing

DLA Acquisition’s Stark said the main 

area under reducing material costs in which 

DLA has yet to hit its target is “strategic 

sourcing,” or increasing governmentwide 

cooperation in purchasing goods. Using 

DLA’s buying power helps get better prices 

for a wider range of customers. Strategic 

sourcing uses a variety of techniques, 

including prime vendor relationships, 

long-term contracts, and “performancebased logistics,” which is a way to provide 

support for a weapons system by having 

the contractor be responsible for the 

performance of the system, not just 

supplying spare parts.

“That’s where we see most of 

our large contracts with original 

equipment manufacturers and other 

big manufacturers,” Stark said. “Those 

contracts have just been put into place 

over the course of this past year, and a 

lot of them are coming due in the next 

few months. Once those are in, we fully 

expect to make the fiscal 2014 target for 

those as well.”

A member of a Defense Logistics Agency 

Disposition Services team operates a plasma 

cutter at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan. The 

cutters use electricity and current to cut metal 

into small parts, which are then sold as scrap 

metal to local vendors.

Switching a sole-sourced ballistic foam, used 

in the wings of A-10 airplanes to prevent the 

buildup of explosive vapors, to a second 

source will save the Defense Logistics Agency 

$12 million over six years thanks to a value 

management initiative within DLA Aviation. 

With a goal to promote competition, value management is a 

systematic process of reducing material costs while retaining the 

same or better quality, reliability and function. Photo Courtesy DLA Aviation
Loglines l November - December 2013 7

The agency’s target savings through 

strategic sourcing exceeds $4 billion, 

but DLA Troop Support has already 

saved $66.1 million, said Ruth Herman, 

a senior procurement analyst at DLA 

Troop Support.

“All the big stuff we’re doing is under 

strategic sourcing,” she said. “The big 

one in DLA Troop Support Subsistence is 

increasing manufacturer discounts. We’re 

negotiating discounts for our National 

Allowance Pricing Agreement program. 

It’s actually pricing agreements we have 

with major manufacturers like Kellogg’s 

and Nabisco to give us the best deal, and 

we’ve got about $20 million in savings 

through July.”

DLA Troop Support Medical is 

expected to save $791 million alone 

over the next 10 years due to a recent 

negotiation to lower pharmaceutical prime 

vendor distribution fees, Herman said.

“We just negotiated a better deal 

from a negative 5.28 distribution fee to 

negative 8.87 percent,” she said. “That’s 

giving us $6 to $7 million a month, so 

that’s going to give us another $12 to $14 

million alone [by the end of fiscal 2013]. 

We’ve also awarded our first national 

[generic drug] contract, so we’ll start 

seeing those savings soon.”

While the Big Ideas initiatives has 

been challenging, it has pushed the supply 

chain to make more aggressive moves, 

something that better aligns DLA with the 

commercial sector, Herman said.

“This is making people negotiate 

harder and be a little bit more aggressive,” 

she said. “They’re doing a little bit more 

market research and seeing what the 

commercial market is getting. But the 

biggest challenge with the Big Ideas, 

across all of the levers, is measuring the 

savings. Putting levers together and trying 

to figure out how you’re going to save the 

money is one thing, and then figuring out 

how you’re going to count the money is 

another thing.”

DLA Energy has also seen significant 

success in its strategic sourcing efforts, 

namely in its negotiation techniques with 

suppliers, Thomas said.

“It’s a package of things that has 

helped us,” he said. “We did a number of 

initiatives to squeeze every penny we could 

out of our deals, including getting suppliers 

paid faster and upping the amount of 

guaranteed product that will be purchased 

under a contract. In the fuel industry, if you 

can shave a penny or two off per gallon, you 

can claim success; it’s just that tight.”

Just like at DLA Troop Support, aligning 

with commercial practices has also helped 

DLA Energy achieve savings, Thomas said.

“Aligning the quality standards to 

commercial practices is a huge change 

in how we’ve done business that applies 

to all contracts,” he said. “We’ve tried 

to move toward more commercial [fuel] 

product because it’s more readily available, which improves competition. Even 

predictability of when a solicitation will 

come out is beneficial since [suppliers] 

will be prepared and ready for it.”

DLA Energy is expected to save $195 

million over five years by procuring more 

commercial fuel for the military services. 

Procurement Systems and Process 

Improvements

Improvements to the agency’s 

procurement systems and processes 

can have a profound effect on costs 

and performance. Current initiatives 

within PSPI include the expanded use 

of “should-cost” assessments to find 

out items’ actual values, improved 

customer returns and an increased use 

of the agency’s Procurement Automated 

Contract Evaluation system.

One of the most anticipated initiatives 

in the agency is the First Destination 

Transportation and Packaging Initiative. 

With a twofold approach to reduce 

packaging costs using commercialA FRAM oil filter in commercial (left) and 

military-specification packaging (right). The 

switch from military to commercial packaging 

is expected to save the agency hundreds of 

millions of dollars over the next five years due 

to the First Destination Transportation and 

Packaging Initiative. 

A brake pad in military-specification packaging 

(left) and commercial packaging (right). Already 

implemented in March 2013, 4.2 million items 

within targeted supply chains, or 93 percent 

overall, are eligible for the commercial packaging in the First Destination Transportation and 

Packaging Initiative, saving not only material 

costs but labor costs as well. 

Laura Fearing

Laura Fearing
8 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

specification packaging and decrease 

transportation costs by allowing vendors 

to use DLA’s inbound transportation 

providers, the initiative is expected to 

save the agency hundreds of millions 

of dollars over the next five years, said 

Todd Jenkins, program manager for the 

initiative at DLA Land and Maritime.

“The [First Destination 

Transportation and Packaging Initiative] 

is really a catalyst to help both of these 

process functions achieve optimum 

savings,” he said.

Since the initiative’s start in March, 4.2 

million items within the targeted supply 

chains, or 93 percent overall, are eligible for 

the commercial packaging, saving material 

and labor costs, Jenkins said.

“It really comes down to just using 

some of the industry’s best practices to 

package an item,” he said. “There’s a 

misconception that [military] packaging is excessive; sometimes it’s the right 

amount of packaging in order to get 

an item serviceably to the customer. 

However, when people put an extra level 

of packaging in, that adds extra cost. 

More than the material itself, it was the 

repackaging labor portion that would 

drive costs up.”

While the agency has found 

many opportunities for commercial 

packaging, Jenkins said, some items, 

like hazardous materials, will still be 

shipped using military-specification 

packaging. He said it is important to 

note that any savings from the initiative 

will filter right back to DLA’s customers.

“This really has been a collaborative, 

interagency effort that had been in 

the wings for a while until we had 

tremendous support, like the director’s, 

that pushed it,” he said. “We in the 

government have to be the ones that latch 

onto as much of these savings as possible, 

so that we can get the value of the dollar 

to go a little further for the Defense 

Department during these tough times. 

Whatever savings we make, we pass that 

back to the warfighter for personnel, 

DLA LAND AND MARITIME

DECREASING DIREC

Reverse Auctions: 

•	Three June auctions, for a mix 

of fuel to be delivered to forward 

operating bases throughout 

Afghanistan, netted $400 million in 

savings.

Strategic Sourcing:

•	By procuring more commercial 

fuel for the military services, DLA 

Energy is expected to save $195M 

over the next five years.

Procurement Systems and 

 Process Improvements

•	Upcoming Enterprise Business 

Systems eProcurement rollout 

in April 2014 is expected to save 

millions.

FY14 Goal

FY14 Goal

Current

Current

DLA ENERGY

Reverse Auctions: 

•	Seven times as many auctions as 

FY12; 2,064 to date.

•	Rifle bipod – award value $1.28B 

awarded March 2013, historical 

savings of $91,119.

Strategic Sourcing: 

•	120,000 original equipment 

manufacturer and long-term 

contracting actions to negotiate 

reduced unit prices for items.

•	More than 225 long-term contracts 

awarded.

•	Eaton competitive project, awarded 

September 2013, will save $1.5M 

over five years.

Value Management: 

•	955 awards on 655 VM projects, 

top 15 projects produce $15.8M 

in savings.

•	Three successful antenna projects 

saved $6M alone. 

•	An additional $5.6M is expected from 

a Hawker Battery source breakout.

Procurement Systems and 

 Process Improvements: 

•	169,000 contract actions resulted in 

$9M in savings.

•	First Destination Packaging 

and Transportation Initiative, 

implemented in March 2013, 

will provide further savings.

$28.5M

$ 3.6M

$37.4M

$21.2M

$ 3.3M

$ 1.6M

$13.8M

$28.3M

$400.0M

$387.8M

$181.8M

$20.0M

$219.7M

$320.5M
Loglines l November - December 2013 9

equipment and other operations that are 

already stretched thin.”

Due to be implemented in late October 

2014, transportation changes within 

the continental United States will help 

consolidate shipments from local vendors, 

using DLA trucking to travel from one 

local destination to the next, said Roy 

Pitman, a program analyst and contracting 

specialist at DLA Land and Maritime.

“For inbound procurement, DLA 

does business with about 7,300-plus ... 

company locations,” he said. “Each one 

of them operates independently. They 

could be right next door to each other, 

but they’re not taking advantage of using 

the same trucks that are coming in. We’re 

paying for their transportation rates, 

which are not nearly as good as what we 

can buy. Plus, we’ve got $7 billion to spend 

as opposed to each of those vendors, twothirds of which are small businesses. Their 

spending doesn’t allow them to get good 

transportation rates from DHL, FedEx, 

UPS and other carriers, so we can leverage 

ours to get better rates.”

For DLA, although the cost savings 

from this initiative will trickle in slowly, 

the plan will pay off in the long run, 

Pitman said.

“This isn’t a sprint; this is a marathon,” 

he said. “This is a strategic initiative.”

By separating the transportation 

costs, DLA will get a better idea of the 

true cost of a product, Jenkins said, 

something that could also open the door 

for more small business competition.

“We’re actually doing things that will 

give us a clearer picture on the actual cost 

per product,” he said. “We’re ‘debundling’ 

things that were previously embedded, 

like transportation and packaging. And as 

we look at those numbers, we’re starting 

to realize that people used transportation 

to cover a lot of their general and administrative costs. By doing this, we’re going 

to get down to the real cost of the product 

itself, and that will open up the doors for 

small- and medium-sized businesses.” 

T MATERIAL COSTS

Reverse Auctions: 

•	So far, 211 auctions conducted, 

of which 93 were successful.

•	Three auctions on parachutes 

netted $9.5M in savings.

Strategic Sourcing: 

•	Supplier and Department of Defense 

partnerships.

•	Tailored logistics support / 

performance-based logistics. 

(Also in DLA Land and Maritime.)

Value Management: 

•	Three contracts for $200,000.

•	A-10 ballistic foam – Over six years, 

expect $12M in savings.

•	F-15 wire harness to date has 

saved $48M, $60M expected 

savings total.

Procurement Systems and 

 Process Improvements

•	First Destination Transportation and 

Packaging Initiative will provide 

further savings. 

(Also used in DLA Land and 

Maritime and DLA Troop Support’s 

industrial hardware and construction 

and equipment supply chains.)

DLA AVIATION

FY14 Goal

FY14 Goal

Current

Current

Reverse Auctions: 

•	128 awards, 70 in clothing & textiles.

•	Largest dollar savings. 

•	$2.1M C&T award for enhanced 

ballistic inserts.

Strategic Sourcing:

•	Increased manufacturer discounts 

under National Alliance Pricing 

Agreement program has generated 

$17.6M (subsistence).

•	Negotiation savings generated 

$10.3M (construction & equipment).

DLA TROOP SUPPORT

Value Management:

•	Most savings in clothing and textiles 

due to the break out of sole-sourced 

items.

•	A bag waste kit saved $1.1M per 

year, total $2.2M so far. 

•	A sole-sourced turned competitive 

retro lantern kit has saved $1.2M 

total for FY12 and FY13.

Procurement Systems and 

 Process Improvements

•	Expanded use of “should cost” 

assessments (C&T).

$102.7M

$ 5.2M

$27.9M

$ 4.5M

$ 4.0M

$17.5M

$24.3M

$14.0M

$66.1M

$0.98M

$ 6.3M

$48.6M

$177.0M

$ 17.1M

$ 28.7M

$ 13.5M
10 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

Story by Sara Moore

he Defense Logistics Agency is 

using a number of initiatives to 

responsibly reduce inventory 

stored in depots across the globe, 

reducing the agency’s footprint 

and expenses while ensuring military 

readiness isn’t degraded.

Rightsizing inventory is one of the “Big 

Ideas” launched by DLA Director Navy 

Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek in early 2012. 

Officials expect this to save significant 

amounts of money, specifically in storage 

dollars, and give the agency more flexibility 

in its operations. Disposing of excess stock, 

shrinking contingency stock, improving 

forecasting and planning, and reducing 

infrastructure that houses inventory will all 

contribute to overall savings.

T

Photo Courtesy DLA Distribution

As the Defense Logistics Agency works to rightsize its inventory, it is trying to optimize its storage 

and warehouse space to reduce infrastructure wherever possible.

Rightsize Inventory

Clean Out the Attic

Emptying the Attic

As anyone who watches the television 

show “Hoarders” knows, the first order of 

business in cleaning out a space is getting 

rid of excess material, particularly that 

which hasn’t been used in a long time. In 

DLA’s case, the excess material doesn’t 

equate to junk, but simply to material that 

isn’t needed very often or that is beyond 

the levels demanded by military customers. 

The short-term goal is to reduce DLA’s 

inventory by $4 billion by the end of fiscal 

2014 while maintaining readiness for 

military customers, said Barry Christensen, 

chief of the DLA Logistics Operations’ 

Supply and Demand Planning Branch.

As DLA moves to decrease its 

inventory, planners in DLA Logistics 

Operations are looking at three categories 

of material: potential reutilization stock, 

contingency retention stock and economic 

retention stock, Christensen said. 

Potential reutilization stock is an 

obvious target for disposals, Christensen 

said, because it is goods that the agency 

has already identified as excess. Potential 

reutilization stock is identified through 

monthly inventory reviews in which 

the agency looks at current operating 

requirements and retention limits for the 

items it manages, he said. Items identified 

for disposal are sent to DLA Disposition 

Services for reuse by military or other 

government customers, or, ultimately, 

public auction or destruction after having 

their military capabilities removed.

While Christensen called the 

disposal of potential reutilization stock 

a “no-brainer,” he said updating the 

levels of contingency retention stock DLA 

keeps on hand for the military services 

is a bit more complicated. This stock 

is made up of items that the military 

services have asked the agency to store 

because of their specialized nature or 

the strong possibility they will be needed 

for contingency operations. The services 

had some preliminary reservations about 

reducing these levels, but the agency saw 

a need to reduce the almost $2 billion 

worth of contingency retention stock it 

maintained. Christensen and his team 

worked closely with counterparts in the 

military services to reduce those levels by 

nearly 80 percent.

“What we’re doing is challenging 

the blanket philosophy that said, ‘Keep 

everything,’” Christensen said, noting 
Loglines l November - December 2013 11

Decrease Direct Material Costs

Rightsize Inventory

Decrease Operating Costs

Improve Customer Service

Achieve Audit Readiness

DLA’s Big Ideas

that DLA and the services have been 

working on a long-term inventory 

improvement plan with the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense.

“Everybody wants sound readiness; 

that’s what we’re here for,” he said. “But I 

think we’ve made good efforts in bringing 

them visibility of the material that hasn’t 

been moving and the depth of stock that 

we store.”

The last category of items the agency 

is looking to reduce is economic retention 

stock, which is stock kept because of the 

economic viability of storing it versus 

the potential cost to re-purchase it in the 

future, Christensen said. DLA has updated 

its economic retention model to better 

reflect the costs of storage, including 

maintenance on storage facilities and the 

long-term cost of keeping infrastructure 

running, he said. This new model has 

identified higher storage costs for some 

items, moving them out of the economic 

retention category into contingency 

retention or potential reutilization, where 

they are considered for disposal. 

Throughout all these efforts, DLA is 

working from a comprehensive inventory 

management plan from the Defense 

Department, which the military services 

are also following, said Joe Rodgers, an 

operations research analyst in the DLA 

Logistics Operations Supply and Demand 

Planning Branch. 

Rodgers meets weekly with 

representatives from DLA’s inventory 

control points, DLA Distribution, DLA 

Disposition Services, DLA Operations 

Research and Resource Analysis, 

and DLA Information Operations to 

coordinate inventory reduction efforts 

and talk about plans and challenges.

“It’s very helpful in terms of planning 

and identifying any obstacles against 

that plan and working together as a team 

to try and work solutions around those 

obstacles,” Rodgers said. “The thing I 

see most is the sharing of knowledge and 

opportunities across the board from one 

supply chain to the other. If they were 

working in a vacuum, they wouldn’t have 

those opportunities.” 

Having reduced its inventory by $2.2 

billion since February 2012, significant 

progress toward its goal, DLA is a leader 

in the government when it comes to 

inventory reduction, Christensen said. 

Since DLA takes up about half the covered 

storage-space in government-run depots, 

the reduction of inventory should lead to 

a smaller footprint, as long as changes are 

made to ensure the space doesn’t get filled 

up again, he said. 

Keeping the Attic Clean

Even the most diligent cleaning efforts are for naught if a room is 

immediately dirtied or filled, so DLA is 

accompanying its inventory reduction 

efforts with major changes in the way 

it plans for, develops requirements for 

and contracts items to better manage the 

overall Defense Department financial 

risk on items that are difficult to forecast. 

These efforts include using improved 

models that better predict what items will 

be demanded and for what quantities, 

reducing lead times by using more longterm contracts, and improving flexibility 

in order quantities and changes.

Just like forecasting the weather, 

forecasting the amount of items customers 

will need is not an exact science, but for 

years DLA has used a system that looked at 

order and demand history to predict future 

needs. The problem with that system was 

that it was a one-size-fits-all solution, 

and many items couldn’t be accurately 

forecasted within it, Christensen said. 

Items that see sporadic demand make up a 

significant portion of DLA’s catalogue, but 

because these items were statistically nonforecastable the traditional methods led 

to the wrong quantities being purchased 

and subsequently stored, increasing DLA’s 

storage requirements, he said.

A simple method to improve 

forecasting is to work more closely with 

customers to identify their needs and 

future trends. DLA has been improving 

customer collaboration for several years, 

Christensen said, but the system still 

needed a solution for the items that had 

sporadic high demand. That solution has 

come in the form of two new requirements 

models, Peak and NextGen, which 

A Defense Logistics Agency employee scans 

an item in a DLA warehouse. Rightsizing the 

amount of inventory on the shelves will help the 

agency cut down on storage and maintenance 

costs while also allowing for reductions in 

infrastructure.

Photo Courtesy DLA Distribution
12 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

were developed under DLA’s Logistics 

Research and Development Program. 

They are based on advanced algorithms 

and detailed modeling and aim to better 

set inventory levels for items that have 

historically been difficult to forecast. 

“The items that typically cause trouble 

are those items that have infrequent 

demand or items that have frequent, but 

erratic demand,” said Bob Carroll, chief of 

the DLA Logistics Operations’ Planning 

Division. “So what do we do up front to 

make sure we don’t have to dispose of stuff? 

We do a better job of picking the winners 

and losers. We’ll still have some losers, 

given that we’re responsible for managing 

millions of items, but we do a better job of 

mitigating both inventory and customer 

support risk.”

Peak and NextGen are two very different, complex models, but their goal is the 

same: to set an appropriate inventory level 

for items that do not fit into the traditional 

forecasting model. Peak’s basic process 

is to find the peak levels of demand for 

each item over a 20-quarter period and 

then group the items into cost “buckets” 

based on those levels and their reorder 

quantities, Carroll said. The system 

assigns each bucket a multiplication factor 

of greater than or less than one and then 

runs through every possible combination 

to determine the best trade-off between 

inventory investment, material availability 

and workload for acquisition personnel, 

he said. 

NextGen is a much more complicated 

model that uses a probability of how 

much stock of a given item will be on 

hand based on its order frequency and 

demand quantity, he said. The demand 

probability is then applied over the 

item’s lead time to determine availability, 

workload and investment. The NextGen 

process then calculates the metrics for 

reorders. This again allows planners to 

determine the best order quantity based 

on the balance of availability, investment 

and workload, Carroll said.

No forecasting model or requirements 

determination model will ever be perfect, 

Carroll said. And often with items ordered 

infrequently, DLA is faced with two poor 

choices: buying more than currently 

needed to get a lower per-unit cost but 

risking that the item might be stored for 

a long period of time if demand wanes, 

or buying a small quantity required for 

an immediate demand at a higher price 

and risking having to purchase more if 

demand spikes. After about six months of 

use, Peak and NextGen are performing as 

they were expected to and should start to 

deliver tangible benefits within the year, 

he said.

“Whatever we do in supply, we’re 

always a lead time away,” he said, 

referring to the time it takes to put an 

item under contract and then have the 

vendor produce and ship it. “You will 

start seeing benefits along the way, but 

we should see 70-80 percent of the 

benefit at 12 months and at 18 months, 

we should see the majority of the benefit.”

Those lead times, referred to as 

administrative and production lead times, 

represent another area in which DLA is 

working to ensure excess material doesn’t 

accumulate. DLA planners have traditionally used a forecasting technique to predict 

the required lead times for each item, 

Carroll said, but the same formula was 

applied to all items, leading to problems 

with accuracy. In the short term, the agency 

is refining the current forecasting model to 

improve lead times, but the ultimate goal 

is to apply the lessons learned by Peak and 

NextGen to lead-time forecasting, he said. 

A way to combat the problems with 

lead times is to use more long-term 

contracts, avoiding the need for frequent 

contract workloads, Christensen said. 

Long-term contracts usually have a much 

shorter administrative lead time, he said, 

and vendors have a better idea of future 

needs, leading to better planning. DLA is 

also looking to improve its agility and flexibility in ordering by improving coverage 

durations, or the time periods covered by 

each order, and improving its ability to 

change or cancel contracts when needed, 

Christensen said. 

Closing up Shop

Where there are fewer things to store, 

less storage space is needed, so as DLA 

rightsizes its inventory, it is also looking 

for ways to reduce the infrastructure 

used to store its stock. The push to 

reduce infrastructure builds on existing 

initiatives, like DLA Distribution’s 

inventory optimization efforts, to ensure 

the space being used fits the requirements 

and is reduced wherever possible. 

Reducing warehouse space is a joint 

effort between DLA Logistics Operations, 

which develops the overall strategy and 

helps identify items for disposal; DLA 

Distribution, which handles the transfer 

of items to DLA Disposition Services; and 

DLA Installation Support, which works 

on vacating and possibly tearing down 

warehouses as they are emptied, said 

Lynne Allen, former program manager 

for infrastructure reduction in DLA 

Logistics Operations Strategic Programs 

and Initiatives. 

“What we are looking at is working 

with the customer as we reduce our 

inventory and move it out of our storage 

buildings, then we are consolidating 

what is left to reduce our footprint. We 

will work with the services then to reuse 

or demolish the buildings so that we get 

infrastructure reduction for all of DoD,” 

Allen said. 

This effort goes hand-in-hand with 

Strategic Network Optimization, a DLAled program that aims to make better use 

of the Defense Department’s distribution 

network through reconfiguring the 

supply network, reducing inventory and 

eliminating excess warehouse capacity. 

“What you should end up with are, for 

DoD, installations that are compact,” she 

said. “You’re not going to keep getting rid 

of buildings forever, but you’re going to 

reduce your infrastructure such that your 

installation becomes sized to what the 

true requirement is to support its tenants. 

Then it turns into a sustainable process 

that’s just reviewing your requirements 

and reviewing your real estate and seeing 

what you need.” 
| 1

2014 Director’s Guidance

DIRECTOR’S

GUIDANCE

2014
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

 Fiscal Year 2014 Director’s Guidance

2 |

“Significantly improve performance

while dramatically reducing cost “ 

Team,

Our theme this year is Staying The Course. That makes my guidance 

to you pretty easy – keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve made 

great strides in the goals set out in my 2013 Guidance – in fact we’ve 

exceeded those goals in several key areas thanks to your focused 

efforts, hard work and dedication. I’ve told you nobody knows this 

stuff better than you do, and you’re proving that every day.

This Guidance will give you a quick snapshot of how we’re doing with 

our Big Ideas and a few things we need to focus on in the year ahead. 

We’re maintaining our goals to significantly improve support to our 

customers while dramatically driving down costs for operations and 

material. But the targets get more aggressive as we go forward. We’ve 

upped 10-in-5 to create even more savings; our new goal is to slash 

$13.1 billion in operating and material costs over the next six years. 

We’ll get there by doubling down on the hard work you’ve done so 

far. There are more savings out there and I’m depending on you to find 

them. We’re doing great, but we still have a long way to go.

As we face the significant fiscal and strategic challenges ahead, we 

must remain resolute and continue to lead the way in innovation and 

transformation. Acting together, with enthusiasm, optimism and 

focus, we WILL continue to achieve great things. What you do makes 

a difference so keep charging. I am very proud of you and this great 

organization!

Mark Harnitchek

Vice Admiral, USN

Director, DLA
| 3

2014 Director’s Guidance

Staying The Course:

Our priorities to significantly improve performance 

while dramatically reducing cost remain the same. 

These are: 

Decrease Direct Material Costs 

Decrease Operating Costs 

Rightsize Inventory 

Improve Customer Service 

Achieve Audit Readiness 
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

 Fiscal Year 2014 Director’s Guidance

4

|

“Significantly improve performance

while dramatically reducing cost “ 

DECREASE DIRECT MATERIAL COSTS: 

“Be smart buyers of the right stuff” 

Reduce material costs to achieve $13 billion in overall 

savings in six years through a combination of reverse 

auctions, commercial-type contract terms, substantial industry 

partnerships, performance-based logistics and prime vendor 

contracts, significantly reduced lead times and increasing 

small-business opportunities. We’ve made a big impact here. DLA has substantially 

increased its reverse auction opportunities, which have led to 

savings of more than $1.6 billion over the past year, including 

$400 million from three DLA Energy auctions alone. And 

we’re just getting started. The First Destination Transportation 

and Packaging Initiative is a collaborative, interagency effort 

that is expected to save DLA hundreds of millions of dollars 

in the near future. And across the enterprise, we’re using 

strategic sourcing – which includes initiatives like PBLs 

and prime vendor contracts – to gain more than $4 billion in 

savings through 2019. Early results are promising: DLA Troop 

Support is negotiating better manufacturing discounts and 

decreased prime vendor distribution fees to save millions of 

dollars every month – $6 million to $7 million a month on our 

pharmaceutical contracts alone. And this is how we’ll continue 

to find savings – negotiate harder, be aggressive, do more 

research, work with our partners, and make smart decisions.
| 5

2014 Director’s Guidance 2014 Director’s Guidance

DECREASE OPERATING COSTS: 

“Improve process and productivity”

Reduce operating costs through a combination of eliminating, 

consolidating, and co-locating infrastructure, achieving BRAC 

“Day 3” efficiencies, optimizing the global distribution network, 

enhancing retail industrial support, incorporating process 

improvements, Going Green at DLA operating locations.

We’ve achieved significant success with our forward 

stocking initiative in the CENTCOM AOR. At the 5th Fleet, we 

slashed our logistics response time 81 percent, from 40 days to 

eight days. We’ve had the same success with casualty reports, 

significantly reducing them for patrol craft, mine countermeasure 

ships and ballistic missile defense ships. In fact, there have 

been no CASREPs against any forward stocked items for the 

past nine months. And thanks to our focus on Strategic Network 

Optimization, we’re reducing excess inventory and limiting the 

number of warehouses we maintain around the globe. This is 

also allowing us to save money on operating expenses, utilities, 

maintenance and sustainment. Our Information Operations 

team is eliminating unnecessary or redundant systems to reduce 

IT costs. And we’re paying more attention to ensuring we’re 

maximizing the usable space of containers shipped overseas. 

While we’re in the early stages of these initiatives, we’re already 

seeing them pay dividends. Pressing hard on these will result in 

big savings down the road.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

 Fiscal Year 2014 Director’s Guidance

6

|

“Significantly improve performance

while dramatically reducing cost “ 
| 7

2014 Director’s Guidance
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

 Fiscal Year 2014 Director’s Guidance

8 |

“Significantly improve performance

while dramatically reducing cost “ 

RIGHTSIZE INVENTORY:

“Clean out the attic and keep it clean” 

Rightsize both War Reserves and operational inventory 

by reviewing and adjusting strategic requirements, leveraging 

commercial supply chains without redundancy, and improving 

planning and forecast accuracy.

Our short-term goal is to reduce excess inventory by $6 billion 

by the end of 2014 without sacrificing military readiness. We’ve 

already reduced inventory by $2 billion since 2012, including 

a reduction in contingency stock from $2 billion to about $500 

million. These kinds of savings wouldn’t be possible without a 

whole agency effort, from DLA team members at our inventory 

control points to DLA Distribution, DLA Disposition Services 

and DLA Information Operations. Our military Service partners 

are important members of this team as well. And we’re not just 

“cleaning the attic,” we’re also focusing on the way we plan for, 

forecast and contract for items to ensure we don’t just fill the attic 

back up again. Reducing inventory also allows us to reduce our 

logistical footprint – less stock means fewer warehouses, which 

leads to even greater savings in the years ahead.
| 9

2014 Director’s Guidance 2014 Director’s Guidance

IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE: 

“Delight our customers” 

Improve customer service and measure performance by 

customer standards by expanding and strengthening customer/

supplier collaboration and ensuring excellence in inventory 

management.

How do we know how well we’re doing? We ask our 

customers and partners. Earlier this year we surveyed our 

senior warfighting partners to find out what they thought we 

were doing well and where they’d like to see us improve. It 

came as no surprise to me to learn that, overall, they thought 

we were doing a very good job. They know we understand 

the mission, they believe we’re responsive and that we deliver 

on our commitments. These results aren’t talking about me, 

they’re talking about all of you – the DLA team. We do have 

areas of concern, however, and we’re aggressively attacking 

those to ensure we meet the needs of our Service partners and 

warfighting customers. I need you to be proactive in finding 

solutions to outstanding issues, improve our procurement 

responsiveness and award contracts quicker, and to make sure 

what we do, even the little things, make sense. If things don’t 

make sense, change them.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

 Fiscal Year 2014 Director’s Guidance

10 |

“Significantly improve performance

while dramatically reducing cost “ 

ACHIEVE AUDIT READINESS: 

“Prove it” 

Demonstrate our commitment to transparency and 

accountability through our culture of judiciousness, 

meeting assertion dates, identifying and driving 

improvement opportunities, and expanding audit 

readiness beyond process integrity to process excellence.

We are aggressively pursuing audit readiness 

at DLA. Instead of planning for the 2017 deadline 

mandated by the Department of Defense, we’re 

targeting the end of fiscal 2015 as our deadline, and 

we’re making steady progress. DLA’s Hire-to-Retire 

program has already achieved assertion, three months 

earlier than planned. This coming year we’re focusing 

on really proving our numbers, and I need every one 

of you engaged in this important effort. Understand 

your processes and the internal controls within them, 

and make sure the data is accurate and in compliance 

with the rules. Audit readiness makes us a stronger 

organization and enhances the trust the public places in 

us to get things done and done right.
| 11

2014 Director’s Guidance 2014 Director’s Guidance

Key Focus Areas for DLA in 2014: 

As we begin the new fiscal year, there are three areas I’d like us to pay particular attention to.

Afghanistan: Support the troops in the current fight and pivot to reset, 

retrograde and transition: 

Stay on task; continue to be at the forefront of support to reset and retrograde. One way in which we add 

tremendous value to our warfighting partners is our willingness to anticipate, plan and move out. Innovative, 

proactive approaches will continue to push timely disposal, retrograde and lines of communication usage. 

Contingencies and Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief Support: 

Build on the monumental successes of our Hurricane Sandy support. Get ahead of requirements and have the 

right material positioned with contingency contracts in place to provide immediate support. Responsiveness is 

the coin of the realm, so act with a sense of urgency. Our fellow citizens and those in need are counting on you. 

Industrial & Platform Support: 

Deliver world-class logistics support by leveraging Enterprise Performance Based Logistics and PBL efforts. 

Optimize Inventory Management and Stock Positioning at Service industrial activities while supporting 

Strategic Network Optimization, Peak Policy and Next Generation forecasting and inventory rightsizing. 
Rightsize Inventory: 

“Clean out the attic and keep it clean” 

Right size both War Reserves and operational inventory by reviewing and adjusting strategic requirements, 

leveraging commercial supply chains without redundancy and improving planning and forecast accuracy.

Our short-term goal is to reduce excess inventory by $6 billion by the end of 2014 without sacrificing military 

readiness. We’ve already reduced inventory by $2 billion since 2012, including a reduction in contingency stock 

from $2 billion to about $500 million. These kinds of savings wouldn’t be possible without a whole agency effort, 

from DLA team members at our inventory control points to DLA Distribution, DLA Disposition Services and DLA 

Information Operations. Our military Service partners are important members of this team as well. And we’re not 

just ‘cleaning the attic,’ we’re also focusing on the way we plan for, forecast and contract for items to ensure we 

don’t just fill the attic back up again. Reducing inventory also allows us to reduce our logistical footprint – less 

stock means fewer warehouses, which leads to even greater savings in the years ahead.

IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE: 

“Delight our customers” 

Improve customer service and measure performance by customer standards by expanding and strengthening 

customer/supplier collaboration and ensuring excellence in inventory management.

How do we know how well we’re doing? We ask our customers and partners. Earlier this year we surveyed 

our senior warfighting partners to find out what they thought we were doing well, and where they’d like to see us 

DIRECTOR’S 2014 PRINCIPLES

We are living in historic times ... doing things we’ve 

never done before ... make some history yourself.

Push for smart things to do ... don’t wait for the 

requirement ... or for folks to ask.

No one knows this stuff better than us ... act like it.

I trust you ... prioritize, do it your own way but get it 

done or ensure it gets done.

This is your time ... do big things and make it better. 

If not you, who? If not now, when?

Relationships are key ... build them and use them.

Take care of one another.

Keep promises.

www.dla.mil www.facebook.com/dla.mil
Loglines l November - December 2013 13

A Conversation with . . . DLA Public Affairs

You’ve been here almost two years. 

What did you think of DLA when 

you were coming to the agency?

I’ve been in the Navy 36 years 

and have been a customer of 

DLA my entire life. So if you’re a 

logistician, everybody knows what 

DLA is, but you really don’t have 

a sense of how big it is until you’re 

here. So I guess what surprised me 

the most given my 36 years as a 

customer was just the size of DLA. 

I mean, in my last big Navy job, I 

had a budget of about $6 billion. 

Here at DLA, it’s upwards of $45 

billion. So the scale is huge, and our 

presence around the world is fairly 

significant. So, scope and size were 

probably the biggest surprises.

DLA’s Director Explains His Five Big Ideas Initiative and Details the Progress 

the Agency has Accomplished Toward Those Goals. 

How do you think we’ve evolved 

since then?

I really don’t believe there’s 

been all that much evolution. DLA is 

a high-powered, high-performance 

organization. We’re big, we’re 

powerful, and when we need to 

be, really fast. That capability and 

capacity has always been there – so 

sometimes it’s simply a question 

of using all our tools or attributes 

when we need to. Depending 

on the situation or problem set, 

you fully employ all our logistics 

power to achieve whatever logistics 

or operational outcome your 

customers require. And that’s DLA 

-- just a great network of money, 

infrastructure, inventory and most 

importantly people that make 

miraculous things happen.

Not too long after you took over, 

you announced your intention 

for the agency to save $10 billion 

in five years. That has evolved 

since then. How has that initiative 

changed, and where is it now? 

It is actually $13 billion in six 

years, so we added another year. 

And it’s going real well. The various 

[headquarters organizations] and 

Courtesy Photo

Navy Vice Adm.

Mark Harnitchek

DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek asks questions about Army uniform production 

processes during a September visit to a textile vendor in New Jersey.
14 www.dla.mil

A Conversation with . . .

each of the [primary-level field 

activity] commanders have been 

assigned their targets, and we track 

those targets right down to the last 

penny. Because DLA is largely a 

big acquisition machine, most of 

these savings will come from the 

acquisition side. So if your target’s 

10 percent, that means every 

contract that you write has to save 

10 percent. And if the contract you 

write today only saves eight percent, 

that means the next contract needs 

to save 12. So it’s tracking. Mr. Poleo 

is putting all that money in the 

bank, and that money is part of the 

program of record now.

Initiatives like reverse auctions 

are already saving big money. We’ve 

only been working those for the past 

12 to 16 months, and we’ve held over 

5,000 auctions and saved – this 

is no-kidding savings – over $1.6 

billion. That’s a lot of money. So 

I think we’re doing very well. I’m 

just tickled with the progress and 

everybody’s level of excitement.

All of DLA is very focused on your 

five “Big Ideas.” How did you come 

up with those initiatives? What 

made you settle on those five?

I think we started with three to 

five. And that was deliberate, as I 

wanted to stay focused and for DLA 

to stay focused on only a few things. 

So in my experience, fewer and simpler is better – especially when there 

are 27,000 people that all need to 

have the same focus. So since I’ve 

gotten here, my guidance here has 

never been more than just a few 

pages, and prominently featured are 

the five things.

Reduce direct material costs; 

because we are a huge buyer of 

material. All those supply chains – 

food, fuel, medicine, repair parts, 

construction equipment, construction supplies, uniforms – we buy 

things. So if you want to put money 

back in our customers’ pockets, you 

have to get a better deal buying the 

stuff in those supply chains.

The other big lever is decreasing 

operating costs. We have two big cost 

centers here. One of them is the cost 

of the things that we buy, and then 

the rest of it is the cost of all of us. It’s 

me, it’s you, it’s the building, it’s the 

computers, it’s the warehouses. It’s 

all the stuff that makes DLA what it is 

today. And we’re going to take some 

money out of that as well. So that’s 

the second one.

Another big one was inventory. 

We spent a lot of money buying and 

storing inventory, and we just need 

to do a better job at that. Every bit 

of inventory that we buy that we 

don’t sell is a financial drag on the 

government, the department, DLA 

and our service customers. So we 

want to judiciously spend this money 

like it’s our own, and we don’t want 

to keep more inventory than we need 

-- much like you wouldn’t keep more 

milk in your refrigerator than you 

could drink, right? The same sort of 

principle applies.

Improve customer service; this 

is what we’re all about, so we’re 

out there talking to the combatant 

commanders, talking to our service 

customers [about], “What’s the 

operational outcome you’re looking 

for?” We agree to that outcome, 

and then we figure out how to 

deliver that outcome at the least 

cost to the taxpayer.

The final one is achieving 

audit readiness. That’s just our 

ability to be good stewards of all 

that money – that $46 billion that 

the taxpayers have entrusted to 

us. And being audit ready means 

we can account for the money, we 

know where it goes, we can explain 

to your grandmother that I spent 

a dollar [and] we got a dollar’s 

worth of product, and here’s all the 

documentation that proves it.

Again, five things: They’re all 

pretty easy to understand and to 

remember. So I want everybody to 

understand what they’re supposed 

to do, and then everybody needs to 

go do it.

You mentioned reverse auctions 

as a major success. Are there any 

other specific programs that come 

to mind as big successes so far?

I think our focus on talking to 

our industry partners has been a 

big one: our Captains of Industry 

initiative. Our relationship with 

industry takes place at two levels. It 

takes place with a contract. That’s 

the agreement in writing that says 

what it is that we will do and what, 

in return, the contractor will do.

The relationship needs to 

take place at the strategic level 

as well. That’s between me, our 

commanders and the folks that we 

do business with. We decide what 

it is we’re going to do, and then the 

contracting folks figure out how 

to contractually do that. And who 

better to share Big Ideas with than 

our partners in industry? If they 

know where we want to take the 

enterprise, [which] is largely based 

on acquisition, who better to talk to 

than those folks? They understand 

this isn’t an attack on profit; it’s an 

attack on cost. So who better to help 

us attack those costs than the folks 

in private industry? We’re getting a 

lot of great ideas from them, and it’s 

all things, big and small.

There are lots of initiatives: 

contracting, internal tweaks to 

DLA is a $46 billion 

enterprise, and there’s no 

one like us, not only in our 

military but anywhere in 

the world. We’re going to 

get a little slimmer at the 

HQ, but we’re still a $600 

billion department.
A Conversation with . . . DLA Public Affairs

Loglines Loglines ll November - December 2013 November - December 2013 15

our inventory models, an effort to 

get out of old buildings, strategic 

network optimization. So, it’s a host 

of issues, and there’s not one big 

$10 billion baseball bat that’s going 

to save it all in one fell swoop. It’s a 

hundred thousand here, a million 

there, and pretty soon, you’re 

talking about real money.

Immediately after you came in, it 

became apparent that employee 

communications were very 

important to you. You’ve instituted 

things like the Ask a Leader website 

and the Director’s Blog. Why is 

that so important to you, and how 

do you think it’s helped the agency 

since we instituted those things?

Well, a lot of people have 

really good ideas, and in the 21st 

century, I think we ought to use 

whatever technology we have 

to ensure that communications 

doesn’t follow the traditional 

military model where the private 

first class needs to talk to his 

platoon sergeant, who talks to the 

company first sergeant, who talks 

to the platoon leader, who talks to 

the captain. By the time it makes 

it all the way to my level, either 

the message is all wrong or I just 

never get it.

Things like the blog and Ask 

a Leader are powerful tools to 

communicate up, down and across 

the organization when people 

have good ideas, and a lot of good 

ideas have sprung from that blog. 

I’ve seen other commanders do 

that to great success. Plus, it just 

gives you a sense, as the [director] 

here, of what’s going on on the 

deck plates and how people really 

feel about things.

Something employees have 

responded well to since you’ve come 

in is your commitment to fitness and 

wellness: three hours of fitness time 

during the work week, the Healthy 

Base Initiative and the athletic 

competitions between military 

members. Why is that something 

that’s so important to you?

When you’re in the military, 

fitness is a big part of your military 

duties and you’re expected to stay 

physically fit all the time. And 

being fit has all sorts of benefits 

– you think more clearly, you’re 

generally happier, you’re less 

tired and generally more ready 

to respond to whatever the call 

is. I find the same applies to the 

civilian workforce, and I’m happy 

to dedicate time for DLA civil 

servants to work out. 

Where do you see DLA going in the 

future, both during the rest of your 

tenure and beyond?

William Shakespeare said 

in one of his plays, “What’s 

past is prologue.” So when 

I look at DLA over the long 

haul of my career, we started 

out as a wholesaler. We would 

buy things, put them in a big 

warehouse, and people would 

requisition them. That’s the DLA 

of I remember as a young officer. 

Today, we’re a much bigger 

organization with logistics 

responsibilities far beyond just 

wholesale. We go all the way 

down, to coin a phrase, from 

factory to foxhole. So if you go 

out to the “foxholes” these days, 

you’re probably going to see a 

DLA person. If you go to service 

industrial sites, you find DLA 

runs those. DLA buys depotlevel reparables. DLA does 

tactical battlefield distribution of 

food and fuel.

So looking to the future, 

I would expect to see DLA’s 

mission to expand even further. 

I don’t know what it’s going 

to look like. But if “past is 

prologue,” I would expect DLA 

to be much bigger in terms of 

scope and mission.

How does that gel with the recent 

guidance from the secretary of 

defense that headquarters agencies 

need to reduce their size? Do you 

have a message to employees as 

we’re looking at this?

If you’re worried about your 

future as a public servant and you’re 

in the logistics business, this is where 

you want to be. DLA is a $46 billion 

enterprise, and there’s no one like us, 

not only in our military but anywhere 

in the world. We’re going to get a 

little slimmer at the HQ, but we’re 

still a $600 billion department. 

So my message is don’t worry too 

much about it, keep working, keep 

working out, keep making smart 

decisions, keep making great things 

happen, and everything will come out 

all right.

Anything else you’d like to talk 

about?

Just what a joy and an honor 

it is to direct this big organization. 

We are doing great things. We’re 

doing great things in Afghanistan. 

We’re doing great things all over 

the world, and I mean really great 

things, things that matter to our 

customers. We’re doing them while 

driving cost out all the time, and 

that’s really the name of the game.

I want everybody to feel really 

good about their service to our 

great nation. You know there’s a 

reason they call it public service. 

It’s because we all serve, military 

and civilians. We don’t have 

civilian employees; we have public 

servants. You serve because you 

think it’s important. You don’t 

do it to become rich; you do it 

because you know you want to 

serve a greater good, and that’s 

exactly what you’re doing.

So, thanks to everybody for 

all you’re doing. I’m looking 

forward to what the future holds; 

no matter what it holds, I know 

DLA’s going to do great things. 
LogPoints DLA Public Affairs

by the numbers

“I wanted to take a moment to tell you what you mean to me – and to our 

country. That begins by saying thank you for the work you do every day 

– work that is vitally important to our national security and to American 

families’ economic security.”

— President Barack Obama, in a message to the Defense Department workforce 

about the government shutdown in October.

“This award is earned with a team – a team of our finest Marines, 

Army, Air Force, Navy and our Afghan partners standing side by 

side. Now that team includes Gold Star families who lost their 

fathers, sons and husbands that day. This medal represents them 

– it represents us.” 

— Former Army Capt. William D. Swenson, in a White House 

ceremony where he was awarded the Medal of Honor. 

“For DLA to have such a presence and such a capability to be able 

to compete and win against 665 other fire departments, ... that’s a 

lot to be proud of. And that shows a tremendous dedication and 

preparedness on the parts of those who are involved in it.”

— DLA Chief of Staff Renee Roman, on Defense Supply Center 

Richmond, Va.’s Fire Department being named the Defense 

Department’s top small fire department for 2012.

 “Afghanistan is one of the most difficult environments in 

the world to support logistically. We not only need to ensure 

continued support during this transition, but ensure it is seamless 

to the customer.”

— DLA Troop Support Subsistence Deputy Director Tom Daley, 

on the transition to a new subsistence prime vendor for 

forces in Afghanistan.

“Today, thousands of federal employees are heading back to work. 

As for DLA, thanks to savvy financial management, we remained 

open and operating. That means the critical support you provide 

continued uninterrupted.” 

— DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek, on the end of the 

federal government’s October shutdown.

quotables

$13 BILLION: 

The amount DLA Director Navy Vice 

Adm. Mark Harnitchek wants the 

agency to save over six years, about 

equal to the cost of the USS Gerald R. 

Ford, the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier.

30,225 GALLONS: 

The amount of jet fuel DLA Energy 

Pacific supplied for Exercise Vigilant 

Eagle 2013, a combined effort 

between U.S., Canadian and Russian 

forces, slightly more than the United 

States’ annual per capita gasoline 

usage for 27 people. 

5,500 POUNDS: 

The weight of 800 sheets of copper 

provided by DLA Troop Support 

Construction and Equipment to protect 

the hull of the USS Constitution, the 

world’s oldest commissioned warship 

afloat, slightly less than the weight of 

80,000 copper pennies.

16 www.dla.mil
Loglines l November - December 2013 17

Story by Beth Reece

efense Department officials 

expect the Defense Logistics 

Agency to save $2 billion in 

operating costs by fiscal 2018, 

but DLA Director Navy Vice 

Adm. Mark Harnitchek has another plan. 

Instead, the agency will double its savings 

to $4.2 billion, then add another $597 

million in savings in fiscal 2019. 

The savings will come from a variety 

of initiatives underway throughout DLA’s 

headquarters and primarylevel field activities. One 

major contribution will be 

the result of infrastructure 

reductions, especially 

those happening through 

the Strategic Network 

Optimization initiative, 

which will reduce excess 

inventories and limit the 

number of warehouses 

DLA maintains in almost 

30 countries. 

 “As we shrink our 

warehouse footprint, we’re 

able to reduce costs associated with base 

operating support services, as well as 

costs toward sustainment, restoration and 

modernization,” said Rodney Wyche, chief 

of the Strategic Infrastructure Planning 

Division for DLA Installation Support. 

Fewer buildings means less money 

D spent on things like utilities, grounds 

maintenance, building upkeep and 

garbage collection, all costs that add up 

over time, he added. 

The facilities DLA vacates will 

be returned to the host installations. 

Some installations host more than one 

DLA organization, but most real estate 

agreements make it difficult to transfer 

space between DLA activities because 

each has a separate agreement. 

The opportunity to 

transfer space would allow 

DLA to make better use of 

space and increase efficiency 

at each location.

 “When DLA cuts an 

agreement with installations 

in the future, we’ll work to 

make them enterprisewide in 

case there’s a need for space 

at the same installation by 

another part of the agency,” 

Wyche said. 

 The agency is also 

working with local installation officials to determine if a building 

it vacates should be demolished. “Vice 

Adm. Harnitchek has told us that when 

we get out of these warehouses, if they’re 

excess to DoD needs, instead of just 

letting them sit there so somebody else 

can eventually fill them back up with stuff 

again, let’s try to encourage the services 

to demolish the facility, which is a further 

savings to DoD,” Wyche said.

At facilities throughout DLA, 

employees are being asked to personally 

help lower the cost of daily operations 

by reducing energy use by 30 percent by 

2015. Employees may think turning off 

lights won’t lead to significant savings, 

but every measure taken counts, said 

Don Juhasz, chief of energy resource 

management at DLA Headquarters.

“The truth is that any energy bill that 

we pay monthly, whether in your homes 

or that we pay as a government agency, 

is made up of small amounts that add up 

from both the amount of time devices are 

Decrease Operating Costs

Improve Process 

and Productivity

Decrease Direct Material Costs

Decrease Operating Costs

Rightsize Inventory

Improve Customer Service

Achieve Audit Readiness

DLA’s Big Ideas

DLA, employees 

are being asked 

to personally help 

lower the cost of 

daily operations by 

reducing energy 

use by 30 percent 

by 2015.
18 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

operated or the sheer number of devices 

left on,” he added.

Additional savings will come from 

changes in information technology. DLA 

Logistics Information Service is identifying 

redundant and unnecessary systems it 

can retire, such as Auto Agent, a self-help 

tool that was previously used for placing, 

tracking and modifying requisitions. 

Users have been trained to perform those 

functions in DoD EMALL, so the system is 

no longer needed, said Bob Foster, deputy 

director of DLA Information Operation’s 

Financial Support Directorate.

DLA is also working with the Defense 

Information Systems Agency to reduce 

the amount the agency spends on such 

services as server and mainframe hosting, 

telecommunications and network services. 

“Our strategy for success is simple: 

Avoid reducing services to our customers, but become more efficient in how we 

provide those services,” Foster added.

The two agencies are working to 

migrate DLA’s email system to DISA’s 

Defense Enterprise Email, which provides 

secure access from any place and reduces 

administration costs. 

Another way DLA expects to 

significantly reduce operating costs is by 

maximizing the usable space of containers 

shipped overseas, said Joy Carter, chief of 

the Transportation Policy Branch in DLA 

Logistics Operations.

Shipping containers quickly to 

meet delivery dates sometimes resulted 

in partially full containers, adding to 

overall transportation costs. Ensuring 

containers are more completely filled 

results in fewer containers shipped 

overall, Carter explained.

The agency expects to fill containers 

it ships overseas at least 85 percent full in 

either weight or cubic capacity containers 

and is using larger containers to take 

advantage of per-container shipping 

costs, Carter said. She noted that 20-foot 

and 40-foot containers are similar in cost 

to ship. 

“It makes sense to use more 40-foot 

containers, again resulting in fewer 

containers shipped overall and additional 

cost savings in the process,” she said.

However, she added, customers’ 

needs will always be the determining 

factor for how items are shipped.

“There will be times when it’s 

necessary to ship containers that aren’t 

maxed out. We won’t hold cargo just for 

the sake of saving transportation costs if 

it means missing the required delivery 

date,” she said.

The agency will also decrease costs 

by reducing the amount of items that end 

up in litigation throughout distribution 

depots. Material is placed in litigation, 

or considered “frustrated,” for several 

reasons, including improper packaging 

or labeling, missing inspection signatures 

or paperwork, incorrect documents, 

quantity disparities between the invoice 

and the actual shipment, or material that 

is damaged or noncompliant with shelf-life 

requirements. 

“We’re working with DLA Distribution 

and DLA Land and Maritime to ensure 

vendors understand our procedures. In 

some cases, vendors are repeat offenders 

for things like improperly marked labels, 

but after we show them how to do it 

correctly, there’s no longer a problem,” 

Carter added. 

Beth Reece

DLA expects to significantly reduce operating 

costs by maximizing usable space of containers shipped overseas.

“Our strategy for success is 

simple: Avoid reducing services 

to our customers, but become 

more efficient in how we 

provide those services.” 

— Bob Foster
Loglines l November - December 2013 19

Story by Beth Reece

he Defense Logistics Agency 

doesn’t just assume it knows what 

military members like or don’t 

like about its services. In early 

2013, the agency surveyed seniorlevel leaders who routinely interact with 

DLA to see where customers wanted 

improvements. 

DLA Troop Support, DLA Land and 

Maritime, and DLA Energy earned an 

A+, and overall satisfaction with DLA 

was rated “very good.” Survey results also 

indicated that customers believe DLA 

understands the mission, is responsive, 

and delivers on commitments. Some 

respondents were full of praise for DLA’s 

commitment to meeting their service’s 

needs; others said they wanted the agency 

to become more responsive.

The most glaring aspect of the survey, 

T however, was the contrast in opinions from 

the services, said Air Force Lt. Col. Scott 

Hopper. As deputy national account manager for the Air Force, Hopper helps ensure 

DLA meets his service’s logistics needs. 

“The Army, Navy and Marines all saw 

customer satisfaction results between 71 

and 79 percent, while the Air Force came 

in at 46 percent,” he said.

Hopper’s team and those dedicated 

to the Army, Marine Corps and Navy 

waded through 242 survey responses 

and have been working since March 

with DLA field activity representatives to 

improve support in three areas: increase 

communication of DLA’s capabilities, 

increase procurement responsiveness, 

and proactively engage customers to offer 

targeted solutions. 

More than half of survey respondents 

said they consider DLA to be proactive 

in determining how to meet customers’ 

needs. Of those who disagreed, 37 

percent were from the Navy; 34 percent, 

Air Force; 15 percent, Marines; and 10 

percent, Army.

“Warfighting isn’t something you 

want to be just 50 percent good at, so we 

need to be more proactive about knowing 

what the services need and know how 

our capabilities can meet those needs in 

advance,” Hopper said.

Coming up with proactive solutions 

is one of the main goals of DLA’s national 

account managers, he added. 

“Part of my job as the Air Force NAM, 

for example, is to know what’s going on 

in the Air Force today and what’s being 

planned. By knowing the Air Force might 

put the V-22 Osprey in Italy, I can start 

figuring out now where the repair parts 

are positioned and whether we’ll need to 

make adjustments to meet maintenance 

needs in the future,” Hopper continued. 

Several respondents said having DLA 

liaisons present during the early stages 

of planning led to better outcomes and 

solutions that worked for both the service 

and DLA, so the agency is working with 

senior military logistics leaders to ensure 

DLA representatives are involved in 

Improve Customer Service

Delight Our

Customers

SATISFACTION RESULTS BY SERVICE/AGENCY

USTRANSCOM

ARMY

MARINE 

CORPS

NAVY

AIR

FORCE

Decrease Direct Material Costs

Decrease Operating Costs

Rightsize Inventory

Improve Customer Service

Achieve Audit Readiness

Army, Navy and Marine satisfaction 

surveys show a satisfaction 

rate that stands between 71 and 

79 percent, with the Air Force 

results at 46 percent. DLA and 

Air Force representatives are 

working to improve support by 

increasing communications and 

procurement responsiveness 

and engage customers to offer 

targeted solutions.

DLA’s Big Ideas
20 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

DLA OVERALL AVERAGE

FOR SATISFACTION

planning efforts at the appropriate levels.

Members of all the services said 

DLA also needs to improve procurement 

responsiveness.

“One of the common themes we hear is 

that it takes us too long to award contracts. 

Our commitment is to try to save about 65 

percent of the time we now spend,” DLA 

Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek 

said during a meeting with industrial 

representatives in September. 

In response to Air Force respondents’ 

concerns about the availability of aircraft 

parts for depot maintenance, DLA 

Aviation created teams that focus on 

procuring specific items, such as aircraft 

engines and armament parts, said Paul 

Hughes, deputy director of customer 

operations at DLA Aviation. 

“We’re working with the Air Force to 

try and get them the parts they ask for in 

two days or less 90 percent of the time. 

If we’re able to do that, then they can 

fine-tune their production processes and 

eliminate bottlenecks to increase their 

throughput rather than have mechanics 

sitting around idle because they don’t have 

the necessary parts on hand,” he said.

It will also enable the Air Force’s 

three industrial complexes to become 

more efficient, Hughes added.

“When we support them with the 

products they need, they’re able to 

repair equipment and sell it back to their 

customers on schedule,” he continued.

The most commented on items by 

Navy respondents were forward stocking 

and the Economic Quantity Model, 

through which DLA stores the heaviest, 

bulkiest material close to overseas 

customers because it’s cheaper to 

transport when needed quickly. 

“Unfortunately for the Navy, a lot 

of their material is lighter. While EQM 

works out well, there is some tweaking 

that needs to be done,” said Navy Capt. 

Bernard Knox, DLA’s deputy national 

account manager for the Navy. 

Knox and his team have discussed 

forward stocking with Navy customers 

and made some changes since the survey.

“We went directly back to those who 

expressed concerns about stocking to 

get their perspective. To do a survey 

without going back to the customer and 

getting people’s thoughts, ... I don’t know 

what good that does, so we’ve spent a 

lot of time getting into a dialog with our 

customers to better understand how we 

can meet their needs,” he said.

While 66 percent of respondents agreed 

that DLA does well in communicating 

its capabilities and providing solutions, 

32.7 percent said the agency doesn’t 

communicate enough, and 1.3 percent said 

it communicates too much.

“We’re not at risk of overloading our 

senior partners as we work to improve 

communication, so that gives us a 

full-steam-ahead mindset in telling our 

story so customers better understand our 

capabilities,” Hopper said. 

The agency will help customers 

become more aware of the supplies 

and services it offers through regular 

customer site visits, informal surveys that 

determine what capabilities customers 

are least familiar with, reinvigorated 

customer outreach at formal schools, and 

more. DLA Troop Support will also boost 

customers’ awareness by presenting itself 

as a single organization rather than five 

separate supply chains. 

“We’ve realized our customers 

see us as segmented, not as a place 

for one-stop shopping for a variety 

of commodities. Those who buy from 

our Construction and Equipment 

Directorate may not think they need 

clothing and textiles, but we want them 

to know they can get it from us if the 

need ever does come up,” said Evelyn 

Smith, a customer outreach analyst at 

DLA Troop Support.

DLA is scheduled to survey senior 

military leaders again in 2015, but plans 

to reevaluate Air Force concerns in spring 

2014. Input provided during the agency’s 

annual meeting with the Air Force in 

August revealed that customer views are 

already improving, Hopper said.

“Our Air Force customers told us they 

were thrilled with everything we’re bringing 

to the table and with our efforts to improve 

procurement processes,” he added. “It’s all 

about coming up with proactive solutions. 

And while that’s the primary role of the 

service teams here at DLA Headquarters, 

people throughout the agency are making 

a difference in how we provide customer 

support to warfighters.” 

DLA OVERALL

DOCUMENT SERVICES

LOGISTICS INFORMATION 

SERVICE

DISTRIBUTION

DISPOSITION SERVICES

ENERGY

AVIATION

TROOP SUPPORT

LAND AND MARITIME

RANGE:

VERY GOOD

RANGE:

EXCELLENT

SATISFACTION RESULTS

BY PLFA

DLA Troop Support, DLA Land and Maritime, 

and DLA Energy earned an A+, and overall 

satisfaction with DLA was rated “very good.” 

Survey results indicate customers believe DLA 

understands the mission, is responsive, and 

delivers on commitments. Some respondents 

were full of praise for DLA’s commitment to 

meeting their service’s needs, while others said 

they wanted the agency to be more responsive.
Loglines l November - December 2013 21

Story by Amanda Neumann

ith an aggressive goal to be 

fully audit-ready by fiscal 2015, 

two years ahead of the fiscal 

2017 deadline for the Defense 

Department, the Defense 

Logistics Agency faces challenges.

“The fact is, [the Defense Department] 

has long faced a challenge of being fully 

audit ready,” DLA Director Navy Vice 

Adm. Mark Harnitchek said in an video 

released earlier this year. “How do we do 

that? We do that by understanding our 

processes, the internal controls within 

them, and making sure that the resulting 

data is accurate and in compliance with 

the rules. It will increase the public’s confidence in our financial status and enhance 

their trust that we have good controls to 

mitigate risk and keep our data safe.”

Implemented as one of Harnitchek’s 

five “Big Ideas” initiatives in March 2012, 

audit readiness pushes the agency out 

of its comfort zone, said Simone Reba, 

deputy director of DLA Finance.

“With the Big Ideas, Adm. Harnitchek 

was looking to have us stretch out of our 

comfort zones and think about things in 

a different way, in a big way, and push 

ourselves to do something hard for the 

benefit of the warfighter,” she said. “And 

audit readiness, although it’s not the 

first thing that comes to mind for most 

people, it actually does that. It’s hard, but 

W

Achieve Audit Readiness

Prove It!

Decrease Direct Material Costs

Decrease Operating Costs

Rightsize Inventory

Improve Customer Service

Achieve Audit Readiness

DLA’s Big Ideas

A Navy machinist conducts a tag-out audit on a hydraulic fluid valve in the machinery repair shop 

of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. Audit readiness ensures that items in an agency’s 

inventory are accounted for, recorded properly and signed off on correctly.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Shawn J. Stewart
22 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

it’s something that’s worthwhile, and it’s 

going to make us better in the long run.”

Often referred to as a way to maintain 

stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars, DLA’s 

audit readiness goal is to obtain and sustain 

an unqualified, or “clean,” audit opinion 

on its financial statements. Audit readiness 

assertions each mark a milestone in the 

agency’s efforts to make entire processes, 

controls or systems audit ready, inching the 

agency closer to a full-scale audit, Reba said.

“We’ve done really well,” she said, 

noting the first assertion this year was 

in “Hire-to-Retire,” for DLA’s hiring and 

retirement processes. 

“[DLA Human Resources Director] 

Brad Bunn and his team actually went 

faster than the planned deadline.” Reba 

said. “They were supposed to assert in 

September and actually asserted in June.”

With efforts progressing at a rapid 

pace, several milestones have already 

been met in 2012 and 2013, but several 

remain. The latest assertions, due to 

be met by the end of the year, include 

“Acquire-to-Retire’s General Equipment 

and Real Property,” the inventory of 

equipment greater than $100,000 

on DLA’s host sites; “Environmental 

Liabilities Management,” the cost to clean 

up environmental incidents or spills; and 

the assertion of several DoD systems, 

including the Enterprise Business System, 

DLA’s tracking software.

With more than 300 DLA personnel 

providing full-time support to the audit 

readiness initiative, furloughs, condensed 

timeframes and shifting priorities have 

created several hurdles, Reba said.

“I would hate to say the furloughs 

had no impact, because they did, but we 

really prioritized and looked to see what 

was less critical and moved some of those 

things out to the right,” she said. “But it 

won’t affect the overall end dates. All of 

those are still on track.”

As the agency identifies and tests 

its internal controls to ensure it has an 

adequate system of checks and balances, 

team members have learned new things 

along the way, Reba said.

“We get a lot of discovery as we go 

through this,” she said. “Basically, we’re 

doing the exact same things the auditor 

would do, which is check our processes, 

see if the internal controls in the 

processes are working the way we think 

they’re working, and trace the numbers 

back from the financials to see if we can 

find all the supporting documents. It’s 

been a learning experience, but that’s 

what audit readiness is all about. It’s us 

finding our own problems so that we can 

fix them before the independent person 

comes in. So it’s fine that we’re finding 

problems; that’s what we expected.”

By approaching an audit the same way 

an auditor would, the team has made the 

agency reevaluate itself to see what needs 

improvement, Reba said.

“What we’re finding now is we had 

policies and processes, but because we’re 

so busy working on our operational 

issues, we didn’t always necessarily follow 

them,” she said. “We weren’t storing 

things in certain places, so it was hard 

to find our supporting documentation. 

Our internal controls weren’t really 

working the way we thought. So because 

we had to shine a light back on some of 

these processes, we found that they had 

problems and maybe we really should 

have taken extra time to follow up. 

We’ve just been so busy putting out fires 

associated with the various conflicts, this 

compliance piece took a backseat. But 

with audit readiness, it can’t.”

While conducting tests, the audit 

readiness team found several deviations 

from standard processes within DLA, 

namely within EBS. These 

variations created costs and 

inefficiencies within the 

agency, Reba said.

“Even though we went to 

EBS for the majority of our 

organizations, you would 

have thought that would 

make us standardize our 

processes, but it didn’t,” 

she said. “Over time, we’ve 

made them all unique. But 

can we really afford to do it 

all differently? Because with 

each unique process, there’s 

also a unique set of training, 

documentation, updates and 

a different way to manage 

it. And all that has costs. 

The standard process costs 

this much, so if we have this 

Audit readiness is one of DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Harnitchek’s 

five “Big Ideas” to help the agency save $13.1 billion over the next six 

years. A Defense Department effort to prepare agencies for full audits, 

audit readiness is intended to ensure processes and controls within 

an agency are sufficient for responsible stewardship of resources.

June 30, 2012

Budget to Execute 

(B2E)

Appropriations 

Received.

Sept. 30, 2012

Fund Balance with 

Treasury (FBWT):

Phases I and II.

Sept. 30, 2013

•	Aquire to Retire (A2R)

 Real Property – 

 Hosted/Permitted Sites.

•	A2R: General Equipment

 > $100,000.

•	Environmental Liabilities 

Management (ELM)

 U.S. only.

•	Hire to Retire (H2R)

Civilian Pay & Benefits

(high priority GLACs).

•	DoD Systems.

Sept. 30, 2014

•	A2R: Internal Use 

Software (IUS).

•	A2R: Real Property – 

 Non-Hosted/Non-

 Permitted Sites.

•	General Fund (GF) 

Statement of Budgetary 

Resources (SRB).

•	GF FBWT.

•	Plan to Stock (P2S): 

Inventory Existence & 

Completeness (E&C).

•	ELM – All.

•	Service Provider.

Sept. 30, 2015

•	A2R: Valuation.

•	B2E.

•	FBWT.

•	Order to Cash (O2C).

•	P2S: Valuation.

•	Procure to Pay (P2P).

•	H2R.

•	Record to Report (R2R).

Sustainment

Indefinite

sustainment

of annual

auditability.

Sept. 30, 2015

•	DLA (as an agency) asserts Audit 

Readiness for its consolidated:

•	Balance Sheet.

•	Statement of Budgetary Resources.

•	Satatement of Net Costs.

•	Statement of Changes in Net Position.
Loglines l November - December 2013 23

other process, there’s an extra set of costs. 

If we can get it back into the standard, 

then we can actually reduce costs.”

DLA’s systems, most of which will 

be asserted as audit ready by 2014, are 

also proving challenging due to access 

concerns, Reba said.

“We could be doing everything 

perfectly manually, but if the system is 

not controlled well, someone can go in 

and make an adjustment to a number,” 

she said. “Then [the auditor] loses 

confidence that, regardless of what we 

prove externally, those systems work. 

From a control perspective, I can’t 

guarantee they can’t [make changes] 

until I take [that access] away or I have 

a really good process on the back end to 

make sure that if they change something, 

I can prove it was good. Then the auditors 

don’t have to worry about what the 

systems are doing, they just have to look 

at what the people are doing since the 

systems do the same thing every time.”

In addition to fixing processes, 

internal controls and systems, DLA is also 

targeting its relationships with service 

providers and receivers, Reba said.

“As far as what we have to fix, we have 

identified what we consider our big rocks, 

and we brief those to the director every 

month,” she said. “For example, one of 

our biggest rocks is material receipting, 

where we send things directly to the 

customer. They need to give us their 

supporting information, their receipts, or 

we don’t know if they got the right thing 

or if we billed them correctly or if we’re 

going to pay the vendor correctly. And we 

can’t prove they got it. That’s probably 

our No. 1 hurdle.”

With an average of more than 99,000 

orders per day, DLA is on track to lose $1.2 

billion worth of inventory while gaining 

about $800 million worth this year 

alone, Reba said. Processing too many 

adjustments in the system can make the 

agency look bad to auditors, she added.

“When you net them, it’s only $400 

million; it’s not a big deal for everything 

that we do every year,” she said. “But 

when you look at the pieces, the auditor 

would wave a big red flag and say, ‘Whoa, 

what’s going on here? Why are you losing 

$400 million and then finding $800 

million? What’s going on?’ To them, 

they’ll say it’s not very well controlled. So 

we have to prove to them that when we 

lose it and find it, we can justify why that 

happened. And that means showing them 

the evidence.”

Long-term strategies, including a 

central repository for storing documents, 

will help with gathering information in 

one place, Reba said. 

“From a department perspective, 

finding those documents is the No. 1 

problem,” she said “Most of our other 

problems are handoffs, either between 

people or between the systems. If we can’t 

trace those handoffs, or it doesn’t look like 

they made it correctly, then the auditor 

will say the numbers aren’t correct.”

In addition to being able to find and 

retrieve documents, ensuring they are 

accurate is another issue. Establishing 

standard operating procedures can better 

guarantee that documents have the 

information they require. 

“If I find it and half the fields are 

blank, or nobody signed it, then [auditors] 

don’t think you have a good control,” Reba 

said. “Our test results thus far indicate 

we can’t find the documents or when we 

do eventually find them, they’re not filled 

out accurately. That’s part of the reason 

why we’re doing the [standard operating 

procedures] exercise; to make sure 

everyone understands what types of things 

we need to keep, what does ‘good’ look 

like, and where to store it.”

Establishing SOPs across the agency 

will ensure employees are trained to the 

same standards and ensure all processes 

are documented, Reba said.

“We found that people really didn’t 

Air Force Senior Airman Myles Stepp

Filing documents in the correct location, and 

being able to find them later, is an essential 

part of audit readiness. 
24 www.dla.mil

Big Ideas: Tracking Progress

have their processes documented,” she 

said. “Part of this exercise is to make sure 

we have those end-to-end processes that 

explain where the handoffs are: what 

do I do with it; who do I give it to; who 

has to approve it? After we have those 

SOPs written, we’ll put them into formal 

training so when new people come in, 

they actually have something that tells 

them how to do DLA’s job.”

Although the SOPs will provide a new 

level of knowledge management, supervisors are the first lines of defense in ensuring 

employees keep accurate records, Reba said. 

“Most people know the basic stuff 

they have to do for a job, but when I have 

10 tasks to do that day and I can only get 

eight done, it’s the audit readiness type 

of things that usually take a backseat,” 

she said. “We need to have supervisors 

actually following up and making sure 

that people are doing those, which is 

not always happening. If you don’t have 

a supervisor checking every once in a 

while and saying, ‘Are you signing those 

documents; are you filling out the form 

the right way; can I find these forms 

when I look for them?’ then chances are 

it’s going to continue to be overlooked.”

Reba said misconceptions about 

DLA’s audit readiness efforts abound. 

She hopes to address those issues by 

educating the workforce and exposing 

employees to the process.

“I still occasionally hear, and it 

disheartens me, that people think this is 

just a financial exercise, that it doesn’t 

apply to them,” she said. “And if you can’t 

change that culture through training or 

some other mechanism and make them 

understand how they personally affect 

it, then it’s like having 27,000 people in 

a rowboat, and only three or four people 

are rowing. The rest are sinking. That’s a 

big challenge.”

Another misconception DLA’s 

workforce has to overcome is the mindset 

that audit readiness isn’t related to the 

agency’s core mission, Reba said.

“Operationally, we get people what 

they need most of the time. The perception 

is, ‘Why do we have to do this compliance 

stuff when the warfighter is pretty much 

happy and we have material availability in 

the [90th percentile]?’” she said. “That’s 

true, but if we had a better handle on our 

controls and processes, we’d actually support them better. If I have better control, 

I’m going to get the warfighter something 

better or I’m not going to tell him I have 

something when I don’t.”

As the agency looks ahead to next 

year’s in-depth testing, a method that 

requires auditors to look at DLA’s 

numbers and trace the documents 

backwards, additional problems might be 

found, Reba said.

“Next year it’s going to get harder, 

because we’re going to really start proving 

the numbers,” she said. “If there were 

1,000 invoices, of those invoices, can I 

find the receipts that said I got it? Then 

can I go back and find the purchase order? 

Does it look like all three of those things 

match? Did the right person approve it? 

They’re going to be doing that across all 

the different sites on multiple processes. 

That’s where we’re really going to find 

where we have our biggest problems.”

For DLA, the hardest part of audit 

readiness still lies ahead: the full-scale 

audit in 2015, Reba said.

“First-year audits are really hard,” she 

said. “They ask for a lot of information 

because you’ve never been audited before. 

The first audit will probably take more 

than a year just because they’ll dig deeper 

and look at more things. After the auditor asks for our documentation, they’ll 

develop their audit plan and go out to 

check our facts, prove our numbers. After 

nine months, they’ll conclude their field 

work, and then in about three months, 

they give us the report. Then we’ll have 

to fix whatever they find, and they’ll be 

ready to start the next year’s audit.”

Although DLA officials may think the 

agency is ready to pass an audit, there 

will always be adjustments, Reba said.

“One thing I’ve learned over this 

process is that every auditor sees things a 

little bit differently; it’s not completely black 

and white,” she said. “So even though we 

think we have it all covered, there will still 

be a decent amount of defending what we 

do as well as proving it, and there may still 

be a difference of opinion of whether we 

proved it or not. More than likely, because 

of the nature of auditing, there will still be 

things they find.”

With significant progress in the past 

year, DLA’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. 

In an August 2013 report to Congress, 

the Government Accountability Office 

named the Navy and DLA as two Defense 

Department components whose actions 

could serve as a starting point for improving 

DoD’s risk management implementation. 

For DLA, being ahead of the rest 

of the DoD will actually help the other 

components get audit ready, Reba said.

“If this was a race and it was 

100 yards, we’re still probably at the 

35-yard line toward our fiscal year 2015 

completely audit ready target. By next 

year, we’ll be at the 100 yard line to prove 

to the military services that the things 

we do for them are audit ready, ” Reba 

said. “As a service provider, it’s important 

that we’re ahead of the pack because the 

services rely on us to give them good 

data so that their own data is good. The 

fact that we’re out ahead is going to help 

the rest of the department get there. So 

when the services assert, if we can prove 

to them our numbers are good, then they 

don’t have to worry about us and they’ll 

be able to focus on their piece.”

Reba said she is confident the agency 

can progress to an auditable state once all 

the assertions are in place.

“With successes, you have to take 

them in little chunks,” she said. “The 

way [audit readiness is] described makes 

my head hurt, it’s so big. But as Adm. 

Harnitchek always says, nobody does it 

like DLA, and he’s right. In this last year, 

we’ve done more than the previous five 

years. Once we have the infrastructure in 

place, people will get it.” 

Tom Shively
Loglines l November - December 2013 25

Story by Jacob Boyer

n an agency of more than 27,000 

employees who manage nine supply 

chains, disposition services for the 

entire Defense Department, the 

United States’ stockpile of strategic 

materials and more, communication can be 

challenging. It’s important for DLA team 

members to be able to collaborate on ways 

to meet agency Director Navy Vice Adm. 

Mark Harnitchek’s goals. A new website 

on DLA’s intranet tied to Harnitchek’s “Big 

Ideas” aims to increase that collaboration, 

whether its from a depot to the agency’s 

upper echelons or across field activities. 

“We want to empower people at the 

floor level to share their ideas for creativity 

and innovation. Not every idea will produce 

the big-time results we’re looking for, and 

some will only be appropriate for local levels, 

but I know there are some diamonds out 

there that could have a great impact across 

DLA,” DLA Human Resources Director Brad 

Bunn said prior to the site’s launch.

The website includes a variety of tools 

to help employees refine and submit ideas 

that can help contribute to the Big Ideas, 

which are the driving force behind DLA’s 

effort to save $13 billion over six years. 

Website users can submit ideas they 

have to help the agency save money and 

improve its processes, said Stacey Salo, 

director of DLA Human Resources Policy. 

Once an idea is submitted, it is forwarded 

to the appropriate Big Idea’s functional 

group leader. There is one functional group 

for each of the Big Ideas.

“They’re responsible for posting 

responses,” said Patricia McMinn, a 

human resources specialist in DLA Human 

I Resources Policy. “Some compose their 

own responses, and we’ll post them and 

close them out. If they don’t have the 

appropriate knowledge, they forward it to 

a subject matter expert for evaluation. It 

seems to be working.”

The goal is to get answers to employees’ 

ideas within 10 days, then post the idea, 

along with the response, to either the 

“Accepted Ideas” or the “Submitted 

Ideas” tab on the website, McMinn said. 

Employees across the agency can then see 

which ideas have already been proposed 

and which have been accepted. Once that 

happens, other employees can comment on 

them, which McMinn said she hopes leads 

to collaboration.

“Anybody can see what has been 

submitted and how it’s been responded to,” 

she said. “You can look at an idea and see 

the response, then say, ‘Hey it may not have 

worked this way, but what about that way?’ 

and submit an idea. It can domino from 

there. To me, I think 

that’s valuable.”

Since its July 

1 launch, the Big 

Ideas website has 

received 71 ideas, 

McMinn said. 

The number has 

exceeded the team’s 

expectations, 

and employee 

suggestions covering all five of the Big 

Ideas have come in. 

“That’s pretty good based on the launch 

and was more than we expected,” she said. 

“They cover all the focus areas. They’re not 

limited to just reduce inventory or improve 

customer service, which is good.”

In some cases, additional research 

requires that the 10-day timeline be 

extended, McMinn said. Functional group 

leaders send ideas out to the appropriate 

subject matter experts when the answer 

to an idea is not easily found. Figuring out 

whether an idea is feasible or – in some 

cases – if it’s something DLA is already 

doing can take research. In these cases, an 

interim response is posted so the submitter 

knows the idea is being considered.

Getting answers to the entire DLA 

workforce in a timely manner is important 

in maintaining transparency, which was 

one goal of the website, Salo said. She said 

having the answers available for everyone is 

integral to that transparency.

 “It’s not just the person who has the 

idea getting a response and no one else 

knows about it,” she said. “They are up there 

on the website forevermore.”

Salo said another goal of the website 

is to change the perceived “culture of no” 

within the agency, a belief discovered 

through DLA’s 2012 Culture Survey.

“We see across the agency that 

employees don’t necessarily feel empowered 

to change the status quo and do things,” 

she said. “[Harnitchek] told us one of the 

goals we should have is not to let this turn 

into a more transparent no. Hopefully, 

this will actually 

meet its purpose 

for empowering 

employees. There 

are a lot of good 

ideas in an ideas 

factory. You may 

have lots and lots 

of suggestions, and 

there may only be 

a few good nuggets 

in there, but if you don’t have a way to get 

all those ideas out there and get employees 

positive feedback for being engaged and 

submitting their ideas, you may not get the 

full advantage of your workforce.” 

What’s Your

Big Idea?
I AM

My name is: 

Tonya Custalow-Pearsall

I am: 

An American Sign Language interpreter and equal employment 

opportunity specialist.

Describe your job in a sentence: 

I primarily act as an ASL interpreter, providing communication access to the 

hearing and deaf communities. I also assist with reasonable accommodation 

requests, function as the interpreter scheduler and contracting officer 

representative for the interpreter contract, and conduct myriad other duties and 

responsibilities that come with working in the EEO arena. 

How long have you worked for DLA? 

I have been with DLA Aviation for five years. 

What is your favorite thing about working for DLA? 

My position as an ASL interpreter gives me a unique opportunity to see the 

success of individuals from an underrepresented population, deaf people, 

excel in a majority environment, the hearing world. I also am privy to seeing 

barriers broken in the workplace regarding the myths surrounding deafness. 

What is your best memory of working here? 

There are many, but one that stands out for me is a direct result 

of the hard work and determination of one of the deaf customers 

I work with every day. This person started as a procurement tech, 

entered the intern program and graduated to become a contract 

specialist. I interpreted during the intern program and for that 

graduation ceremony and knew exactly what the journey entailed. 

How do you make a difference? 

I am Native American of the Mattaponi Tribe in Virginia. A 

favorite Native American quote I have is from the Dakota: “We 

will be known forever by the tracks we leave.” For me, as an 

ASL interpreter, I have the opportunity to build linguistic and 

cultural bridges between the deaf and hearing worlds. Those are 

my tracks that lend themselves to the greater good of the DLA 

workforce and to the warfighters we serve. 

Tonya Custalow-Pearsall