SHAPING FISCAL YEAR 2020

Leading

 Change
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

From the Director

In FY19, DLA had an amazing year full of significant 

accomplishments – thanks to DLA’s “Secret Sauce” – our 

phenomenal workforce. I thank each of you for your hard 

work and dedication to take our Agency to the next level as 

we supported DoD priorities to improve military readiness, 

strengthen alliances and bring about business reforms.

The global security environment remains extremely 

complex and DLA must remain postured to support our 

operational military forces and industrial facilities across the 

Department of Defense. In this environment, the DLA Strategic 

Plan is our Agency’s mainstay. It aligns our strategic objectives 

with the National Defense Strategy and Secretary of Defense 

priorities. The Plan’s dynamic framework allows us to remain 

agile while focusing on our mission requirements and priorities.

Leading Change

LTG Darrell K. Williams

DARRELL K. WILLIAMS

Lieutenant General, U.S. Army

Director, Defense Logistics Agency

Supporting the Warfighter demands continued commitment 

to the amended 2018-2026 DLA Strategic Plan and its five Lines 

of Effort (Warfighter First, Global Posture, Strong Partnerships, 

Whole of Government and Always Accountable), Critical 

Capabilities and Cross-Cutting Efforts. Within this construct, 

we will focus on six major areas in the coming fiscal year:

(1) Warfighter and Federal Support

(2) Defense Reforms

(3) Audit Advancement

(4) Financial Health of the Agency

(5) Enterprise Risk Management

(6) Innovation

These six focus areas, within the framework of our 

support to the National Defense Strategy, demand our

complete focus. Thank you in advance for your commitment 

to these critical mission areas.

Warfighter First!

Defense Logistics Agency Strategic Plan 1

STRATEGIC PLAN 2018 - 2026 Amended April 2019

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

The Nation’s Combat Logistics Support Agency
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

F

As we move into FY20, it’s important to acknowledge the signific

Y 2019: YEAR-END REVIEW

ant accomplishments of this

great organization over the past 12 months. Congratulations to all of you on attaining these

major accomplishments! 

FY19 ACHIEVEMENTS

FY 2020 CHALLENGES

FY19 MAJOR SUBORDINATE COMMAND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

– All-time high 

MA: 91%

– Backorders reduced 

by 24K (15%)

– Reduced Service

Depot Level Reparables Work in Progress 

by 6,600 (80%)

– Provided $500M

in industrial materiel 

to Army and Navy 

depots and shipyards

LAND & 

MARITIME

– Reduced Customer 

Wait Time by ~50%

– 90.5% customer 

satisfaction rate

– Executed 145K

Reutilization, Transfer 

& Donation requisitions 

valued at $2.5B

– Executed Demil as 

a Condition of Sale 

a total of 52M lbs

– $82M Hazardous 

Waste Reimbursable

DISPOSITION 

SERVICES

– Provided $241M

Humanitarian and 

Disaster Relief support

– Awarded FSG 80 

Tailored Logistics 

Support contract

– Signed VA and 

DHA Agreements 

– Supported Air Force

transition to the 

Advanced Combat 

Uniform Operational 

Camouflage Pattern

TROOP 

SUPPORT

– Designated F-35 PSP 

for Global Transportation and North American

Regional Warehousing

– Transitioned Trans 

Arabian Network to an

enduring contract, provides $52M in savings

– Began fielding

warehouse operations 

modernization

DISTRIBUTION

– Procured 90M

barrels of bulk petroleum worth $7.3B

– Supplied 25.5K lbs

of rocket fuel to 

re-supply the International Space Station

 – Awarded 19 Inland 

East Gulf Coast 

Purchase Program 

contracts for $2.8B

ENERGY

– Overall MA increase 

from 86.7% to 89.0%

– Significant increases 

in MA across MC80.

Ended FY at 

94.2% (+2.9%)

– V-22 Bell Boeing 

Strategic Contract 

supports worldwide 

demand (est. value 

$1B over 10 years)

– Increased Consumption Pull System item 

population to 12,500

AVIATION

• Executed $32B estimated sales

• Increased Materiel Availability (MA) to 96.3% (+0.8%)

• Executed $1B in Foreign Military Sales

• Reduced Agency-wide backorders by 14%

• Lowered prices by reducing the Materiel Supply 

Chains Cost Recovery Rate from 11.62% to 11.47%, 

saving DLA customers $33M in budgeted purchases

• Designated Global Product Support Provider (PSP) for F-35

• Conducted 2nd annual Service Readiness Demand 

Planning Summit

• Coordinated 2nd DLA Industry Day with 180 Industry Partners

• Supported 4 Disaster Response events 

• Completed transition of Safety & Occupational Health 

function to Major Subordinate Command (MSC) and 

Regional Commanders/Director 

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)

• Institute a “change-management” 

mentality throughout DLA

• Foster cultural change and persistent 

senior leader endorsement and 

advocacy

• Established formal agreements with Veterans Affairs (VA) 

and Defense Health Agency (DHA)

• Completed first of its kind DLA Supplier Feedback Survey, 

collecting industry feedback from 3,000 of our suppliers 

• Completed 50 Robotics Process Automations

• Completed Transformation of the Agency Synchronization 

Operations Center (ASOC)

• Enhanced DLA Dashboard capability

• Established the Agency’s Enterprise Risk Management 

program and Audit Task Force

• Exceeded OSD Small Business Goal: 

38.25% against 30.5% goal

• Achieved 100% fill rate in support of the new OSD 

expeditionary civilian program

• Placed in all four categories for the first time and named 

Workforce Recruitment Program Component of the Year 

for the second year

Maintaining Readiness/Investments 

While Improving Obligation Authority 

and Cash Position

• Prepare for FY20 requirements to exceed 

available Obligation Authority by $4-6B

• Achieve a healthy cash position by 

increasing sales to disbursement and 

inventory turn ratios

Cyber and Protection of Supply Chain

• Attain cyber superiority for IT systems 

supporting the Agency’s critical 

operational and business objectives

• Integrate cybersecurity into the 

Agency’s ERM framework to enhance 

DLA’s cybersecurity posture
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

DLA Mission: Sustain Warfighter Readiness and Lethality by delivering proactive global logistics in 

peace and war. While our mission remains unchanged, the requirement to deliver effective logistics 

support to the operating forces in the most efficient manner is greater than ever.

THE STRATEGIC 

 ENVIRONMENT

PRIORITIES

1. Enable Acquisition Innovation

2. Build a Safe, Secure and 

Resilient Defense Industrial 

Base (Commercial and Organic)

3. Ensure Safe and Resilient DoD 

Installations

4. Increase Weapon System 

Mission Capability while 

reducing Operating Cost

5. Promote Acquisition & 

Sustainment Initiatives with Key 

International Partners

6. Recruit, Develop and Retain 

a Diverse Acquisition & 

Sustainment Workforce

1. Rebuilding military readiness

as we build a more lethal

Joint Force;

2. Strengthening alliances as we 

attract new partners; and,

3. Reforming the Department’s 

business practices for greater 

performance and affordability.

1. Enhance materiel availability 

2. Prepare the battlefield for 2025 

3. Maintain safe places to live, work,

play and pray

4. Create and sustain resilient

installations

5. Enable effective personnel and 

institutional performance

1. Warfighter First

2. Global Posture

3. Strong Partnerships

4. Whole of Government

5. Always Accountable

Secretary 

of Defense USD (A&S) ASD(S) DLA

NDAA: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY20, while still being reconciled by Congress, 

has potentially significant implications for DLA:

• Support DLA’s efforts to modernize our internal and external digital services

• Develop a “Plan 2021” to establish microcircuit supply chain and operational security standards

• Evaluate DoD’s assessment of supply chain cybersecurity risks

• Assess and report on actions taken to improve the availability and accountability of F-35 parts
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

The past 12 months have presented DLA with an array of challenges and opportunities to fundamentally 

change the way DLA does business; FY20 will be no different. Last year, we focused on “Taking it to the 

Next Level;” this year “Leading Change” becomes our focus. 

The DLA Strategic Plan remains the North Star for all of our efforts; as we move into FY20 and prepare 

to lead change, there are six focus areas around which to organize our efforts:

2020 FOCUS

1. Warfighter and Federal Support

• Sustaining and Improving Readiness

• Anticipating and Increasing F-35 Support

• Enhancing DLA Support to the Space Enterprise 

• Enhancing Readiness Dashboard Capability

• Greater Agency Synchronization Through

the ASOC

• Improving Support to the VA and DHA

2. Defense Reforms

• Reducing Cost Recovery Rate

• Improving Cost Transparency

• Collaborating With Partners to Improve

Demand Projections

• Refreshing Warehouse Management Systems

3. Audit Advancement • Expediting Closure of Open Notices of Findings 

and Recommendations (NFR)

• Advancing Progress Toward Clean

Audit Opinions

• Accelerating G-Invoicing for Agreements

4. Financial Health of the Agency

• Synchronizing Financial and 

Operational Outcomes

5. Enterprise Risk Management

• Establishing Supply Chain Security Program

• Establishing Comprehensive A-123 Program

6. Innovation

• Expanding Robotic Process Automation

• Enhancing Data Management Capabilities

• Employing Data Science (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning)
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

WARFIGHTER FIRST

Strengthen Service and Combatant 

Command Readiness and Lethality

SUSTAINING AND IMPROVING READINESS

DLA hosted a demand planning summit 

focusing on service requirements for FY19 and 

FY20. Demand planning summits were established 

to facilitate collaboration on readiness issues based 

on historical trends and demand analysis. 

The Agency is proactively addressing Service 

concerns regarding materiel availability (MA) 

and asset visibility in support of major weapon 

systems with weekly readiness reviews. We will 

continue to provide support to increase Warfighter 

readiness as we:

• Leverage partnerships and work with 

each Service on inventory investments to 

improve MA and readiness drivers for major 

weapon systems. 

• Leverage data sharing and use of predictive 

failure rates to enable timely shipping of parts 

ahead of parts failures and adjust replenishment 

orders to improve demand forecasting and 

customer wait time. 

• Monitor how the intermediate supply holder 

maintains their on-hand supplies through 

demand planning with emphasis on vendor 

direct support for short lead time items. This will 

clear space for critical and longer lead time items. 

READINESS DASHBOARD MATURATION

Building on our FY18 rollout of the DLA 

Readiness Dashboard, MSCs initial baseline 

metrics, Whole of Government and Service 

Industrial metrics reporting capabilities were 

successfully fielded. Initial data visualization 

capabilities were tested and deployed for DLA 

Distribution’s internal reporting.

Our overall FY20 dashboard development 

focus is to fully automate all Agency performance 

review metrics leveraging automated data 

visualizations along with history, trending, 

statistical process control and predictive analytics 

capabilities for all operational and industrial 

Service metrics. 

We continue to refine and automate backend dashboard data feeds to facilitate future 

big data, predictive analytics and artificial 

intelligence development efforts along with 

expanding user access to detailed data for 

additional analysis. In support of the ASOC and 

associated DLA Director imperatives, we are 

aggressively pursuing opportunities to identify 

and address DLA impacts on Service readiness 

as we continue operationalizing DLA support to 

the Services.
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

WMS AND DSS

The Warehouse Management 

System (WMS), consisting of the 

Extended Warehousing Module and 

Transportation Module, is a technical 

refresh of the current Distribution 

Standard System (DSS) being used 

by both DLA Distribution and DLA 

Disposition Services to conduct 

their daily warehousing, depot and 

transportation business. The team 

has been diligently working to 

minimize impact on daily operations 

during the transition to WMS. An 

initial version of the system is being 

run as a pilot program at DLA 

Distribution Corpus Christi, Texas.

The pilot will run until all 

functionality is implemented for 

the site to be fully mission ready. 

The focus will then be to leverage 

the lessons learned in expanding 

to the remaining Distribution 

and Disposition Services sites. An 

enterprise WMS working group 

is developing a rollout plan to align with the 

deployment schedule, once agreed to by DLA 

senior leaders.

The emphasis is on using SAP standard 

processes with a minimal amount of software 

alteration to accommodate DLA-unique 

requirements. Minimizing customization will result 

in lower deployment costs, greater auditability and 

reduced project risk overall. Standard processes will 

continue to be programmed while custom items 

will be presented for approval before the WMS 

Executive Committee. This will allow programmers 

to upload the standard processes without delaying 

the overall initiative.

DEMAND PROJECTIONS ACCURACY

AND CASH /OBLIGATIONAL AUTHORITY

Working collaboratively with the Service, 

Whole of Government and Industry partners, 

we will continue to improve (and build on FY19 

success) demand projections to increase Warfighter 

readiness and enhance buying power. We will 

conduct an annual Service Readiness Demand 

Planning Summit to ensure corporate alignment 

with the Services on anticipated changes in 

operational and industrial requirements and major 

divestitures/turn-in plans.

We will continue to work with the Services 

and their industrial activities to reduce undesired 

impacts of under-requisitioned (over-forecasted) 

items on obligation authority and cash and will 

leverage the Joint Logistics Requirement Board 

to disposition requests of DLA to lean forward 

significantly for readiness. We will also utilize 

robotic processes and Research & Development 

opportunities for applying machine learning/

artificial intelligence to improve demand 

projections and reduce demand planning errors.

Through our collective efforts in FY20, we will 

improve overall demand projection accuracy by 

10%; reduce the impact of under-requisitioning /

over-forecasting for the Services and their industrial 

activities by 10%; facilitate a commensurate 

improvement in buying power; increase readiness 

for the Services; and more effectively manage DLA 

obligation authority and cash.
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

The Agency Synchronization Operations 

Center (ASOC) is a growing entity that is already 

providing a holistic and accurate Common 

Operational Picture (COP) for the Agency, team 

members at all levels, internal and external senior 

leaders, and our Service, Combatant Command 

and Whole of Government partners. The ASOC is 

scheduled to be completed by the end of October 

2019. Representatives from DLA Headquarters 

(HQ) Staff and subordinate commands have been 

fully integrated, either remotely or on station, into 

the ASOC and are key to synchronizing DLA’s 

efforts to support an array of missions (e.g. routine 

requirements, business focused challenges such 

as Operations Agency Resolve and contingency 

responses including hurricane relief operations 

and support to DoD units and Federal Agencies 

conducting operations along the southwest border). 

Throughout the first quarter of FY20, we will begin 

the process of relocating and onboarding remote 

ASOC representatives to DLA HQ on 120-day 

rotations to fully staff the new ASOC. 

As we move forward, our focus will be on 

refining and expanding the capability of the ASOC. 

We will continue to build and develop a cohesive 

team to fully leverage the diverse skill sets and 

capabilities of our ASOC representatives. We will 

develop and integrate predictive analytics tools and 

techniques to provide the actionable information 

needed to conduct root-cause analysis, develop 

GLOBAL POSTURE

Prepared for Immediate Action

SPACE ENTERPRISE

Building on the successful creation of DLA’s 

AF Space Command (AFSPC) space portfolio, the 

Agency will be fully engaged in support of the 

standup of U.S. Space Command as they move 

towards achieving initial operational capability 

(IOC) in 2021. With five operations centers and 

three service components spanning the Joint 

Navigation Warfare Center, Missile Warning Center, 

Joint Overhead Persistent Infrared Center, National 

Space Defense Center, Combined Space Operations 

Center, AFSPC, Space and Missile Defense 

Command and U.S. Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. 

Tenth Fleet, DLA must establish relationships to 

ensure support to their missions.

We have come to recognize the interrelation

ships and interdependencies among nuclear 

enterprise weapon systems, space systems, 

nuclear command and control communications 

systems and now missile warning and defense. 

Accordingly, DLA will cultivate relationships 

with the Missile Defense Agency to aid them in 

their highly complex mission sets by leveraging 

our existing presence at key locations to develop 

a better understanding of how DLA can best 

enhance enterprise support.

solutions and courses of action and implement 

senior leader decisions. Through continued 

development of our processes and personnel, we 

will enhance the ASOC’s capability to focus the 

Agency on output, readiness, effectiveness and 

customer service to standards in support of our 

mission partners.
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT

In January 2019, DLA 

was designated as the 

F-35 Product Support 

Provider (PSP) for North 

American Regional 

Warehousing (NRW) 

and, in partnership with 

U.S. Transportation 

Command, Global Transportation & Distribution 

(GT&D). The PSP designations provide 

opportunities for the Joint Program Office (JPO) 

to leverage a wide range of capabilities DLA 

offers in the execution of this critical global 

program, spanning multiple international partners, 

customers and locations. 

During FY20, IOC will be achieved for both 

NRW and GT&D. Additional initiatives that will 

be ongoing and support 

the F-35 program 

throughout FY20 

include the cataloging 

of parts and leveraging 

DLA as a source of 

supply for common 

consumable items 

already being managed for other weapon systems. 

We anticipate additional roles for DLA in 

FY20 as we work side-by-side with the JPO and 

key stakeholders to formalize a role for DLA for 

disposition services and as we collaborate with 

the recently-designated lead services to expand 

access to technical data to establish a foundation 

for provisioning the F-35 weapon system and 

normalize spares support to the program.

STRONG PARTNERSHIPS

The Agency’s Whole of Government customer 

base is expanding to include the Department 

of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Defense 

Health Agency (DHA). The current 

expansion is supported through 

additional medical and surgical 

commodities via prime vendor 

contracts. DLA’s strategic partnerships 

with both organizations was recently 

solidified through formal agreements. 

In 2019, DLA provided $136.8M 

in medical supplies and created 

approximately 15% cost avoidance 

through effective and efficient supply 

chain management. DHA is DLA’s 

largest medical supply chain customer. 

We have partnered with them on 

commodities, ordering systems, and 

infrastructure reduction (health clinics, 

occupational safety offices, etc.).

Leverage the JLEnt, Interagency, Industry 

and Partner & Allied Nations

Support to the Nation

As we move forward with both of these 

important partnerships, DLA anticipates 

increased cost avoidance, decreased cost 

recovery rates shared by all customers 

and reduction of logistics response 

time for critical medical, surgical and 

pharmaceutical supplies. 

We project DLA’s future support 

to the VA through 2020 to expand 

medical and surgical support into 

nationwide support of those commodities. 

Additional supply chains currently 

being evaluated include subsistence, 

ecclesiastical, as well as construction 

and equipment needs for cemeteries. 

The DHA is also looking to 

DLA to increase their medical and 

surgical supply chain support and are 

analyzing potential human resources 

support by end of 2020.
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

FINANCIAL HEALTH OF THE AGENCY

Financial stability is vital to the Agency’s success 

and a strong relationship between finance and 

operations is critical to achieving and maintaining 

financial health. Externally, this is demonstrated 

through our constant communication with 

leadership at both 

OSD Comptroller, 

Acquisition & 

Sustainment, Service 

4s and Service 8s 

to ensure our cash 

position and material 

operating authority 

supports Warfighter 

readiness. An example 

of this is the successful 

approval of a $500M 

reprogramming request 

through OSD and 

approved by Congress. 

Internally, DLA is 

working to strengthen the bond between finance 

and operations by leveraging a cell of highly trained 

analysts to advise senior leaders on the impacts that 

readiness investment decisions might have on the 

business before committing resources in support of 

the Warfighter. This integration cell will leverage the 

latest business performance tools, to include robotic 

process automation “bots” and predictive analysis 

software, to provide real time analytics to assist DLA 

executive leadership with investment decisions.

AUDIT REMEDIATION OF 30% 

OF OPEN NFRS

An accelerated ability to close NFRs will be an 

important aspect of the Fiscal Year 2020 Audit Plan. 

DLA remains committed to closing 30% of all NFRs, 

and remediating as many as possible related to 

material weaknesses and DoD/DLA priority areas. 

We will prioritize our efforts and resources to find 

a balance between immediate and long term goals, 

and ensure we are addressing root cause issues tied 

to material weaknesses across the enterprise. It is 

ALWAYS ACCOUNTABLE

Assured Supply Chain, Financial and Process Excellence

anticipated that Fiscal Year 2019 NFRs issued by an 

independent public accountant from this year’s audit 

will likely equal or exceed this year’s total of 353.

 The FY20 Audit Plan will provide a more 

focused effort on key DLA material weaknesses and 

in particular on those that align with OSD Audit 

Priority Areas. These 

key material weaknesses 

are: (1) Inventory, 

particularly that of 

the Working Capital 

Fund, (2) Fund balance 

with Treasury and (3) 

Information Technology 

(IT), which includes 

general controls. 

In conjunction with 

the DLA Enterprise Risk 

Management program 

and in accordance 

with the Office of 

Management and Budget 

Circular No. A-123, the cross-functional initiatives will 

facilitate end-to-end (E2E) business process modeling 

of DLA operations through to the financial statements, 

identifying risks, gaps to accounting standards and 

required internal controls development, which will 

foster the achievement of eventual and full Agency 

auditability and “clean” opinions.

The mapping of standardized DLA E2E process 

models will also greatly assist DLA in prioritizing 

FY19 NFRs for remediation and their associated 

Corrective Action Plans. Also, since such prioritization 

will be focused on material weaknesses, a critical 

path for auditability can be created and more targeted 

audit advancements can result. In addition to E2E 

models and their associated benefits, aligning DLA’s 

audit and ERM program efforts, acquiring audit 

skill set talent, providing audit training for the DLA 

workforce, developing DLA Audit COP capabilities 

and other Audit Task Force (ATF) support to key 

Agency-wide initiatives, the ability for DLA to close 

NFRs and reach full auditability on an accelerated 

basis will be realized.
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

CLEAN AUDIT OPINION ON 

TRANSACTION FUND

Near the end of FY19, the DLA ATF organized 

a cross-functional initiative to accelerate audit 

advancement towards an unmodified opinion for 

the Agency’s Transaction Fund. A working group 

of ATF and HQ Staff leaders developed an E2E 

process model to better identify risks, controls, 

gaps to accounting standards and then develop the 

associated internal controls to improve business 

processes and facilitate their associated auditability.

The next step for 

the Transaction Fund 

Working Group is to 

prioritize remaining 

NFRs and address 

financial statement and 

other audit remediation 

requirements and 

prepare for a beginning 

balance of strategic 

materials inventory as 

of September 30, 2020. 

With this beginning 

balance, the Agency 

will be better prepared 

for a full financial statement audit in FY21, 

accelerating DLA’s eventual achievement of an 

unmodified, or “clean opinion.”

REDUCE OPERATING COSTS

DLA is taking aggressive steps to reduce our 

overall $7B annual operating costs. The savings 

will come from both costs recovered under the cost 

recovery rate (CRR) and non-CRR costs. Through 

a combination of reform, better business practices 

and deliberate enterprise-wide focus, DLA will 

achieve a 10.9% CRR by the end of FY20 - a 0.5% 

improvement over the 11.4% rate approved in 

the President’s Budget 2020. While DLA’s CRR 

has been on the decline for years, moving from 

11.6% to 11.5% over the past FY, accelerating the 

reduction will require more focused efforts. This 

includes reducing over $120M in operating costs—

an extremely aggressive target. This CRR reduction 

plan will involve in-depth analysis from across 

the Agency to implement targeted reductions 

where it makes sense. Beyond FY20, these cost 

reduction measures will continue over the next 

several years, culminating with the Agency’s 

commitment to a 9.5% aggregate CRR across 

the Agency by the end of FY24 and a significant 

reduction of total operating costs.

IMPROVE COST TRANSPARENCY

As one of the avenues to achieve the 

significant cost reductions required to reach 

DLA’s aggressive CRR goals, the DLA reform 

team and DLA Finance are working with a third 

party consulting firm 

to conduct a series of 

sprints to inform a 

bottom-up review of 

all costs throughout 

the Agency, including 

all direct and indirect 

costs at all MSCs and 

HQ organizations. 

These sprints apply 

a corporate-style 

profit and loss 

perspective to DLA’s 

finances, helping 

leadership make 

more informed resource allocation decisions 

based on understanding discrete costs and their 

drivers. Achieving clarity in our costs will allow 

DLA to better communicate to the Services how 

their behavior impacts their bill and how they can 

influence their prices.

Deep dive reviews are being conducted across 

the Agency, most are complete with the remaining 

few scheduled through November. Through 

working-level and leadership participation in 

these sprints and aided by third party consulting 

firm analysis, DLA will identify reductions that 

target specific areas and functions. 

Early focus areas are IT, service contracts, 

installation management, HQ activities, 

procurement and distribution costs. The 

desired result from this approach to managing 

costs is more streamlined, efficient and effective 

operations that provide reduced costs and 

increased transparency to our customers with 

no performance deterioration.
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

ENTERPRISE RISK 

MANAGEMENT

DLA’s Supply Chain Security Strategy is the 

roadmap for how the Agency will address supply 

chain security challenges across the enterprise. 

This cross-cutting effort is fundamental to DLA’s 

operations and underpins the Agency’s ability 

to support the Warfighter. Interruption of DLA 

supply chain operations compromises our nation’s 

ability to deliver combat power and execute 

critical missions.

Today’s world presents a multitude 

of challenges to DLA’s supply 

chain operations. Threats from 

natural disasters, geopolitical 

developments, nefarious 

activities, diminishing 

manufacturers and the 

ever-present threat 

from the cyberdomain demand that 

DLA continues the 

journey to strengthen 

operational resiliency. 

As the threat 

environment evolves, 

so too must DLA’s 

ability to detect, protect 

and continue operations 

in a contested or degraded 

environment through 

redundant and resilient 

supply chain operations.

DLA’s Supply Chain Security 

Strategy is designed to establish an architecture that 

comprehensively addresses supply chain security 

from an enterprise perspective. The architecture 

consists of five broad components: (1) threat 

identification and risk prioritization, (2) offensive 

risk mitigation, (3) defensive risk mitigation, 

(4) resilient supply chain operations and (5) 

prevention, detection, protection and defense of the 

Agency’s global supply chain.

Supply Chain Security Strategy

To develop such an architecture, DLA will 

concentrate on four strategic focus areas: 

• Institutionalize Supply Chain Security across 

the DLA enterprise

• Maintain integrity and access to key data

• Partner with valid, reputable vendors who 

produce quality supplies and services

• Strengthen the resiliency of systems, processes, 

infrastructure and people

The strategic focus areas are 

“strategy bins” that house 

supply chain security-related 

initiatives that are mapped 

to objectives in the 

Agency’s Strategic 

Plan. The initiatives 

put the strategy in 

motion by actuating 

the strategic 

focus areas for 

the purpose of 

developing the 

architecture.

Key and 

essential to the 

overall strategy is 

integrating supply 

chain security into 

the Agency’s mission 

assurance portfolio and 

Enterprise Risk Management 

(ERM) framework by establishing 

a comprehensive A-123 program to identify and 

address risk through effective internal controls. 

DLA established the ERM program office 

and appointed a chief risk officer on July 1, 2019. 

The overall focus of the ERM program office 

is to identify and prioritize the Agency’s most 

critical risks to ensure senior leader resourcing 

decisions are consistent with the Agency’s most 

critical objectives. 

J3

Mission Assurance (MA)

Supply Chain Security

Risk Management (RM)

J1, J3, J6, J7, J8, J9

D Codes and MSCs

J3

Agency 

Synchronized 

Operation 

Center

(ASOC)

J6

Assured

Logistic

Cyber

Center

(ASOC)

Synchronize

Integrate

Report

CRO

Enterprise Risk Management

Enterprise Risk

Management

Enterprise Risk

Management

Enterprise Risk Management
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

People & Culture

At DLA, we understand that our people are the 

“secret sauce” of this Agency – they are at the heart 

of everything we do. We recognized the importance 

of our people and organizational culture in 

our Strategic Plan by publishing a companion 

document specifically dedicated to attracting, 

developing and retaining our diverse, skilled and 

agile workforce. As we enter the second decade of 

the new millennium, our people will be called upon 

to lead major change initiatives across the Agency.

Because successful change depends on knowing 

your organizational strengths and weaknesses, 

we will continue our practice of assessing our 

organizational culture and workplace climate using 

the DLA Culture and Climate Survey. Our goal is 

100% participation across the Agency. Analysis of 

the survey results and the implementation of action 

plans will strengthen our Agency transformations 

well into 2020 and beyond.

During the last quarter of FY19 we began 

our good faith negotiations with the American 

Federation of Government Employees Council 169 

on a new, modernized Master Labor Agreement 

(MLA). We will continue this effort, collaborating 

with our union representatives and partners 

throughout the year with a goal of having a 

new agreement by December 2020. Recognizing 

CRITICAL CAPABILITIES

DLA Change Management Toolkit available at: https://dlamil.dps.mil/teams/C25/N2.

the changes in workforce viewpoints and 

demographics, we will produce a new MLA that 

balances the Agency’s need to be mission-focused, 

agile and responsive while sustaining a positive, 

people-focused workplace climate and culture.

In 2019 we established a more robust 

senior leader transition process, improved our 

use of the DoD Performance Management 

and Appraisal Program and delivered on 

our commitment to 

establish the new LTG 

Andrew T. McNamara 

Icon award. We 

established new human 

resource partnerships 

with USTRANSCOM 

and other DoD 

Agencies. And we will 

continue to innovate and 

streamline our support 

to the people who lead 

change in our Agency. 

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

PEOPLE AND CULTURE PLAN Human Capital Management in the

Defense Logistics Agency

The Nation’s Combat Logistics Support Agency
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

Our DLA Information Operations team developed 

a supplement to DLA’s Strategic Plan, called 

Enterprise Enablers. This blueprint outlines how 

the four enablers – Innovation, Data Management, 

Technology and Cybersecurity – are deemed 

critical in continuing to move forward in our DoD 

Modernization and Reform efforts. In the future we 

will accelerate methods to leverage technology to 

increase Warfighter Readiness, to include:

• Ensuring everyone assists in preventing 

Cyber incidents within the DoD network, for 

a “secure and resilient” environment, enabling 

world-class support to the Warfighter

• Advocating for DoD to establish DLA as the 

official additive manufacture data exchange 

and storefront, a repository of interoperable 

technical data for 3D printing by the Services/

industry

• Continue transforming the Agency’s data 

management and predictive analytics to 

facilitate reliable and relevant business 

decisions. Includes development of artificial 

intelligence for predictive and prescriptive use 

of data 

• Employ data science, artificial intelligence 

and machine learning to improve how DLA 

leverages big data to increase the speed 

and accuracy of decision-making through 

such applications as dashboards, data 

visualizations and predictive data models

Enterprise Enablers

CRITICAL CAPABILITIES

• Continuing to close the gap between public 

and commercial distribution capabilities 

through the Distribution Modernization 

Program, for industry-leading logistics

• Strategically applying disruptive technologies, 

such as additive manufacturing, robotic process 

automation and artificial intelligence, to increase 

effectiveness and efficiency in logistics support 

to the Warfighter 
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

DLA STRATEGY MAP

• Line of Effort (LOE) – A mechanism to link multiple goal-oriented objectives that 

focus efforts toward establishing operational and strategic conditions.

• Critical Capability (CC) – A means that is considered a crucial enabler for a center 

of gravity to function as such and is essential to the accomplishment of the specified or 

assumed objective(s).

• Cross-Cutting Effort – Efforts that support, impact or significantly influence more than one LOE. Identified to ensure deliberate consideration, greater coordination and 

synchronization during planning and execution – both within and external to DLA.

• Objective – Medium to long-term (2-7 years) efforts nested within an LOE/CC 

that are necessary to collectively achieve the Director’s vision for that LOE/CC. Includes 

multiple supporting Initiatives.

• Imperative – An initiative that has specific Director’s emphasis with achievable results during the FY.

FY20 Objectives Assessment
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Warfighter First ~ Global Posture ~ Strong Partnerships ~ Whole of Government ~ Always Accountable

FY 20: Leading Change

FISCAL YEAR 2020 IMPERATIVES

WARFIGHTER FIRST

• ASD(S): Industry Metric Visibility

• Additive Manufacturing

• Increase Warfighter Readiness Through

Improved Reverse Logistics Operations

• Enhanced Support to the Space Enterprise

• Support to DoD Reform: 

– Enterprise Buying

– Transform DLA Storage and Distribution 

– Transfer Retail Industrial Supply, Storage 

and Distribution Functions to DLA

– DoD Utility System Conveyance 

– Document Services Transformation 

– Multi-Functional Device Service Consolidation

– Data Center Consolidation

STRONG PARTNERSHIPS

• USD(A&S): F-35 Support

• Depot Level Reparable Support

• Communicate Improved Demand 

Forecasts to Industry

GLOBAL POSTURE

• Agency Synchronization & Operations Center

WHOLE OF GOVERNMENT

• Whole of Government Support

• GSA Partnership Disposal Pilots

• Provider of Choice for U.S. Coast Guard

ALWAYS ACCOUNTABLE

• Audit Remediation

• Transform Cost Structure to Reduce Rates 

and Improve Transparency

PEOPLE & CULTURE

• Culture/Climate Survey Administration

• DLA/AFGE Master Labor Agreement

• DoD Performance Management and

Appraisal Program (DPMAP) 

• Safety Program Modernization

ENTERPRISE ENABLERS

• Innovation & Agile Development

• Data Management & Predictive Analysis

• Robotic Process Automation

• Distribution Modernization Program

• Cybersecurity

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