COLUMBUS, Ohio –
The Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime is in the initial phase of absorbing operational responsibilities for DLA’s Industrial Hardware logistics function; a move that will reorganize overall operations and drive increased procurement efficiencies.
“The transition involves the movement and division of the IH mission, currently managed by DLA Troop Support, to be shared between
DLA Aviation and DLA Land and Maritime,” said DLA Land and Maritime Commander Navy Rear Adm. John T. Palmer. “We’ve spent a significant amount of planning time to ensure this conversion is operationally seamless to the customers who depend on DLA’s worldwide logistics support.”
DLA has been working on the transition plan for months focusing all efforts on creating and refining processes prior to moving to the execution phase.
Land and Maritime is proceeding with the integration of the new IH supply chain function into its daily operations. The two main components to the workload transition involve the comprehensive acquisition and management of items from cradle to grave.
“Land Supplier Operations is eager to take on this new mission and look forward to continuing the great support provided to our Warfighters ” said the Director of DLA Land Supplier Operations U.S. Army COL Robert C. Murray. “We’re focusing on fine-tuning operational processes moving forward. Our desire is for the smooth transition of the IH mission.”
Over the course of Fiscal Years 2020-22 Land and Maritime will be adding approximately 450 thousand national stock numbered items.
That’s about half of DLA’s identified IH workload, with the other half going to DLA Aviation.
Land and Maritime is incrementally assuming responsibility for procuring the identical IH items and will take over full management this September. That responsibility includes the product specialist and material planning support functions, which will increase its scope beyond the buying function. That expansion is designed to improve Land and Maritime’s management posture.
“We already began the transition with the processing in mid-April of about 74,000 items, and we’ll do quarterly roll outs of items where IH will forward them to us for processing. The next transfer is scheduled for September,” Palmer said.