PHILADELPHIA –
As American manufacturers continue making uniform and equipment items for warfighters, the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support Clothing and Textiles supply chain team are checking out their operations in-person.
“Coming back out of COVID where we really did not have an opportunity to get out and visit vendors and customers, we now have the opportunity to reestablish those connections,” said C&T Director Air Force Col. Matthew Harnly. “From a vendor’s perspective, we know the pandemic created a lot of turmoil, so not only do we have to reestablish that face-to-face relationship; we have to see how they’re coming along through recovery.”
From New York to Puerto Rico and California, Harnly, DLA Troop Support and C&T leaders, and C&T team members are visiting domestic clothing manufacturers to gauge the state of industry up close. So far, Harnly and team have visited more than two dozen vendors in 2023 combined.
“Generally, every place we went, or any facility we were in, there was definitely a sense of pride amongst the workforce in the management aspect understanding where these products were going and what they were being used for and an appreciation for that,” Harnly said. “That this wasn’t just work, there was more to it than that.”
In addition to a strong sense of patriotism amongst vendors, Harnly also observed innovation and forward-thinking practices, including some vendors expanding facilities with more modernized equipment.
“It was great to see the vendors leaning into additive manufacturing, laser cutting modernization, energy efficient sewing machines, and efforts to automate hands-on sewing,” Harnly said. “In PR they were changing to hardware that was more energy efficient [and] focused on being able to maintain operations post hurricane season and natural disasters.”
C&T Deputy Director David Johns, who also attended visits noticed workforce changes to widen vendors’ labor pool options.
“Their building in resiliency and redundancy into their operations,” Johns said. “They’re making an effort to automate some of the more complex sewing operations, so in essence they were deskilling some of the sewing positions which would allow them to make some of the positions more ‘plug and play.’”
Harnly also noticed a general sense of efficiency beyond management to the working floor level from some of the vendors, he said.
“There was a good holistic view of everybody has an opinion and especially the folks that are doing the job, they too have probably the most relevant perspective of what can we do better, faster, safer and less expensive,” Harnly said.
This perspective is also present in his own leadership style as C&T team members at all levels are participating in vendor visits, including action officers from the contracting and quality assurance teams working directly with vendors.
“When it comes to the easy-to-see tangible benefit [of the visits] it is when our [GS]-14s, -13s and -12s get out there and have those meaningful face-to-face discussions where the team actually gets to see the factory and get to meet and see the people that they’re working with,” Harnly said.
“There’s a lot of [action officer] level actions that happen that expedite the process in terms of making a better product, or easier timeline for closing contracts, working through issues. That’s [where] the proverbial ‘rubber hits the road,’” he said.
Rachel Piecyk, a contracting specialist on C&T’s accessories contracting team, visited vendors in the Los Angeles, California area, with her technical team counterparts in February.
“On-site visits with vendors are not only important for managing technical aspects of the contracts, they are also vital for building and improving upon relationships with industry partners,” Piecyk said. “Communicating behind a screen or on the phone can be efficient, but real partnerships happen when we know the faces behind the names and have seen in-person the hard work and continuous efforts we all make to serve the warfighter.”
One vendor Piecyk and team visited was a new awardee for a high visibility item. During the visit technical specialists pulled items straight from the production line to measure them against customer requirements, ensuring quality products in the vendor’s first shipment. While Piecyk met face-to-face with the company’s founder to create a plan for expediting critical sizes needed by the customer.
“Since our visit, the vendor has successfully made their first shipment ahead of schedule with no quality or technical issues and has accelerated production to get additional products to customers,” she said. “Being able to visit the production facilities helped give me a deeper appreciation about the textile manufacturing process, which will aid my role as a buyer.”
From a leadership perspective, Harnly described his role in the visits as gaining a higher-level understanding to articulate challenges industry partners are working to resolve to engage military customers at a higher level.
The industry visits are amongst several vendor engagements C&T participates in throughout the year including C&T partners meetings and the annual Joint Advanced Planning Brief for Industry.