Fort Belvoir, Virginia –
In its pursuit to eradicate non-conforming spare parts and materials — including suspected counterfeits — from the defense supply chain, the Defense Logistics Agency has some powerful assets.
Doug Fosnaught, technical quality analyst in DLA’s Logistics Operations directorate, heads up a team of four test coordinators at various DLA distribution centers: Jeffrey Grady, in DLA Distribution Center San Joaquin, California; Reuben Martinez in DLA Distribution Center Red River, Texas; and Steve Van Sickler and Joe Manta, who both work in DLA Distribution Center Susquehanna, Pennsylvania.
Grady has a degree in mechanical engineering, worked for the Navy and has 11 years of experience in DLA laboratory testing. Martinez retired from the Army as a maintenance supervisor where he gained knowledge in inspections, installation and testing of individual parts and components on various types of ground vehicles and equipment systems. Van Sickler retired from the Navy, where he gained extensive knowledge in ship maintenance/repair and failure reporting. He’s also knowledgeable in weapon system assembly operations, detailed technical data analysis and product testing. Manta has 14 years of experience in DLA laboratory testing and six years as a DLA headquarters distribution policy representative.
“We looked at the stock positioning; we looked at items and material stored at different places, determined the risk — and the three locations we got were the most important to work on,” Fosnaught said.
Susquehanna warranted two test coordinators since it is the largest distribution center.
The four test coordinators, though assigned to DLA headquarters, are located at the distribution centers to assist the supply chains and the depots, since their on-site quality and technical resources are limited.
“Currently, depot personnel only determine kind, count and condition,” Fosnaught said. “Sometimes an item needs more inspection and testing or a defined review of the technical requirements.”
That’s where the test coordinators come in. They fill the gap between the depot personnel, who perform cursory visual inspections, and other on-site quality and technical experts, who have access to complete laboratory inspection and testing, Fosnaught said.
“The coordinators also have direct access to the technical data [and] are trained to interpret the drawings and specifications” he said. “They are able to research suspect items and determine quality deficiencies from the available technical data.”
Using high-risk procurement and analytical data from external sources, the test coordinators identify items as high-risk candidates in the federal supply class, Fosnaught said.
“They’re reviewing quality discrepancies and also counterfeit mitigation,” Fosnaught said. “Everything counterfeit starts out as a quality discrepancy.”
Andrew Meighan, branch chief for product assurance for technical quality, attested to the test coordinators’ value.
“These guys are a phenomenal asset for us out there,” he said. “Counterfeit has gotten complex in what it entails and these guys offer up an opportunity for us to go beyond the visual inspections.”
“My input for looking at items comes from many sources,” Grady said. “The depot personnel come to me with two items — one is round, one is square — they don’t have any technical information on them, they just look at me and say, ‘Which one is it?’”
Grady said if he has access to the technical data on the item, he can find out how it should be identified, or if notify product specialists if he has suspicions about the item.
Meighan said the test coordinators perform inspections with no preconceived notions of manufacturers’ guilt or innocence.
“It’s important to mention that, because when other people come to them and ask them to do things, if they’re not objective, then it leaves [the inspection] open to being skewed,” he said. “We keep our guys completely away from that.”
Meighan said items are tested according to the manufacturer’s or user’s requirements.
Sometimes an item may have come from a contractor that depot personnel had problems with in the past, or an item that doesn’t fit where it’s supposed to. Then it’s up to the test coordinators to examine the item and reference any available drawings, commercial or military standards. The coordinators rely on both commercial and government database systems that can provide technical data.
“Sometimes it’s just a good old-fashioned phone call the coordinators make back to the users to ask them if we don’t have the technical data,” Meighan said. “They’ll make efforts to find out what the item is, what it looks like and if pictures can be obtained.”
“We’ve had depot stock get frozen — even had backorders,” Grady said. “Sometimes, we really need this item and the delay started because we had a problem with the contract in the past.”
Van Sickler expounded on Grady’s explanation, referring to the items as “litigated material.”
“We’ve gone out to look at an item and discovered the problems that happened in the past are no longer happening,” Van Sickler said. “That frees up that material into our value stream and improves our warfighters’ readiness, because it gets them that material they need.”
Fosnaught said another program to assist when technical data is not available is Operation Chain Reaction, used by the Department of Defense and other government agencies to target counterfeit items.
“The Defense Criminal Investigative Service has come to us and said, ‘Hey, we know there’s something up with this, and you guys have got to figure this out,’” Meighan said. “On a few occasions, we’ve gone through the full blown inspection only to find out there’s nothing wrong.”
If an item is still suspect, further investigation may be necessary to deter-mine if the item could be from a bad batch that’s been in depot stock for a while.
If an item is tested and is determined to be fine, the problem resolves itself. But the test coordinators also rely on each other’s expertise if they know there’s a problem but can’t determine the nonconformity issue.
“Steven, Joe and I reach out to each other when we’re stumped,” Grady said. “And Reuben has a direct pipeline to the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Command people. So when I’ve got some bizarre thing here and I can’t find any technical data on it, I’ll often reach out to Reuben and say, ‘Hey, Reuben, can you find me some tech data on this Army part?’ And he’ll get some information for me so I can move forward.”
“We certainly are diverse in our backgrounds,” Manta said. “Jeff and I came from test labs — one that was out in Tracy and one that was out in New Cumberland and of course, Reuben and Steve were both forward product specialists prior to becoming forward test coordinators.”
Manta said the breadth of their overall knowledge and capabilities is extensive.
“We can handle a lot of different situations, and as Jeff said, we feed off each other and help each other to come up with tech data solutions,” he said.
Martinez said another challenge is that technical drawings for materials often change and the test coordinators are not aware of the alterations.
Grady said he learned that lesson early on, but it still happens to him occasionally.
“I’m looking at an item, and it’s not just off by a few fractions of an inch — it’s way off. And you wonder, ‘Is this thing suspect?’” he said. “You start digging through all the drawings and find out this is an older item, and what you’ve got is a newer drawing.”
Sometimes a part is the right one, but there’s been a marking error, Grady said.
“There are a lot false positives that you have to weed out before you say, ‘Aha, I’ve got one!’ ... You have to be very careful with what you say and do on some of these inspections before you run around like Chicken Little.”
Grady said the DLA Distribution Center San Joaquin allows him the luxury of comparing suspect items with items in prime condition. Although some items are prepackaged with technical data included, most are not.
“You can’t blame the depot people if there’s something that we find that they don’t, because it’s the nature of the beast,” Grady said. “They would never know that something was up unless they had that holistic look at all the stock. But I take it upon myself sometimes to look at all the material I possibly can.”
Grady provided the example of in-specting an item called a train warning bell.
“At first I wondered what we were doing with government trains,” he said. “I really dug into the drawings and tech data and found out that it’s a warning bell for a ship-mounted gun that rings when the gun is training left or right.”
Another challenge is items that are built incorrectly and have a lot of different parts. Test coordinators have to make the determination: Is it a suspect item or just poorly manufactured?
“There are times we can pick out items that are made poorly. You can see poor workmanship, you can see worn out tools, messed up threads and you can see square holes,” Grady said. “There’s no malicious intent; they just did a just a sloppy job of making the item.”
Grady said a product specialist once asked him about a particular supplier of sextants, a Navy tool used for navigation still used for training purposes.
“The ones that were correct were beautiful; they were in a beautiful case, had all the goodies that came with them, the instruction manuals — everything,” he said. “Then there was the stuff they were concerned about that was a really bad knock-off — a blatant substitute.”
The test coordinators often don’t know what the discrepancy is unless they compare the technical specifications with the correct product.
“Those are the easy ones,” Grady said. “It’s the ones where you’ve got a different paint color, a different location where something is marked — or something that just doesn’t look right.”
Grady cited his experience with another part, a crank arm that fits onto an aircraft.
“A bell crank is what it’s called. And I’ve got the real deal from Boeing that’s hermetically sealed, super well-made and painted red,” Grady said. “I’ve got these items that are from another supplier where the packaging is ok, but they’re painted green.”
Grady said he went through all the specifications to discover what color should the bell cranks should actually be.
“They were supposed to be red back when McDonnell Douglas made them before Boeing took them over in 1984. But now, Boeing changed all the specs, and I can’t find the paint color,” he said. “I’ve told the product specialists I’ve gone as far as I can, and I can’t find out why the paint is green.”
The inspections the test coordinators perform are of a preventive nature and resolved in different ways, Fosnaught said. Regardless, the results are put into a test report and submitted to supply chain managers, who may have to perform further investigations.
“The supply chain managers interpret the usability of the item, and they may even reach out to the engineering activities if they’re unaware,” Fosnaught said. “We try to get some relief and assurance using Operation Chain Reaction to help us contact manufacturers.”
Operation Chain Reaction is an initiative that targets counterfeit items entering the supply chains of the DoD and other government agencies. But sometimes even the current manufacturer is unaware of the original specifications for an item, Fosnaught said.
“Even when we go to Chain Reaction about items and they go to the manufacturer, the manufacturer may say, ‘I bought this company 10 years ago, and it’s been a business for 150 years; I can’t tell you if it’s the right item,’” Fosnaught said.
Grady’s final example concerned a Japanese-manufactured gas tank that’s made to go on a water purification system.
“It fits the fuel tank for a diesel engine,” Grady said. “We got complaints from the customer, saying it doesn’t have the right fuel gauge; in fact, it failed tests at the Columbus test lab.”
Grady said when he did a physical inspection, he discovered the problem.
“The customer is looking for an external fuel tank gauge and all of my fuel tanks were internal.”
The Army tech manual sketches showed both internal and external configurations while the manufacturer’s drawings showed only internal gauges, just like the one Grady was inspecting.
“So it was more that I had a conflict with my tech data that I could not resolve,” he said. “I also highlighted where the tech data was, in my opinion, in error.”
Van Sickler said the product specialists will usually coordinate with the engineering support activity and have the publications updated and corrected.
“This also happens with drawings, when we see inconsistencies,” he said.
Manta said much of the assistance the coordinators provide is based on their specific areas of expertise.
“I came from DLA Distribution headquarters as the receiving [subject matter expert], so I help the receiving people,” he said. “And Steve is probably the biggest advocate of bare item markings; material gets litigated because there are no bare item markings. So we’re also educators in specific areas as well.”
Photos Courtesy Jeff Grady and Steve Van Sickler