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News | May 1, 2018

More Than Memos

By Amber McSherry Document Services

Document Services employees cutting out targets with the large paper cutter at Rock Island Arsenal.
Document Services employees cutting out targets with the large paper cutter at Rock Island Arsenal.
Document Services employees cutting out targets with the large paper cutter at Rock Island Arsenal.
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Document Services employees cutting out targets with the large paper cutter at Rock Island Arsenal.
Photo By: Document Services
VIRIN: 180501-D-YE683-034
Defense Logistics Agency’s Document Services manages far more than just documents or printing. Maps, firearm targets, banners and even signs at the White House — they’re all part of the mission for this unit of DLA Information Operations.

Document Services serves as the DoD’s print manager, printing and shipping products to customers around the globe.

Manual Labor
To make sure airmen have the latest versions of the manuals they use to maintain equipment and systems, the Air Force relies on Document Services to issue hardcopy technical orders. Airmen at Air Force Materiel Command use the Technical Order Distribute and Print Gateway to load the latest technical orders, so Document Services employees can print them at the facility nearest where the order is needed before shipping them.

The joint Air Force/DLA system “allows the delivery of critical content, to include safety-of-air requirements to the Air Force, along with supporting foreign military sales,” said Daral Valtinson, program manager for the system.

Document Services also uses the same system to print updated Navy maintenance, reference and training manuals for Document Services employees to pull and print when sailors need them. The manuals can be on a variety of storage media, depending on what the customer needs.

Maps, On Target
Some customers, such as DLA Aviation and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, require maps in multiple sizes and types, including topographic, maritime and aeronautical maps. Document Services meets that need by producing maps on demand at four facilities.  

Aaron Ford, DMS employee in the Norfolk mapping facility, holds up a freshly printed map.
Aaron Ford, DMS employee in the Norfolk mapping facility, holds up a freshly printed map.
Aaron Ford, DMS employee in the Norfolk mapping facility, holds up a freshly printed map.
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Aaron Ford, DMS employee in the Norfolk mapping facility, holds up a freshly printed map.
Photo By: Document Services
VIRIN: 180501-D-YE683-036
The maps-on-demand capability means customers receive the most current editions — essential for warfighters and rescue workers. Space is a big advantage Document Services offers; 140 million warehouse line items have been removed since the maps-on-demand program started. 

Maps have been printed to support the Pan Am Games and Ebola relief. To aid in evacuation and recovery after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, Document Services produced over 16,000 maps. 

Document Services also produces a range of targets for the armed services, for everything from training exercises to weapons qualification. Targets range in size from standard office paper to over 6 square feet. There are targets for specific weapons systems, including small arms, heavy artillery and long-range rifles. There are also aerial targets towed behind boats. 
 

Checks and Balances
Business cards, banners, posters and signs are all in a day’s work for the folks at Document Services, who print on everything from vinyl to polyester house wrap to large sections of construction material of up to 400 square feet. 

Document Services can transform almost any idea into reality — like the large blank check it created for the Oklahoma Air National Guard. The check is signed by Uncle Sam and is erasable, so it can be used repeatedly in photos with new recruits. The customer plans to use the photos taken with the check as part of a social media campaign to help recruitment. 

“People always seem to have a big smile when they see the check and the amount of money they have coming to them in overall compensation and benefits as a member of the Air National Guard,” said Chief Master Sgt. Chad Pearce, recruiting and retention superintendent for the unit.

Kevin Hogan, DMS employee at the Tinker AFB facility, holds up the check created for the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s recruitment campaign.
Kevin Hogan, DMS employee at the Tinker AFB facility, holds up the check created for the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s recruitment campaign.
Kevin Hogan, DMS employee at the Tinker AFB facility, holds up the check created for the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s recruitment campaign.
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Kevin Hogan, DMS employee at the Tinker AFB facility, holds up the check created for the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s recruitment campaign.
Photo By: Document Services
VIRIN: 180501-D-YE683-035
Talent on Display

Civilians can see Document Services’ work as well. At the Fort Huachuca Museum in Arizona; at the U.S. Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington, or the Puget Sound Navy Museum in nearby Bremerton; or at the Army Corps of Engineers Lake Sonoma (California) Visitor Center, visitors can see some of Document Services’ displays: panels with photographs and information, and “wall action” vinyl displays applied directly to a wall. 

Graphic artists spend great time and effort setting up, producing and finishing their work, said Kathy Kruczek, graphic artist at the Travis Air Force Base Document Services. 

“It’s all worth it when we see the finished product displayed in its environment and hear the satisfaction from our customers,” she said. “We get the satisfaction that we are supporting the warfighter and that our work is on display.”

Document Services also creates decals for vehicles and aircraft, using special processes depending on where the decal will be placed. The employees know the complexities of these items, so the customer doesn’t have to. 

Automatic for the People
While many of these items are best in physical form, Document Services also helps customers recognize where they can ditch the paper and go digital. 

Document Services provides scanning services to eliminate boxes and drawers full of paper. Document Services employees carefully scan paper files and either place the digital files in a repository for search and retrieval or provide the files on other media. Many customers are looking to provide secure, global, anytime access to traditionally stovepiped information.

Monochromatic specialty printing gives the Marine Corps Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the plastic card a gold pearl effect.
Monochromatic specialty printing gives the Marine Corps Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the plastic card a gold pearl effect.
Monochromatic specialty printing gives the Marine Corps Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the plastic card a gold pearl effect.
More Than Memos
Monochromatic specialty printing gives the Marine Corps Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the plastic card a gold pearl effect.
Photo By: Document Services
VIRIN: 180501-D-YE683-037
That’s not where it ends, though. Document Services can help automate customers’ work using technology that streamlines manual tasks, especially in the review and approval processes every organization deals with. 

Document Services provides Electronic Content Management that starts with a detailed requirements analysis on customers’ processes to determine workflows that can be created electronically. This helps avoid multiple file versions and allows the process to flow smoothly by alerting users when they need to review or approve something.

Some customers simply want to do more with the information available to them. Take the Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, part of the Army Materiel Command. 

“TARDEC realizes that integrating separate data sets and applying some tools to run analytics, for example, will offer new insight to research and development that will provide the warfighter better tools to perform their missions,” said Joe Fagan, director of Electronic Data and Content Management Solutions.

For the Record
The biggest benefit of ECM services is that it’s compliant with records-management regulations — a big deal in the world of audit. Team TARDEC implemented records management from the beginning of its project with Document Services. Its records manager worked with Document Services to migrate the organization’s content and files into an approved, compliant file plan. 

Document Services introduced the Document Automation and Content Services – Records Management solution in 2015, to organize and manage electronic records. DACS-RM provides a user interface for DLA’s financial processes that routes and stores evidentiary matter on the schedule required by regulation. DLA continues to transition customer data and applications into DACS-RM.

As DoD moves through the audit process, these services are key to maintaining audit readiness.

Office Device Management
Document Services helps customers with office printing by providing a range of equipment, including devices that print, copy, scan and fax, at a fixed monthly price. This includes an assessment of the optimal number of devices needed based on usage, network requirements and needed features. 

The Navy knows the value of this service and has issued policy establishing Document Services as the single provider of office document devices enterprisewide. To date, the Navy has saved an estimated $94.2 million and reduced its devices by 49 percent through Document Services, with over 965 assessments completed.  

Other customers include DLA and the Coast Guard, said Terra Nguyen, Equipment Management Solutions division director. 

“We’ve had great success in reducing the number of devices our customers need and saving them money in the process,” she said. “The savings continue year after year.” 

Document Services hopes to earn the “best in class” designation from the Office of Management and Budget by fiscal 2019. This would make the program a governmentwide preferred solution for all federal agencies, to save costs. It would likely more than triple the program’s revenue over the next four years, from $100 million currently to a projected $365 million.

A Click or Call Away
Document Services Production Operations employees are customer-driven and provide many services to help promote, organize, maintain or even produce data more efficiently. Customers can place print orders at https://dso.dla.mil or through their local customer relations specialists. Call the Customer Support Center at 1-866-736-7010 to find a local CRS and get information on the other services.  
 


 

Document Services Creates Mural for Master-at-Arms School

 

The photo collage is over 7 feet tall and almost 40 feet long, printed on 12 panels of wall-action vinyl — the same material used to create large, wall-mounted cutouts of athletes.
The photo collage is over 7 feet tall and almost 40 feet long, printed on 12 panels of wall-action vinyl — the same material used to create large, wall-mounted cutouts of athletes.
The photo collage is over 7 feet tall and almost 40 feet long, printed on 12 panels of wall-action vinyl — the same material used to create large, wall-mounted cutouts of athletes.
180501-D-YE683-038
The photo collage is over 7 feet tall and almost 40 feet long, printed on 12 panels of wall-action vinyl — the same material used to create large, wall-mounted cutouts of athletes.
Photo By: Document Services
VIRIN: 180501-D-YE683-038

Thanks to the skill of DLA Information Operations employees, the personnel at a Navy training school can now say they’re literally a part of their institution.

The Document Services team at Travis Air Force Base, California, created a mural made of the photos of 100 staff members for the Navy Technical Training Center Lackland’s Master-at-Arms “A” School in San Antonio. The finished product was installed in February.

The mural, a black-and-white photo collage, is over 7 feet tall and almost 40 feet long. To make installation easier, the Travis team printed the mural in 12 panels of wall-action vinyl — the same material used to create large, wall-mounted cutouts of athletes. 

Kathy Kruczek, graphic designer on the Travis team, cropped and edited the photos and arranged them so they would easily blend but still showcase each person as an integral part of the school. The finished file took about six hours to print. 

“The technical skill to compose these pictures in the proper format, lay out the design and print the large images is exactly why Document Services exists.  I’m proud to be a part of an organization that can directly support the warfighter in ways that make people say, ‘Wow!’,” said Nick Janik, Print Facilities director for the group.

The school trains more than 28,000 students every year to be masters-at-arms, who help maintain order with law enforcement and security on Navy ships and commands. 

Sara Horvath, the school’s public affairs officer and the person who came up with the idea, said that even though the task was “a tall order,” the team’s work was “just wonderful.” 

The Document Services employees at Travis are no strangers to large projects like this. They’re equipped with wide-format printers and materials for creating anything from decals to banners and museum displays. And yes, even murals.
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— Amber McSherry