NEW CUMBERLAND, Pa. –
Supervisory General Supply Specialist Cynthia Louie of Defense Logistics Agency Distribution San Joaquin, California, was selected as the DLA Distribution High Performing Leader of the Year. Additionally, Louie serves as the accountable officer and chief of the Inventory Action Team.
“Ms. Cynthia Louie was an extraordinary leader and quintessential to Team San Joaquin’s foundation of success this past year,” said DLA Distribution San Joaquin Deputy Commander Jodie Johnson-Micks.
Louie superbly managed the IAT as they showcased resiliency, teamwork and accountability in support of the DLA Distribution commander’s fiscal year 2019 wall-to-wall inventory requirement. In addition to managing the inventory requirement, she also had to manage daily inventory workload, while simultaneously growing her small staff of 12 to a large staff of 68. To no one’s surprise, she handled everything flawlessly.
Many obstacles and challenges were encountered during this process, but under her leadership, the IAT powered through all of it with remarkable determination and commitment. Her efforts were key to San Joaquin expertly processing over 1.7 million transactions and outperforming key performance metrics for percent on time and average days for the last three years.
Louie embraces DLA’s and San Joaquin’s audit readiness program. She enforced strict adherence to AR principles and 100% compliance of standard operating procedures in all distribution and inventory processes. Under her phenomenal leadership, the IAT conducted over 5,000 quality checks and 116 supervisor assessments to reinforce the internal quality control program and materiel readiness. Their efforts contributed to inventories for 375,000 national stock numbers, over one million locations and a record low denial rate of .16%, inventories which improved customer satisfaction and inventory integrity. Her team was also key to the distribution center sustaining green metrics for 36 consecutive months for the following quality indicators: denials averaged .24%, incoming supply discrepancy report rate was .11%, and there were zero auto adjustments. As a result of this intense focus, fiscal year to date inventory accuracy rate improved by over 9%.
Her exceptional efforts contributed to record low denial rates of .19 percent for May and June, helping improve customer satisfaction and inventory integrity for our warfighter. Due to her impressive leadership skills, DLA Distribution San Joaquin was able to sustain green metrics across all performance metrics for 33 consecutive months, including the following quality indicators: denials at .19 percent; inventory supply discrepancy report reportable rate at .11 percent and zero auto adjustments.
Additionally, she expertly oversaw an enormous workload of physical counts on specialty items, such as Unitized Group Rations, cuttables, hazardous material and wildland fire mission stock. Her dedication and hard work resulted in completing for 144,000 NSNs and over 160,000 locations at 100% completion rate, in addition to an impressive acceptable quality rate average of 99%.
Due to her meticulous oversight, the team performed exceptionally well across all functional areas and the UGR work center successfully built over 240,000 modules and met DLA Troop Support’s requirements for an unprecedented five years and counting. Most noteworthy, her team was able to meet DLA Distribution’s 100% wall-to-wall requirement and directly contributed to an improved inventory accuracy rate of over 14% from Oct. fiscal year 2019 of 81.34% to 95.57%.
Safety is always on the forefront. Louie’s safety-first mindset contributed to the distribution center completing 100% of safety inspections and was key to our leadership’s demonstrated and ever-strengthening culture of safety. In the last three years we saw our lost time totals drop from 661 days in 2017 to 265 in 2019, totaling a 60% decrease. Additionally, total injuries reported decreased from 102 to 78 during the same period, an astounding 23% decrease.
Louie embraces equal opportunity and diversity. She leads her work center focused on the principles of equal employment opportunity, diversity and inclusion to all, she was the go-to for EEO complaints and grievances. She handled each case with the utmost professionalism and resolved them quickly and efficiently, keeping them from going formal and expending unnecessary resources. Louie also served on hiring panels, as a panel chair, selecting official and panel member. In each role, she ensured hiring practices were conducted above reproach and able to withstand complaint.
She is the epitome of a high performing leader. She is a critical asset in Team San Joaquin’s leadership team and personified the tenants of high performing leadership through her daily actions as a leader, mentor and coach. She genuinely cares for the work performed at the distribution center and the role IAT played in supporting San Joaquin’s customers across the globe. Her personal and tireless efforts resulted in substantial and enduring contributions to the national security of the United States and DLA’s strategic position throughout the worldwide logistics network.
“As San Joaquin’s accountable officer and chief of the IAT team, she was a trailblazer who took every opportunity to capitalize on the high-performance leadership training resulting in her selection of this prestigious award,” concluded Johnson-Micks.