Fort Belvoir, Virginia –
As the Defense Logistics Agency goes about supporting more than 2,430 weapon systems, processing 100,000 daily requisitions and managing nearly 5.3 million items over nine supply chains, a few problems are bound to occur.
When those problems have to do with acquiring weapon system repair parts, DLA calls on the Weapon System Sustainment R&D Program to find solutions.
The WSSP spans multiple weapon systems and supply chains to improve internal DLA processes, provide new tools and methods, reduce costs and lead times and ultimately improve warfighter support. WSSP participants work closely with process owners to spot problems and, through research and development, develop solutions.
“The purpose of WSSP is to make sure the customer has parts available when they need them and that they meet certain quality standards,” said Leo Plonsky, Weapon System Sustainment R&D Program manager. “We do that through a series of projects aimed at that objective.”
Program participants recently tackled the problem of how DLA can set correct inventory levels for items with unpredictable demand.
The project, called Peak/NextGen, addresses two problems that have challenged DLA’s planning functional area: forecasting inventory levels for infrequently purchased items that have sporadic demand; and forecasting inventory levels for frequently purchased items that have sporadic demand.
“Quite often, there needs to be some safety stock level so that the services will have parts available, but you can’t really forecast when they will need it,” Plonsky said. “Using Peak/NextGen, we’ve been able to improve materiel availability, which is a key metric in DLA, while making inventory planning more accurate.”
Peak/NextGen works by bringing together algorithms that help to balance the risks of being either under or overstocked. The process moves the focus from forecasting to metrics and allows managers to make a single, integrated decision across those metrics on the minimum and maximum inventory level for every item.
DLA began using Peak/NextGen in January 2013 to set levels for about 550,000 items. Benefits included an increase in materiel availability, less procurement workload, fewer unfilled orders, fewer orders that were later canceled and more efficient investment of capital. For this project, DLA’s contractor, LMI, was chosen as a finalist for the 2015 Franz Edelman Award from the Institute for Operations Research and the Mathematical Sciences. The award recognizes operations research and analytics work that improves organizations and benefits the people it serves.
“These planning techniques help us improve customer service while maintaining leaner inventory levels,” Plonsky said. “We’re not stocking what we don’t need.”
Program participants also work on projects that benefit the Technical/Quality functional area.
DLA has had a serious problem with counterfeiting, especially of microchips. The WSSP, partnering with Applied DNA Sciences, Inc., came up with a solution to authenticate the source of microchips through a technique called DNA marking. The manufacturer marks the microchip with a tiny spot of DNA — a special epoxy-acrylate ink that is impervious to tampering — to identify parts as authentic.
DLA’s Product Test Center in Columbus, Ohio, has already implemented the procedures to ensure the integrity of the microchips DLA buys.
“You can’t replicate it,” Plonsky said. “The DNA mark can potentially protect the entire logistical chain.”
The WSSP also works to protect the taxpayer from overpaying for military items. Recently, the WSSP partnered with 2Is (two-eye-s), Inc., to provide a Web-based Price Research Decision Support Tool, which helps DLA employees determine whether proposed prices are reasonable for Class IX supply items (repair parts). Determining a fair and reasonable price is difficult in some circumstances, and this new tool will help keep DLA from paying too much for needed items. DLA awarded 2Is a $7 million contract in November 2015 to implement the technology developed under the R&D contract.
WSSP also assists with the end of the logistics chain — disposition.
Program participants are currently working out a technique in the disposition area where DLA sells excess stock to industry, recouping some income. When there is a demand for that item, DLA buys the needed materiel back at a much lower cost than a new acquisition.
“We have found over time that we have materiel that sits on shelves, and we have pressure to get rid of it as excess inventory, so we do,” Plonsky said. “Then when a customer wants it, we have to turn around and pay a contractor to manufacture new materiel.”
The concept of the disposition project is to buy the materiel back from the companies that bought the excess inventory from DLA, which is cheaper and quicker than to have it manufactured new.
Like other DLA R&D programs, the WSSP has been working with additive manufacturing projects, also known as 3D printing. The projects are not so much about development of the technology, but are more about introducing 3D printed parts into the supply chain.
Project participants are creating an automated tool that identifies hard-to-procure parts that could be created through additive manufacturing. A second project seeks to address sourcing hard-to-procure parts and obtaining engineering approval for 3D printed parts from the services’ Engineering Support Activities.
“The key impediments to additive manufacturing are not necessarily the production of the parts but the qualification process,” Plonsky said. “Our goal is to get the right technical data packages so that the 3D printed parts will be qualified against the standards of a traditionally produced part. If all goes well, we’ll have new sources to produce hard-to-procure parts.”
In another project, WSSP strives to reduce problem procurements. Long acquisition lead time can result when DLA solicits bids and gets no quotes. These problem procurements can occur when, over time, a vendor changes ownership, goes out of business or undergoes some other change.
“We’ve found that a good way to avoid problem procurements is to focus on “time since last buy,” or the last time DLA bought the part,” Plonsky said. “We establish a five-year cutoff. If the part has not been bought in five years, a review process kicks in.”
During the review process, product specialists in the technical/quality area update technical data, ascertain that there are suppliers who can provide the part and ensure the whole data package is complete. Participants hope that, by taking these steps ahead of time, DLA can virtually eliminate these types of problem procurements.
Tackling problems, improving processes, saving time and money — these are what the Weapon System Sustainment R&D Program team does every day as process-problem solvers for DLA. As long as there are better ways to accomplish DLA’s objectives, the WSSP will continue to develop solutions that will improve warfighter support and reduce the financial burden on the taxpayer.