BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
Reverse logistics leaders from across the globe gathered in Battle Creek, Michigan, Oct. 24 for the annual Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services Senior Leader Summit that runs through Oct. 28.
Summit participants were welcomed by Director Mike Cannon, who started things off with his usual command overview address.
“The state of the command is rock solid,” said Cannon, who has now served as the organization’s longest-tenured leader, with 8 years as the senior executive in charge. While touching on high points of the past year, he highlighted some command accomplishments, including a property reuse, transfer, or donation total valued at $1.54 billion in original acquisition value.
“Pretty significant,” Cannon said. He explained how DLA supports nine DOD supply chains. Those that provide more stuff in billions of dollars than DLA Disposition Services are DLA Energy (fuel), DLA Aviation because “airplane parts are expensive,” and DLA Land and Maritime, due to the large volume of trucks the military uses. Then comes DLA Disposition Services.
Cannon pointed out how the command provides more “stuff in dollars” than it procures medical supplies for the services, or parts to the Navy, more than construction material and more than the cost of uniforms.
“That's money that the services don't have to spend on those other things,” he said. “So, reutilization very, very strong, how do we get you reutilization?” Cannon asked. “Well, we receive property. We value and evaluate the property and we put it on the shelf.”
Cannon said the command is now placing 30% of the items received on shelves for RTD. Five years ago, he was told that level was unreachable. But, he pointed out, the command reached it. He said people took time and they made value judgements, and they put the right stuff on the shelf.
“As we move forward as an organization in fiscal year 2023, we need to be in step, we need to be in sync,” Cannon said. “If we are out of sync our performance will be out of sync and our workforce is going to be confused.”
He said the command’s initiatives are nested in the five lines of effort outlined in the DLA Strategic Plan which are: Warfighter Always, Support to the Nation, Trusted Mission Partner, Modernize Acquisition and Supply Chain Management, and Future of Work.
One of the three big initiatives for 2023 will be the adoption of Warehouse Management System. It will be replacing DDS, which Cannon said was one of the command’s foundational information technology systems.
Cannon said that the good news on the WMS is the approach is different than the approach taken with DAISY. Instead of the core team being concentrated at the headquarters, the core team comes from across the enterprise.
WMS will go live at the TOSC in Battle Creek first. If there's problems at the TOSC no customers are impacted. The first field site to go live with WMS will be San Antonio.
Cannon said another area of organizational focus for the upcoming year would be digital business transformation.
“What is that?’ Cannon asked. “There's a lot of stuff under that, but it starts with WMS. WMS will enable us to do other things. One of those is, as part of WMS, we're getting over 500 ruggedized tablets that have Wi-Fi capability and have phone cards in them,” allowing field personnel to “use high-tech solutions in a low-tech environment.”
He said that with the new technology, the command’s “Herby” portable work center will fit into a backpack. With portable scanning and printing capabilities, disposal services representatives can conduct full “receipt in place” missions without returning to their office.
“It's going to enable us to use Bluetooth devices to do the work instead of relying on, you know, cables attached to scanners and being hardwired into a location,” Cannon said. “It's going to enable a lot of stuff, and then we're looking at other technology to do a better job.”
In closing, Cannon asked his leaders to be open and honest and give good feedback.
“This is not a bunch of presentations and you’re in receive mode,” Cannon said. “We want to hear from you. We need to synchronize our organization for the way forward for the next fiscal year. And honestly, some of the things we're doing this year [are] setting up this organization for the next 10 to 15 years - maybe 20.”