PHILADELPHIA –
Ensuring delivery of warfighter readiness in subsistence, clothing and textiles, construction and equipment, and medical items is the main mission of the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support but inaccurate National Stock Numbers can cause warfighters to struggle with requesting necessary items to meet readiness requirements.
Incorrect NSNs, the official 11-digit number applied to an item of supply that is repeatedly procured, stocked, stored, issued, and used throughout the Federal Supply System, can have trickle down effects on needed warfighter items.
“Inaccurate NSN availability data can have numerous downstream affects,” said DLA Tech/Quality Business Process Analyst Michael Beck. “Most remarkably, it can affect readiness, and the ability for commanders at all levels to forecast the availability of materials needed by their warfighters. I chose this as my project because we could not determine the root cause of why there was a growing disparity between obsolete NSNs and NSNs that were actually cancelled.”
Beck saw this as a particular issue in the C&T supply chain and felt it was a good fit for a Continuous Process Improvement Lean Six Sigma project.
CPI LSS are structured methodologies for incorporating performance improvement throughout the force which include root cause analysis; testing and measuring; and a monitoring process.
C&T recognized that this inaccuracy was a reoccurring problem when canceled NSNs were showing as available in Autumn of 2021.
Over 5,000 C&T NSN’s were assigned terminal Acquisition Advice Codes with no visible cancellation efforts. AAC are codes that define whether DLA Distribution has stock on hand. Stock on hand is marked “V”. Stock not on hand are marked “Y”. This resulted in audit readiness issues and item nonavailability issues across systems. The warfighter relies on the system to determine availability of orderable NSN material.
“The purpose for this project is to ensure the delta (ratio) between NSNs assigned a terminal Acquisition Advice Code and those cancelled remains at or below 41%,” Beck said.
“The main goal of the CPI project is to identify NSNs that are no longer used,” said CPI Project Support Supervisor John Herzer.
“With items being mission critical, we do not want the warfighter delayed on receiving their needs,” Herzer said.
As a part of the project, replacement items are given a new NSN. Old NSN don’t necessarily go away once they’re cancelled. They will appear as cancelled in the Federal Logistics Information Services (WebFLIS). When an NSN is cancelled in DLA’s systems, the NSN may be required to stay active due to its use by NATO users.
Prior to this action, personnel worked from spreadsheets and were taught to never cancel NSNs. The nonavailability of these NSN items is not captured by any systems.
Training was initiated in February of 2022 which brought about enterprise-wide NSN accuracy improvements. The project officially began in August of 2022.
Product Specialists have taken on the responsibility and are continuously receiving training on all aspects of assigned NSNs. The team of specialists have reduced the inaccuracy of cancelled NSNs from the 41%.
“During the control phase (the final phase of the project), the average delta was just north of 24%, down from 41%, which I am hopeful is sustainable in the long run,” said Beck. “This project has created opportunities for me to provide more training and assistance, and also to monitor the process of cancelling NSNs more efficiently.”