BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
The mammoth supply depository Warehouse 14 sits right on the shoulder of historic Route 66 at the edge of the broiling Mojave Desert.
The cavernous WWII-era building will soon become homebase for the Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services team at Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow in southern California.
Site personnel currently motor back and forth between various yards and buildings spread across MCLB Barstow’s dusty Nebo Annex, where daytime highs average in the mid-90s and above at least four months out of the year. A $24 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-managed facility update that recently got underway aims to put all those DLA personnel under one roof and create major workflow advantages.
“Employees at DLA Disposition Services Barstow have dispersed work areas,” said site Operations Supervisor Nuhu Kashalla. “We work from several different locations and must transport property from one warehouse to another to be worked, and then move the worked property to a different warehouse to be stored. This takes people away from the processing line for extended periods at a time and lowers the site’s effectiveness, since two or more people are engaged in moving these properties, sometimes almost half a mile away.”
Kashalla said the renovation will not only provide employees with some of the creature comforts of a modern workspace, but will also allow them to centralize efforts and generate efficiencies, “especially with less time lost moving property.”
A pre-construction meeting took place in August that gathered stakeholders and preliminary work on considerations like floor joints commenced in January. The project is expected to last for about one year, according to USACE. The effort is not expected to disturb the site’s property disposition mission, which includes support to major installations like Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, California’s Fort Irwin and Hill Air Force Base in Utah.