FORT BELVOIR, Va. –
A two-week program that provides advanced training on private-sector business practices is empowering Defense Logistics Agency acquisition professionals to change thought patterns and apply risk-based decision-making to current and future problems.
The DLA Industry Partnership Management Course is taught semiannually at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School for GS-12s through 15s. The latest course ended June 14 and included 31 participants.
“The consistent message we got throughout the course was that we need to come up with different, better ways to do our jobs and be even more efficient as we support new needs from warfighters,” said Andrew Jenkins, chief of quality control and assurance for DLA Logistics Information Services. "The status quo isn't going to be good enough in the future; it won't move us forward."
IPMC is comparable to graduate-level instruction and focuses on 10 areas, including data analytics, risk assessment, artificial intelligence and negotiation techniques. Though taught by UNC faculty, instructional vignettes from industry and interactions with business representatives help participants discover what motivates small businesses and Fortune 500 companies to engage with the federal government.
“The IPMC is partly about our acquisition professionals getting a deeper understanding of the various industries that help us support warfighters. It helps them put faces to industry names and see the human beings behind our joint efforts,” said DLA Vice Director Brad Bunn, who has spoken to every class since the course’s inception in 2023.
Solving real issues
The curriculum uses DLA problem sets as a focal point for learning new skills and encourages students to identify obstacles in their functional areas and develop modern acquisition strategies to overcome them.
Jenkins said he’s eager to apply course insights to the challenges his team faces while completing customer requests for national stock numbers and national item identification numbers.
“How can we leverage technology to push our day-to-day forward? Can technology remove some of the burden, even if it’s not necessarily doing the NSN assignments? These are the types of things I hope to help solve with what I learned,” he said.
Speaking about overarching issues affecting the DLA enterprise, Bunn pointed to contested logistics as an obvious challenge. He said the agency’s acquisition workforce is integral to the agency’s ability to remain a valued combat logistics support agency amid adversarial threats and changes in how the military services operate globally.
Bunn said he believes many of DLA’s tried and true acquisition strategies can withstand contested logistics challenges, but those that rely on commercial capabilities in the global market – like fuel, medical supplies and food – may need some adjustments to remain viable, especially in the Indo-Pacific.
With that comes challenges like getting reasonable prices while preserving industrial capability.
“There’s a balance that needs to be struck there,” Bunn said. “It’s a challenge as we work to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars while ensuring the industrial base is there when we need it and has credible capacity to surge for new requirements.”
Sharing data for better decisions
As data sharing becomes more important across the Defense Department, acquisition professionals must also be able to identify outputs that matter most to DLA, said Jovany Munoz, DLA’s IPMC program manager.
“The course is designed to help participants ask better questions and implement strategies in data analysis that enable improved decision-making,” he said.
Participants also received an introduction to artificial intelligence and how it can drive efficiency in acquisition and contracting. Sara Pahl, chief of the U.S. and Canadian Joint Certification Program for DLA Logistics Information Services, said she felt less afraid of AI after learning how it can help her team be more efficient.
“I always thought it was about robots and bots in our systems, but I learned that simple things like ChatGPT can help us hone our contract writing skills and be stronger communicators,” she said.
Pahl added that using information technology tools often seems like the obvious way to innovate, but it's not the only way. Thinking differently about a problem and giving employees the freedom to try new methods are also innovative, she said, and she plans to reassess her team's abilities and offer members new opportunities to use them.
Students also heard from retired Army Gen. Gustave Perna, DLA Acquisition Director Matt Beebe, DLA Acquisition Deputy Director George Atwood, DLA Logistics Operations Deputy Director Kristin French and DLA Information Operations Program Executive Officer James Johnson.
“Hearing these senior leaders talk about the importance of what we do really made me feel proud to be a part of DLA and made me want to be an even better leader for my team from our aspect of assisting vendors and working with the military services,” she said. “I felt honored to be part of the class and was part of a great group of people who have a deep thirst for knowledge.”
The next IPMC is planned for next spring and is open to high performing GS-12s through 15s who work in acquisition throughout the agency. Employees must have written endorsement from their senior executive service leadership and should apply through their chain of command when the request for nominations is announced.
"We always encourage as many folks to attend as possible because we want to improve how we deliver services to our customers," Munoz said. "Technology and the challenges we face change from day to day, and the IPMC arms our acquisition workforce with current tools to maximize their performance.”
Additional topics will be incorporated into future classes to address goals of the new DLA Strategic Plan, which is scheduled to be released by the end of the fiscal year