BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
The Defense Logistics Agency doesn’t just deliver supplies; it also brings them back. Each year, millions of items return to the agency through “reverse logistics,” in which military units return unwanted or obsolete equipment. But before DLA Disposition Services can accept the material, units must meticulously identify each piece to safeguard America’s nuclear and space arsenal, ensuring the proper tracking and disposal of sensitive components.
“Our highest priority is to ensure that nuclear weapons-related material never enters the DLA Disposition Services network,” said Nate Tichenor, nuclear and space enterprise program manager at DLA Disposition Services. “If the Air Force mistakenly ships us NWRM – if they misidentify it – and we don’t catch that through our established policies and procedures, it could potentially be released to the public or the enemy.”
To ensure proper handling of NWRM property inadvertently shipped to a DLA property-disposal site, the organization began testing material receivers with no-warning NWRM receipt exercises about 10 years ago. These recurring tests, known in advance to only a handful of “trusted agents,” simulate an unauthorized shipment of NWRM to a DLA Disposition Services field site. Upon identification as NWRM, rigid mitigation measures and rapid chain-of-command notifications must take place.
Increased training and awareness have steadily improved exercise success rates, with some ebbs and flows due primarily to employee turnover or the learning curve associated with adopting new technology such as DLA’s new Warehouse Management System, Tichenor said.
Our highest priority is to ensure that nuclear weapons-related material never enters the DLA Disposition Services network.
Nate Tichenor
A rise in the number of contractors that manufacture specialized components for increasingly complex systems adds to the complexity of proper identification, he continued. With so many source points, it might seem inevitable for incorrect National Stock Number or Local Stock Number data to occasionally be assigned to parts and complicate material identification efforts at the tail end of the supply chain. Property receipt specialists must maintain a watchful eye to prevent security lapses and consistently apply proper identification standards.
“We have frontline employees who need to identify hundreds of different types of property, who must know every demilitarization code and are entrusted to ensure items aren’t classified. Does the property have the right certifications? Is it explosive? Was it turned in correctly? Is it misidentified?” Tichenor said, adding that employees may also need to look up definitions of the associated Federal Supply Codes to ensure the nomenclature matches.
Regional instructor-led training that’s currently offered annually will soon be held more often and will include a new video component and more in-depth content for site supervisor and property receiver courses, he said.
The agency’s property disposal specialists frequently provide presentations to warfighters and defense logisticians outside of DLA to educate them on topics like demilitarization, hazardous waste and equipment turn-in procedures. Agency educational outreach covering NWRM is no different. Tichenor said a hefty portion of his workload as program manager involves consulting with the services on current efforts and helping them project and plan for any future reverse-logistics requirements they expect in DOD’s nuclear and space enterprise.
When the Air Force began putting an initial plan together for decommissioning and demilitarizing its aging Minuteman III arsenal, Tichenor was called to California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base as a senior disposal advisor for dismantling a missile launch facility. Many of the component items lacked NSNs because they were custom manufactured decades ago. Tichenor had to create custom LSNs to allow for future disposal, then validate lessons learned at a Minuteman site at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming.
Whatever the Air Force’s plan for intercontinental ballistic missile modernization looks like, Tichenor said DLA Disposition Services will be prepared to offer disposal options for non-classified equipment the organization doesn’t receive classified material. DLA will also continue working with Sentinel program provisioners to ensure controlled property for the future system is properly stock-listed at the outset to help stop controlled property from being released to the public or adversaries.
Defense modernization means the eventual disposition of weapons systems like the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and adoption of new ones like the B-21 Raider. It also might mean the U.S. Space Force divestiture of Global Positioning System Block IIF and Space-Based Infrared Systems satellites and replacement with potentially classified ones. Each replacement and upgrade demands full lifecycle support, and that includes close coordination with the services on end-of-life property disposition strategy, Tichenor said.
“We want to educate our customers on the importance of concepts like stock-listing as much property as possible on the front end,” he said, adding that such efforts help property receipt specialists ensure material is controlled based on correct supply data assigned during the initial acquisition process.