BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
The Defense Logistics Agency continues to further integrate digital business systems to help warehouse personnel make informed decisions about what to add to excess property stores.
When units turn over their unneeded materials somewhere in the agency’s worldwide property disposal network, local property receivers must make important determinations about the condition and value of those materials. Their often speedy and somewhat subjective value judgements can play a big factor in whether items are offered for reuse or sent to a scrap pile. In May, receivers gained an additional data point for their evaluations, when an automated marker was added to the Electronic Turn-In Documents, or ETIDs, that DLA Disposition Services encourages property turn-in customers to use when disposing of equipment.
The unmistakable marking very simply states “Want List,” and it tells material handlers and identifiers that an established equipment reuse customer is seeking that specific item, or item type, according to their custom online list of desired property.
“When our receiver sees that an item is on someone’s want list – unless that item’s destroyed – it should go on the shelf,” said Property Disposal Specialist Lori Shook, the agency’s ETID process owner.
This additional ETID indicator comes on the heels of February’s development, when the same document began featuring a bold “TOP 50 FSC” marking meant to let receivers know that an item is among the 50 most popular federal supply codes, or FSCs, that reuse customers sought from DLA during the previous quarter. Shook said that together, these developments represent a significant step forward for the major sub-command’s ability to meet warfighter needs as an additional supply chain.
“This is a pretty big change,” Shook said, noting that agency personnel had to develop a mechanism for the Enterprise Business System-powered Reutilization, Transfer, and Donation Want List to communicate with the architecture behind ETIDs. “Integrating all these multi-step legacy processes allows us to be more agile and data driven, so the data can start moving as fast as we are.”
Customers who currently create property want lists have a range of specificity they can detail to build out their organization’s dream sheet. They can run queries and trigger alert emails based on federal supply codes alone, but if they want to ensure that a reverse logistician gets pinged with the “Want List” indicator, they’ll need to add specific National Stock Numbers, or NSNs, to their want list.
Shook reiterated that Want List alerts only pop when turn-in customers use an ETID and not a traditional paper turn-in document. Shook said about a quarter of turn-in customers have adopted ETIDs, and she expects DLA to do everything it can to continue to guide its customer base toward the fullest possible adoption of electronic turnover.
“When our customers utilize ETIDs, we can avoid nearly 100 percent of turn-in issues,” Shook said. “Errors are caught long before property gets to the dock. And there’s not a trouble ticket that ever sits for more than 24 hours. The support for ETIDS is superb. I’m behind ETIDs 100%. All our customers would benefit from using it.”