BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
From faraway, fair-weather locales they arrived, bundled up for the sub-zero Michigan winds and bands of lake-effect snow with coats, boots, and gloves, all for the love of reverse logistics excellence.
Leaders from across Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services gathered in Battle Creek Jan. 27-29 to help steer the major subordinate command’s course, speed the pace of select organizational efforts, and focus collective energy on notching short-term wins.
The annual summit, usually held in October but delayed due to a federal shutdown, included geographic region directors and their immediate teams, area managers, and key headquarters personnel who support their frontline warfighter support efforts. DLA Disposition Services Director Mike Cannon encouraged attendees to “use this time to make connections” and take the things they learned back to share with their site and region teams.
“Nothing that we talk about here is secret,” he said. “Make sure this information gets to your entire workforce … Help me communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.”
Across a compact three days, participants split their time between briefs on current MSC efforts and collaborative sessions, like a group Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, or SWOT, exercise, and breakout sessions to brainstorm for an upcoming DLA initiative to develop supply chain control towers for the workforce.
In this context, a control tower is typically a connected and personalized data dashboard that sees key metrics and events across the supply chain. It helps users – often with artificial intelligence assistance – to recognize, prioritize and resolve critical issues more quickly than they would be able to on their own. Cannon said representatives from agency headquarters would soon visit Battle Creek to determine what data types the MSC wants to include in control towers relevant to specific organizational roles, like Business Support directorate members, or area managers, or operations specialists.
“Basically, you turn on your computer in the morning, the control tower knows your parameters, looks at all the data around there, and says ‘hey Paul, this is the most important thing you need to look at today,’” Cannon said.
Other presentation topics included organizational culture and workforce survey results, technology application demonstrations, DLA Human Resources discussions on topics like employee leave, staffing, and labor and employee relations, and group evaluations of training needs.
Resource Management Director Chris Judd shared details on many ongoing directorate efforts with attendees, including equipment modernization, personnel reallocation, training refinement and assessment, and changes to the Expeditionary Workforce program like the institution of a deployment pool, passport streamlining, and additional pre-deployment training requirements. He also reminded leaders to stay engaged with the details and execution of their employees’ official travel and to closely adhere to government travel card rules and regulations.
Contracting Director Tracy Hart asked participants to thank the contracting officer reps spread across their regions for their substantial contributions toward the hundreds of MSC agreements in the pipeline or already underway, saying “it takes a village” to shepherd a contract from an initial requirement all the way through to a final award. Among topics Hart briefed was the development of an electronic sales auction system, the drive to sunset waste management agreements at several installations and return those responsibilities to base commanders, upcoming industry outreach events, and a “drain-and-purge” pilot that could develop into significant demilitarization process efficiencies.
The Business Support directorate provided an update on the pace of Warehouse Management System change requests, discussed general findings, trends, and process improvements related to field site evaluations, and provided information on the ongoing rollout of the Disposition Dock Appointment Scheduler.
During the brief, the directorate gave a DDAS demonstration that allowed field leaders to see what the transportation scheduling process looks like from a customer’s perspective. They said online training was available for field employees and additional instruction would be provided during the nationwide rollout.
Jessie Parisano, who leads the Mid-America region, shared her observations on DDAS usage already available for use at Fort Carson and Fort Riley. She said that, with a new system, there are naturally “growing pains,” but overall, she felt like DDAS was working for DLA customers and the agency was doing a solid job of capturing feedback for improvement.
Operations Director Dave Flietstra covered several topics, including the importance of securing controlled property, upcoming no-notice demilitarization-related site inspections, support for the Army’s current equipment divestiture campaign, and the ongoing evolution of the MSC’s Quality Assurance Review program.
Flietstra called QARs “a great process that we share,” allowing direct interaction between headquarters subject matter experts and field sites that provides an opportunity to evaluate challenges together. He said the visits are typically four days, and while the team is there “we’re going to talk about and resolve every issue we can while on the ground.”
“We want your input on how QAR can better give Mr. Cannon visibility on what’s happening at sites,” Flietstra said. “The QAR is not a static thing.”
David Morgan serves as the Grafenwoehr area manager in Germany. He has attended several annual leadership summits and gave high praise for this year’s iteration, calling the new format “totally new.” He said the human resources subject breakouts were fantastic, the training conversation was helpful, and there were more opportunities for constructive dialogue than in the past.
“We tackled more strategic subjects, like the SWOT exercise, which I thought was very good,” Morgan said. “We benefit greatly from these discussions about how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our business. We need more of them.”