In this interview, the Defense Logistics Agency’s Chief Information Officer Adarryl Roberts discusses the agency’s digital transformations, with an emphasis on data acumen and artificial intelligence strategies.
The DLA Strategic Plan emphasizes building resilience and accelerating digital transformation to operate in a contested logistics environment. How is the digital transformation effort, including the adoption of cloud-based computing and enhanced cyber security measures, directly contributing to DLA's ability to maintain a secure and resilient supply chains in the face of evolving threats?
Roberts: As we started our digital transformation journey in 2020, we were focused on accelerating our transformation efforts to meet those evolving needs and create the resiliency we need throughout our supply chains. As we've matured in our transformation efforts over the past five years, we've really shifted that focus from sustaining to accelerating the implementation of these tools. That means building an architecture and a framework that allows us agility and flexibility as technology changes so we're more aligned and able to adapt as technology enhances.
Paired with that, we're focused on our talent management and our workforce. We are ensuring that DLA team members have the data acumen and understand the role technology plays in the success of our agency moving forward at the various levels throughout the agency.
When you put the technical skills with the data tools, that creates the digital acumen that allows us to have more secure, resilient supply chains because the workforce understands how to enhance mission effectiveness and increase efficiency.
With a focus on improving customer interaction, what new capabilities or platforms are you are most excited about?
I would say DLA Connect, the agency’s single, sign-on employee portal, is the most exciting because it allows us to integrate with our customers, with our suppliers, and with our partners.
But beyond that, the other capability that I'm excited about is Loggie, and how both tools will integrate with DLA Connect to allow users to access self-services
For example, a lot of our customers call to ask, “Where's my stuff?” Or, “When can I expect delivery?” “What's the status of my order?”
And we want them to be able to find that information with a commercial look and feel. DLA Connect and our customer portal allow our customers to come to DLA with their question and get the status of their orders, cancel orders, etc., similarly to the commercial sector.
That's probably what I'm most excited about—the ability for customers to perform self-care without the delay of waiting to talk to someone or going through email.
Modernizing DLA’s Enterprise Resource Planning system is a major component of daily digital transformation. Can you discuss the key challenges and successes encountered in this modernization journey, particularly in balancing the need for standardization with the unique and complex requirements of the agency?
I would say the most challenging parts of our ERP transformation have been the speed by which we like to accomplish it and competing priorities.
Our day-to-day business does not stop because we're modernizing, and a lot of the support required wasn't just technical transformation; it was also business transformation. Attempting to conduct business process reengineering, along with trying to streamline our processes to utilize out-of-the-box capabilities without customizing the code—based on what we've done in the past — that's probably been the most challenging part of our ERP transformation.
I say we could always do more business process reengineering though. As we migrate our ERP through lifecycle management, how do we continue the opportunities for reengineering our business process? Be it local DLA policies or working to change Department of War policies for things impacting our ability to fully leverage commercial technology.
How are emerging technologies like AI and machine learning being integrated into DLA as operations to improve efficiency and fortify the supply chain against disruption?
I don't look at AI, machine learning, and even automation as technologies — I know that's how they're defined. But I would call these enabling tools and capabilities that we're integrating in the agency to enhance the effectiveness of our people — really building a force multiplier within our workforce to further enhance our efficiency and effectiveness with the mission.
What does that mean for DLA? Throughout our history DLA has done an outstanding job of providing support to our country at various stages either in conflict, disaster relief, or just competitive logistics.
Our analysts spend a lot of time gathering data from the disparate data sources. And then there are also gaps in data. If we had access to certain data, we could make better informed decisions.
That's where automation and AI are really going to enhance our mission. Effectiveness and efficiency are bringing those disparate data sources together natively through AI so that our analysts, our procurement specialists, our procurement officers, our human resources representatives and major subordinate commands can focus on mission execution as opposed to data gathering.
And moving forward there is going to be what I would call a digital employee. How do we train AI? How do we provide a digital assistant to our workforce to enhance what they’re doing today? AI is not going to be doing anything that we’re already not doing.
We can create efficiencies throughout the government, which is why people seek out DLA.
But now we're trying to enhance that based on speed of relevance and the rate and speed that the nation and the department require.
Why do you believe investing in the data acumen of every employee is a strategic advantage and fundamental necessity for modernizing logistics and supporting the warfighter effectively?
I believe if we don't do that, we're doing a disservice to our employees. That's showing a lack of investment in your people and your talent and not understanding the skill set and training opportunities we need to provide them to be successful in their careers.
It is a strategic imperative for us to focus on the data literacy and the technical acumen of our workforce because I see this as the investment that we make in our employees; the same investment the department's made in the warfighter.
As our warfighters train, they not only train on the components of war, but also their specialties. They also are trained in the use of technology and the execution of that mission.
Also, this is no different than when our new employees graduated. We’d ask if they know Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, right? Those are just basic components. You had to have that skill in this type of organization to be considered for hiring because of the advancement of technology, not just here at DLA, but commercially in the world. Data acumen has now become a base component to be employable in the future, in terms of how we recruit, how we train, and how we upscale our workforce.
DLA's data analytics and AI strategy highlights the goal of fostering a data literate workforce beyond general training. What methods has DLA employed to cultivate deep-rooted data acumen, ensuring that every employee from the warehouse to the executive level understands data and can competently use it to drive decisions?
I'm excited to be partnered with DLA Human Resources in terms of our data acumen training. We started with some basic online courses at each level that we've made available for employees through our Learning Management System.
We are also piloting, at the executive level, college and university courses where we create DLA-specific scenarios to work on with our cohorts. These will be professional-quality products that illustrate situations that happen in our day-to-day workspaces. We plan to expand that to the entire echelon, even down to the intern level.
The other thing that we’ve done is to develop our Innovation Navigators Course, which is really focused on giving folks the tools, such as design thinking, to spur innovative thought. The next stage of that course is how we wrap AI and automation as a focus area and help employees tackle problems from an innovative perspective, as well.
Have you heard any concerns from DLA's customers about using AI, or about the agency's modernizations? What are those concerns, and how is DLA addressing them?
I think the biggest, most common concern that I typically hear is the timing and complexity of modernization and what we're doing in terms of automation in AI. With an organization as complex as the Department of War, as well as the relationship with our industry partners and some of our NATO relationships, that complexity of coordination is needed to make sure you don't break an existing relationship.
Business process as you modernize is a key component across the agency. Our intent is to calm the fears and educate our partners, our customers and ourselves because many organizations are actually attempting to do the same thing.
You can never over-communicate your strategy and your modernization efforts.
Having that open conversation about your mitigation strategy, how you're managing risk, is important as well. I think we've done a great job as we rolled out the new Warehouse Management System, as we get ready to roll out the Federal Logistics Information System transformation and as we complete our Business Suite 4 of the High-Performance Analytics Appliance, known as S/4 HANA migration.
We've done a great job at each level within DLA of communicating the change we're making, why we're making the change, and how that change is going to benefit the department and our partners.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
It’s a very exciting time to be at DLA with this transformation. I often describe this as generational transformation.
I truly do think AI and automation and how we incorporate those into our logistics and business operations allow us to set the agency up for success for the next decade.
Plus, we're aligning our efforts with the commercial world and how they use that from a business operations perspective. It's not often you get to have a generational impact in your career.
I'm proud of the agency and how we've come together to take this journey. But while taking this journey, we haven't compromised our day-to-day support of the warfighter.
It's a busy and important time for DLA, and I appreciate everyone understanding the role we play in in moving this nation forward.