DLA Strategic Plan 2025 - 2030

Army Lt. Gen Mark Simerly's portrait in front of the US and Army three-star flags

Director's Intent

The Defense Logistics Agency is our Nation’s Logistics Combat Support Agency, responsible for delivering agile, adaptive, and resilient logistics support across the continuum of conflict. To succeed in an environment where our efforts are contested by adversaries in all domains at all levels of war, we must think, act, and operate in new ways. It is only through meaningful change that we can deliver exceptional global logistics support and win in today’s rapidly changing and Contested Logistics environment.

We are living in a “transformative era,” and the Services and Combatant Commands are all undergoing transformation of their warfighting concepts, doctrine, training, and equipment. We have recalibrated DLA’s strategy to best support our Warfighters by transforming capabilities, strengthening our partnerships, and shifting to more resilient supply chain solutions, all focused on our combat support mission.

The DLA Strategic Plan 2025 — 2030 “DLA Transforms: A Call to Action,” described in these pages, was informed by a deliberate agency assessment and feedback from DLA’s past and present leaders, Military Services, Combatant Commands, our Allies and partners, and industry associates. The plan identifies four transformative imperatives to provide DLA with its focus: people, precision, posture, and partnerships. These imperatives are grounded in our mission, vision, enduring DLA values, and operating principles. The Strategic Plan is intended to signal the urgent need to change and to provide clarity on the way ahead.

We operate in a dynamic world. As we execute this Strategic Plan, we must continue to hold ourselves accountable. Rapid adaptation, decision advantage, and resiliency are key to our success. DLA will meet its responsibilities to the joint force and federal partners by leading in innovation, digital interoperability, and cutting-edge technology.

I’m confident that with your support, we will continue to provide our warfighting teammates with everything they need to succeed and win on the battlefield. Thank you for helping us achieve this mission, together.

Let’s get going!

- LTG Mark Simerly
Defense Logistics Agency Director

DLA's Mission

 

 

Drive and sustain Warfighter readiness by delivering unmatched global support as the Nation’s Logistics Combat Support Agency.
 

 

 

DLA's Vision

 

 

DLA delivers agile, adaptive, and resilient logistics support across the continuum of conflict.

 

 

 

DLA's Values

Respect
Foster a positive environment where individuals feel valued and heard, promoting cooperation and understanding
Trust
DLA prioritizes the value of trust, acknowledging the criticality of building strong lines of communication.
Service
Serving the Warfighter is our highest aim, and this value fosters public trust, enhances mission partner satisfaction, and ensures efficient delivery of services.
Excellence
We strive to deliver for our mission partners with excellence, ensuring we achieve the highest standards in all our endeavors.
Innovation
Ensure that we continuously innovate and explore new ideas and solutions, driving progress and maintaining a competitive edge.

DLA's Operating Principles

Adapt and innovate with the speed and flexibility required to achieve mission success.

Promote transparency and interoperability through our mission-focused culture.

Be ready now to support the Warfighter in a Contested Logistics environment.

Empower our people to exercise disciplined initiative.

Strengthen mission partner integration to enhance Warfighter support.

Integrate and employ data to inform decision making at all echelons.

National Defense Strategy Support

  • Supporting Warfighters: On the battlefield since 1961
     
  • Nuclear Enterprise: Support 9 weapon systems
     
  • Space Enterprise: Support 34 systems
     
  • National Defense Stockpile: 52 materials, $1.19 billion in inventory

Whole of Government Support

  • Whole of Government: $5.5 billion in total sales for fiscal year 2023
     
  • Humanitarian Assistance: 16 major missions since 2010
     
  • ​Disaster Relief: 18 major missions since 2010

 

Average DLA support in a day

91,664 Orders
9,501,307 Gallons of Fuel
35,258 Uniform Items
879,804 Meals
119,586 Repair Parts
8,093 Turn-Ins

 

Select authorities

10 U.S.C. § 193 – DLA is a Combat Support Agency with Chairman JCS oversight (Goldwater - Nichols Act).

10 U.S.C. § 191 – Common supplies and services managed by a single DoD agency.

DoDD 5105.22 – DLA Charter, roles and missions as a Combat Support Agency (2017).

DoDD 5101.01 – DoD Executive Agency (Medical, Subsistence, Construction & Barrier Materiel, and Defense Logistics Management Standards).

 

 

Transformation Imperatives

People, Precision, Posture, and Partnerships

People

Build Organizational Agility Through Our People and Culture

Success factor: Workforce readiness across the enterprise; organizational alignment

DLA is committed to investing in organizational resilience and skillsets to increase workforce readiness for a potential surge scenario.

Attract and retain talent with the right skillsets and expertise who are invested in DLA’s mission.

DLA will continue to attract and retain high-quality talent by investing in deep expertise and skillsets and supporting a rewarding environment and culture.

Build and exercise mission-driven skills and standards for operating successfully in a contested logistics environment.

DLA’s mission demands the workforce meets high standards across all roles. Developing clear standards that support the Strategic Plan will ensure the workforce is prepared to meet tomorrow’s challenges.

Sustain an agile and resilient workforce; foster an adaptive culture of growth, support, and safety.

DLA will invest strategically in workforce training, resources, and preparedness, enabling our people to respond to the call to excellence and to take a proactive role in meeting and exceeding standards.

Enhance Agency performance by instituting DLA data literacy and acumen, and empowering the workforce to interpret and use data effectively.

DLA is committed to a tri-level data acumen curriculum, developed to meet the learning needs of our multi-generational workforce to best support enterprise-wide data-driven initiatives.

Foster Joint Logistics Enterprise thought, communication, and collaboration

DLA will foster creativity, communication, and collaboration to promote a shared understanding throughout the Joint Logistics Enterprise and leverage engagements to maximize efficiency and effectiveness by capitalizing on the strengths and capabilities of each organization involved in logistics operations. We will focus on building trust and relationships, implementing lessons learned, and encouraging the use of technology and data to facilitate information sharing and decision making.

Precision

Calibrate Resilient and Responsive Logistics Solutions in Support of Military Readiness

Success factor: Critical readiness and supply availability, with balanced cost

DLA is committed to driving precision within its day-to-day work, to maximize the Agency’s impact on readiness and strike an appropriate balance with cost.

Set agile mission partner supply chain and services strategies to improve effectiveness of critical support and demand forecasting for the Warfighter.

DLA will meet growing demand by increasing its effectiveness, delivering resilient logistics with a tailored approach that factors unique attributes of each customer and supported class of supply.

Strengthen digital interoperability and develop Artificial Intelligence-powered solutions to achieve decision advantage.

DLA will leverage predictive analytics to inform logistics planning and deliver more timely results, driving better outcomes.

Align performance metrics with customer readiness requirements and increase transparency of performance factors.

DLA’s ability to forecast resourcing needs is one of the Agency’s most important and under-used strengths. We will collaborate with our mission partners to improve forecasting accuracy and increase readiness.

Improve process discipline and align organizational resources to critical priorities.

DLA will focus efforts to achieve critical outcomes and maximize the effectiveness of Agency resources.

Establish effective internal controls to mitigate risk, achieve audit goals, and enhance accountability.

DLA will continue to invest in and be accountable to internal controls that enable mission readiness and engagement.

Posture

Enhance Support to Integrated Deterrence Across the Continuum of Conflict in Contested Logistics Environments

Success factor: Logistics support and performance to Service and CCMD requirements.

DLA will continually assess our capabilities, resourcing, and processes to deliver unmatched logistics support to Warfighters in a Contested Logistics environment.

Strengthen Agency global resilience through enhanced presence, positioning of materiel, and a balanced stance to project and protect capability.

We will position materiel and capabilities and leverage agreements and infrastructure to best support the Services, CCMDs, and Allies across the continuum of conflict.

Develop resource strategies to support capital-intensive wartime inventory and forward positioning requirements.

Preparation for a potential surge is capital intensive, requiring funding flexibility to ensure DLA can support wartime inventory requirements while maintaining the health of our working capital fund.

Optimize the Agency’s Command and Control (C2) structure, procedures, and capabilities to operate at the speed of conflict.

Rapid internal communication and collaboration will be critical in surge operations. DLA will ensure our structure, governance, and relationships provide us with a decisional advantage over an adversary.

Illuminate and mitigate global supply chain risk to increase resiliency and agility.

We will assess risk across supply chains, identify potential impacts, and develop risk-mitigation strategies. We will target innovative opportunities that grow visibility of the end-to-end supply chain and integrate processes to increase resiliency and agility.

Team with Services, industry, allies, and partners to develop comprehensive support strategies and capabilities to enhance global and regional sustainment capacity.

We will reinforce effective regional support strategies to improve DLA’s mission success by strengthening relationships and enhancing cooperation among key players in the defense ecosystem.

Partnerships

Lead Logistics Interoperability Across the Department, Allies, Whole of Government, and Industrial Base

Success factor: Redundancy/Contingency Plans in support of Services.

Close collaboration and integration across the Joint Logistics Enterprise is key to success in a Contested Logistics environment. DLA will enable and promote logistics interoperability by proactively shaping dialogue on logistics planning, leveraging our logistics and acquisition expertise, and providing transparent data and predictive analytics.

Aggressively integrate with OSD, Joint Staff, CCMD, and Service logistics planning, execution, and training.

DLA will bring our expertise to the logistics planning process for the Services and CCMDs and integrate DLA as a part of the training audience for targeted exercises and wargames. We will be able to advise our mission partners and better inform their resourcing and logistics needs.

Expand Industrial Base partnerships to grow access to capability and capacity through the defense logistics enterprise.

DLA’s mission success is heavily reliant upon our partnerships within the Defense Industrial Base. To meet growing mission needs, DLA will build on existing relationships with our supplier community and seek additional partners to bolster overall capability and capacity.

Strengthen multinational partnerships to enable mutual support and reduce supply chain risk.

DLA will promote multinational partnerships to increase supply chain depth and provide greater opportunities to enhance and improve upon our portfolio of logistics and acquisition solutions.

Enhance support to Whole of Government customers to improve our capabilities and sourcing resiliency.

DLA’s partnerships with other government agencies not only benefit federal and state partners but they also improve our support to the Warfighter through greater supply chain resiliency and increased efficiency. We will continue to build upon these partnerships and optimize our offerings to all of our customers, providing them access to high-quality and well-priced items to meet their needs.

"DLA must think, act, and operate differently to provide innovative solutions for warfighting challenges"

- DLA Director LTG Mark Simerly