Improving DLA Supply Chain Agility

de Eric Peltz, Amy G. Cox, Edward W. Chan, George E. Hart, Daniel Sommerhauser, Caitlin Hawkins, Kathryn Connor

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) supplies common military items to the armed services and other organizations while seeking to achieve customer service goals and minimize cost. When demand for an item rises unexpectedly, providing effective customer service is challenging, and when demand for an item falls unexpectedly, DLA can be left with the sunk cost of excess inventory that it then disposes. The more quickly and efficiently DLA can respond to changes in demand - that is, the more agile the DLA supply chain - the more it can minimize such impacts. This report examines DLA supply chain agility and ways to improve it. Specifically, it focuses on the value of and the approaches DLA could take for reducing lead times, optimizing order quantities, and improving information flow from customers. The overarching recommendation is to increase enterprisewide emphasis on supply chain agility, with involvement from the most-senior management levels across the DoD supply chain management enterprise and flowing downward to all levels. Continuous attention to supply chain agility should become part of the supply chain DNA. More-specific business practice recommendations are also provided in the report.