Mlf 9 5 final2

Cases & Containers O Additive ManufacturingDLA Troop Support’s Use of RFID

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Supply Chain Aligner

Lt. Gen. Andy BuschDirectorDefense Logistics Agency

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June 2015Volume 9, Issue 5

Defense Logistics Agency

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Patrick seidenstickerDirector Product TechnologyDell Rugged Mobility Solutions

June 2015Volume 9, Issue 5MILITARY LOGISTICS FORUM

20

5MakinG the casethe ability to manufacture lighter-weight cases using custom fabrication techniques is in high demand among DoD customers, according to vendors. Despite the ending of the afghanistan and iraq wars, DoD organizations are using cases more than ever for transporting and storing aircraft parts, communications systems, drones, medical supplies, vehicle parts, weapons systems and other needs. By William murray

8additive ManufacturinGadditive manufacturing, better known in popular culture as 3-D printing, allows for the efficient low-run or even one-off production of parts and components by adding layer upon layer of material to create a three-dimensional product.By Peter BuxBaum

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defense LoGistics aGencysPeciaL PuLL-out suPPLeMent

1Exclusive interview with:

Brigadier General Mark M. McLeodCommanderDefense Logistics Agency Energy

18utiLizinG rfidIn 2014, DLA Troop Support installed radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology equipment at the Navy Great Lakes recruit training center and all four of the Army recruit training centers. Air Force and Marine Corps RTCs began using the technology in 2007 and 2011, respectively. By June 2015, all recruit training sites will be actively using the RFID technology for uniform issuance.By Mikia MuhaMMad

Based on legislative direction within the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, the Air Force was required to conduct a study on fleet size versus requirements. Tasked with four missions—homeland defense, time-sensitive direct support, disaster response and humanitarian assistance—the study was to determine the number of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft necessary within five separate levels of operational risk: low, medium, moderate, high and very high.

The classified study, completed in December 2012, was conducted by Rand, a federally funded research and development center that provides the Air Force with studies and analyses through a program called Project Air Force.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reviewed the study to review the foundation of its research.

The GAO found, “To analyze the four missions, officials selected a representative scenario of each of the mission areas that portrayed either (1) time-sensitive direct support to combat forces on the ground outside of the continental United States or (2) civil support missions within the continental United States. To analyze the fixed- and rotary-wing airlift requirements for the time-sensitive, direct support mission, officials used two warfighting scenarios that placed various demands on airlift. For the other three missions specified in the provision, officials chose domestic scenarios from a set of 26 approved planning scenarios and variants that involved a combination of humanitarian assistance, disaster response and homeland defense.

Officials then further organized these domestic scenarios into seven groups—for example, one group considered nuclear attacks, and another considered wide-area casualties and infrastructure damage, including an earthquake and hurricane—and determined the various types of support that would be required for each group. Based on this assessment, officials concluded that wide-area catas-trophes, such as a natural disaster or nuclear attack, would be the most demanding events for airlift. Consequently, officials elected two scenarios—a 10-kiloton nuclear terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., and a large (7.7 magnitude) earthquake in the central United States—to analyze the homeland defense, humanitarian assistance and disaster response missions. While the same domestic scenario was used for the analysis of both the disaster response and humanitarian assistance missions, according to Army and Air Force officials, as well as officials from FEMA and the National Guard Bureau, humani-tarian assistance is generally recognized as assistance provided to other nations. Because of this, some stakeholders expressed a preference for using a foreign scenario to conduct the analysis of airlift requirements associated with a humanitarian assistance mission.”

When it was all said and done, the Army, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and eight of the nine combatant commands concurred with the airlift study, with Southern Command and the National Guard Bureau not concurring. Some of the concurring entities did so with comments or caveats; for example, the Army, European Command and Transportation Command stated that although their respective organizations concurred with the airlift study overall, “they questioned the wider utility of the study because it did not consider planning limitations such as multiple simultaneous contingencies, or take into consideration unavailable aircraft—for example, aircraft that are in depots, are used for training or are used for backup support.” Further, officials from U.S. Southern Command did not concur with the study because the study did not address the emerging requirements associated with DoD providing increased support to U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel overseas.

The Government Accountability Office recently reviewed the study to go over the foundation of its research.

It’s not often that a GAO report is good news, but this is one of those times. Their report concluded that the Air Force and its study met its mandated requirements.

Publication of Record for the Military Logistics Community

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Military Logistics Forum

Volume 9, Issue 5 • June 2015

EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Jeff McKaughanEDIToR

DELIVER THE RIGHT SOLUTIONON TIME, EVERY TIME

THE DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY VISION

As America’s Combat Logistics Support Agency, the Defense Logistics Agency provides the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, federal and state agencies and international partners with the full spectrum of logistics, acquisition and technical solutions. DLA sources nearly 100 percent of the consumable items America’s military forces need to operate. The agency provides everything from food and fuel, to uniforms, medical supplies and

construction equipment. We also supply more than 85 percent of the military’s spare parts. In addition, DLA manages the reutilization of military equipment, provides catalogs and other logistics information products, and off ers document automation and production services. Headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, DLA is a global enterprise. Wherever the United States has a signifi cant military presence, DLA is there as well.

DLA QUICK FACTS• No civilian company performs the full DLA mission, making comparisons

inadequate. If ranked in the Fortune 500, DLA would be at #79. In Fiscal Year 2014 agency sales and revenue was $38 billion.

• Employs more than 25,000 people.

• Supports more than 2,430 weapon systems.

• Manages nine supply chains and nearly 5.3 million items.

• Administers the storage and disposal of strategic and critical materials to support national defense. In FY14, DLA received over $38 billion in excess and surplus property that was reutilized, transferred, donated and disposed.

• Manages 24 distribution centers worldwide.

• DLA supports other federal agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of the Interior, Health and Human Services as well as state and local governments.

MISSION STATEMENTProvide eff ective and effi cient global solutions to Warfi ghters and our other valued customers.

MISSION VALUESOur values defi ne who we are, how we act and how we treat one another: Integrity, Resiliency, Diversity, Innovation, Accountability, Excellence

We will realize fi ve goals:

• Warfi ghter First - Make promises and keep them

• People and Culture - Valued team members; resilient and ready for the challenge

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StratPlan MLF Ad.indd 1 5/28/15 3:56 PM

Compiled by Kmi media Group staffLOG OPS

The United States Department of Defense has awarded FWD Seagrave a $12 million contract to rebuild 92 crash fire rescue vehicles in over four years for the United States Marine Corps.

“Providing these crash fire rescue vehicles for the U.S. Marine Corps gets us back to our roots working on heavy-duty military vehicles,” Chairman and CEO A.J. Neiner said. “Our team is committed to providing superior quality and top-notch service for the Marines and we expect this to be the beginning of a long-term relationship with the U.S. military.”

The heavy equipment P-19A model airport crash fire rescue trucks will be restored to their originally manufactured condi-tion. Each vehicle will be disas-sembled down to the frame rails before the parts are refurbished or replaced and the vehicle is then reassembled. The P-19A came into service in 1984.

C-17 Passes 3 Million Flying HoursRebuilding Marine Corps CFR Vehicles

Army General Mark Milley has been nomi-nated for reappointment to the rank of general and assignment as chief of staff, U.S. Army, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. Milley

is currently serving as commander, U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort Bragg, N.C.

Admiral John M. Richardson, a career

submariner, has been recommended for assign-ment as the next Chief of Naval Operations.

Marine Corps Major General Michael G. Dana has been nomi-nated for appointment to the rank of lieu-tenant general and for assignment as deputy commandant for instal-lations and logistics. Dana is currently serving as J-5, director for strategic planning

and policy, U.S. Pacific Command, Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii.

Air Force General Paul Selva, commander of U.S. Transportation

Command, has been nominated to serve as the 10th vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Air Force Colonel Paul E. Bauman has been nominated to the rank of brigadier general. Bauman is currently serving as the commander, 319th Air Base Wing, Air Mobility Command, Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D.

Compiled by KMI Media Group staffPEOPLE

Gen. Paul Selva

Gen. Mark Milley

Adm. John M. Richardson

On May 5, the C-17 Globemaster III has proved yet again that it remains the world’s premier airlifter after the total C-17 fleet celebrated the historical milestone of achieving 3 million flying hours.

The C-17 is the only strategic airlifter in the world that has tactical capabilities that allow it to fly between conti-nents, land on short, austere runways and airdrop supplies precisely where they are needed. The C-17 fleet is in its 22nd year of operation since it was first delivered in June 1993.

Getting to the 3 millionth flying hour all started on September 15, 1991, when the aircraft made its maiden flight. The C-17 passed the 1-million-hour mark in March 2006 and the 2-million-hour mark in December 2010.

“It is such a great privilege and an honor to be a part of the C-17 program,” said Colonel Amanda Meyers, C-17 system program director. “In the C-17’s relatively short history, it has done extraordinary things.

“The platform provides unparalleled strategic and tactical airlift and airdrop capability to our nation, as well as eight other partner nations,” said Meyers. “It has become the airlifter of choice for our Air Force. The incredible part-nership between our active-duty, reserve forces and National Guard make the C-17 a huge enabler for the United States of

America. It not only allows us to fight and win our nation’s wars, but also to provide humanitarian assistance at an international level.”

The USAF has ownership of 222 C-17s and our International Allied Partners have 44. “Our partner nations also benefit greatly from the capabilities that the C-17 brings to their defense organizations and national global contributions,” said Meyers.

Meyers, who became the C-17 program director last summer, realizes now how much heavy lifting the C-17 does.

“The C-17 is where and when the nation calls, wher-ever that is, to go to war or promote peace,” said Meyers. “Our mission is to acquire and obtain safe, effective and unrivaled global reach capability.”

Along the flight with Colonel Meyers was Major General (Ret.) Robert McMahon, Boeing director of Field Operations. “As many of you know, this is Boeing’s 100th anniversary, and we have challenged each employee to build something better,” said McMahon. “I will tell you that with the C-17, we have accomplished just that—the world’s premier airlifter.”

Article by Airman 1st Class Clayton Cupit, Joint Base Charleston public affairs.

www.MLF-kmi.com4 | MLF 9.5

By William murray

mlF Correspondent

industry is delivering lighter, stronger and more Customized speCialized Cases For the military’s speCialized needs.

The ability to manufacture lighter-weight cases and containers is in high demand among DoD customers, according to vendors. Despite the ending of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, DoD orga-nizations are using cases more than ever for transporting and storing aircraft parts, communications systems, drones, medical supplies, vehicle parts, weapons systems and other mission essen-tial requirements.

For over 50 years, AAR Mobility Systems, based in Cadillac, Mich., has designed and manufactured a variety of mobility prod-ucts to support military, disaster relief and humanitarian relief operations. These products include air-transportable ISU shipping/storage containers, air/land/sea mobile shelters, pallets and pallet-ized systems. Their products are chosen by the warfighter in large part for their quick strike setup, patented mobility features, energy efficiency, LED lighting and lightweight aluminum structure that allows users to maximize their mission payload.

AAR Mobility Systems’ customer base includes U.S. and allied military agencies, defense system original equipment manufactur-ers and system integrators. With over 40 ISU container configura-tions and 800 kits available, users have a wide breadth of options to choose from. The kits allow stowage of gear via tie downs, nets, shelves, bins, trays, dividers, tool boxes and even smaller contain-ers inside. Whether the end user has a need for a fully customized kit for motor pool maintenance; or needs take a shower/latrine to a forward operating theater, AAR has got a kit for that. The UAV market is one of the most recent trends, with wings and rotors needing a safe mode of transport to and from theater.

Companies that can manufacture a greater breadth of case sizes and varieties and make them using fabrication facilities around the world can sometimes have an advantage over companies with a more limited reach, but this market features both publicly traded companies and family-owned small businesses. Having partners and

www.MLF-kmi.com MLF 9.5 | 5

distribution capabilities that can provide the best service and contract vehicles to make buying easier is also in demand, according to Stephen Smiaroski, executive director, technical packaging and busi-ness development at Pelican Products Inc., South Deerfield, Mass., a leading DoD case manufacturer.

“We are truly a global case company with manufacturing in the U.S., Europe and Australia,” Smiaroski said. “We have two case centers in the U.S., one in the UK, and one in Canada.” Pelican Products has a test lab for cases and cushioning in South Deerfield.

According to Smiaroski, one of Peli-can Products’ strengths is the company’s Package Engineering departments being positioned close to its customers and the company’s being willing to custom-man-ufacture cases. “Even though we have 500 sizes of cases, there are times that we need a new case size,” Smiaroski said. “We developed a process that is proven where we can cut a case and weld it to a new size. This is a great method for small runs or to prove a concept before building a new mold.”

“We help our customers by starting with understanding their needs (and) then our engineers design the perfect cushion-ing solution and case,” Smiaroski said of his company’s custom-ized process. Pelican Products makes case cushion systems with foam as a cushioning method, and they also manufacture ones that use metal frames with elastomeric circular wire rope shock mounts.

Another leading DoD case manufacturer, ECS Case of Grants Pass, Ore., produces more than 150 case sizes in at least 11 colors. ECS Case has patented an interlocking stacking pattern that can give cases better protection from outside elements by eliminating leak paths, according to company officials. The interlocking stack-ing pattern in ECS Loadmaster cases, in addition, can prevent corrosion and the collection of hazardous materials in cases while in transit. ECS Case is a third-generation family-owned SBA HUB Zone small business that launched in 1954 and maintains two manufacturing facilities in Oregon.

ECS Loadmaster cases feature stainless steel features and molded-in inserts that can allow external hardware to be easily changed with a screwdriver, according to ECS Case officials, who say that ECS Loadmaster cases are ideal for 463L military pallets. Loadmaster Rackmount cases can generally handle a payload of up to 350 pounds.

Robert Wilkes, chief executive officer at SKB Corporation’s military, industrial and commercial division, notes that being able to deliver a lighter-weight case that can withstand impact is a key competitive differentiator. “SKB builds a lighter-weight case that is stronger in impact strength and very price competitive,” he said of the molded polymer transport case company. Orange, Calif.-based SKB Corp., has been in business since 1977, and Wilkes is a former airline transport pilot who joined SKB in 1995 as a part-time pilot.

SKB manufactures cases for mili-tary duty using injection molding, rotational molding and thermo form-ing technologies,” Wilkes said. “SKB builds single-lid utility cases, and dou-ble-lid static rack as well as shock and vibration isolation rack cases. Cases can be standard COTS, or with cus-tom insert integration to fit the needs of the particular program,” he said.

According to Wilkes, SKB Corp. has full three-dimensional modeling capabilities and can design custom foam integration applications and new cases designs to fit specific appli-cations for DoD agencies.

There are two common molding processes used by manufacturers. Vendors typically rely on rotational molding (rotomolding) and injec-tion molding processes, allowing the customer to choose based on his or her needs. Tooling for rotomolding is generally less expensive, and the

process is more cost-effective, since it relies on heat and rotation, as opposed to injection molding, which is a more high-pressure process. Peli-

can Products conducts most metal work in-house, as well as many molds for rotomolding, according to Smiaroski.

Vendors report that the product conversion costs from one mate-rial to another in rotomolding are less because rotomolding allows the replacement of heavier and generally more costly materials with lighter, less expensive materials. Rotomolding does not depend on extreme and expensive tooling changes to switch materials, making it less expensive than injection molding for custom prototypes and larger production runs.

In addition to working on designing cases that are lighter weight but still able to withstand significant impact, vendors are continuing to work on their ability to deliver custom-designed cases to custom-ers as quickly as possible. “The ability to receive a custom case in a short amount of time” is a design breakthrough needed in the DoD market, according to Smiaroski.

While others are going smaller, ECS Case is innovating by focus-ing on larger cases for longer-term storage. Company officials have developed a vacuum-infused process (VIP) for large and uniquely crafted closer systems that are generally at least 16 square feet in size. These large and complicated molds are high-performing cases with void-free composites, and according to ECS Case officials, are ideal for aerospace, military and unoccupied aerial vehicles.

It seems, therefore, that in the DoD case market there is room for small businesses that make small cases and operating units of publicly traded companies that fabricate larger cases, containers and shelters, as well as companies that solely have a U.S. presence and ones that are more global. O

Commonality and functionality are key elements

to case design. Photo courtesy of SKB Corp.

For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at [email protected] or search our online archives for related stories

at www.mlf-kmi.com.


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MADE IN THE USA

By peter BuxBaum, mlF Correspondenton the leading edge oF a Booming teChnology.

It’s not here yet, and probably won’t be for a few years, but the U.S. armed services have visions of fabricating replacement parts and components on demand when and where they are needed. The technology required to being these visions to fruition already exists and has already been used to make machine tools and prototype parts. Advancements in materials know-how, information technology and organizational cultures will be required before the ultimate dream becomes a reality.

Additive manufacturing (AM), better known in popular culture as 3-D printing, is a technology that allows for the efficient low-run or even one-off production of parts and components by adding layer upon layer of material to create a three-dimensional product. 3-D printing, which uses machines that use ink jet-like components to supply the production material, is actually a subset of additive manufacturing. AM is the better

term to use when describing the overall phenomenon.

AM is a fairly mature technology when it comes to fabrication in plastics, mak-ing it ideal for creating prototypes and test parts. Research is under way to expand the knowledge of the behavior of metals in AM processes, a necessary condition before mis-sion-critical parts can be fabricated using AM and deployed on military vehicles and weapons systems.

Additive manufacturing has the poten-tial to revolutionize military supply chains. Instead of clogging warehouses shelves with hard-to-manufacture or impossible-to-get parts, they could instead be produced on the spot where they are needed. This would dra-matically reduce inventory costs and collapse the timeline for acquiring these parts. But AM is not without its own supply chain and logistics considerations.

Each of the armed services is working on AM, each is proceeding on somewhat different schedules and each is approaching AM from somewhat different angles as suits their needs. The state of the art at this point is to use AM to fabricate temporary machine tools used in production equipment and for the purposes of design and testing. But the just-in-time parts production vision is the ultimate goal.

“The Army has expressed interest in producing parts at the point of need. AM can help with that,” said Andy Davis, program manager of the U.S. Army Manufacturing Technology Program. “A soldier in some remote location with access to the proper technology could pull a CAD [computer-aided design] file from the cloud, run it through the printer, and have a part in a much shorter time than ordering it through the supply system.”


“We want to go as far as the imagination will can take us with AM,” said Jason Koehler, chief engineer at the Commodities Maintenance Group at Robins Air Force Base, Ga. “We’ll start with low-risk components, but making structural parts with AM is really where we want to go. We have some difficult processes to develop along the way, but the time savings and the material savings through AM will be huge.”

“One of principal drivers of AM is that parts that were designed at certain times are failing and are no longer in the supply chain,” explained Bill Frazier, chief scientist for air vehicle engineering at NAVAIR. “To keep the fleet operational, the goal is to produce parts on demand when and where they are needed. AM is uniquely suited for low-volume parts production and for com-plex shapes.”

“If we can produce parts on demand,” added Liz McMichael, NAVAIR’s additive manufacturing integrated product team lead, “we can keep the fleet much more ready and also shorten logistics and supply chain time, which also improves readiness.”

Currently, the Army is using AM to make tooling for injection molding equip-ment. “Those components are made of high-strength steel, are very expensive, and take a lot of machining time to fabricate,” said Davis. “With traditional methods it takes sev-eral weeks and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. With AM, it costs two-thousand dol-lars and takes two or three days to produce.”

At RDECOM, AM has been used to make plastic tooling for production equipment, which might have a life span of 10 uses, and is used to validate the geometry of the com-ponents. The design can then be used to fab-ricate a metal component good for 100,000 parts. Meanwhile, the ultimate replacement component, which can be used to fabricate 1 million parts, is manufactured using tra-ditional methods. The AM components allow an industrial line to continue to function while the replacement component is being fabricated. In some Army arsenals, AM has been used to fabricate non-critical parts that have been deployed on military systems, according to Davis.

At Robins AFB, hundreds of pieces of AM equipment have produced many kinds of parts and components, although not yet those that could be incorporated on air

platforms. “We have yet not produced any airworthy com-ponents in this group,” said Koehler. “We mostly use AM to produce prototype parts to validate complex geometries and structural properties.”

AM activity at NAVAIR has also emphasized the produc-tion of tooling components, but some small polymer parts have also been produced and

put into the supply system. “Those are in relatively limited use right now,” said McMi-chael. “Flight-critical items require a great deal of testing and need to meet many requirements. Those are made of materials that are well understood and are in relatively limited use right now.” Putting AM to use for metallic flight-critical components requires more research into the properties of metals such as aluminum, titanium and stainless steel, McMichael added.

Besides fabricating parts, AM could also be used to repair existing parts by adding layers of material to them. “But we need to understand the material science of con-solidating powders onto solid shapes,” said Davis. “We need to understand what is hap-pening at the molecular level so that when we slap that repaired part on a helicopter, the helicopter doesn’t fall out of the sky.”

The armed services have already made significant investments in AM machinery, but an interesting aspect of investment involves the ongoing development of the necessary data infrastructure. If AM is to achieve its potential, electronic packages will have to be transmitted around the globe so that parts manufacturing can take place where it is needed.

“When we build an airplane with an OEM partner,” McMichael explained, “the way we get data now is in a two-dimensional drawing that is sent to a repository where it is managed. For AM, we need a 3-D model and all of the data associated with that model. That is why we building what we call a digital thread. The plan is to make sure we have the information infrastructure we need for AM.”

“We also need to invest in transforming our culture,” Frazier added. “The thinking processes of organizations need to change. Besides investing in the digital thread, we are trying to transform the cultures of our busi-ness, engineering and manufacturing opera-tions. All these are enablers of AM.”

The benefits AM brings and will bring to the military can be divided into a few buckets.

On the manpower end, data are loaded into a machine and the process started, allowing personnel to do other things. The machines can work at nights and on weekends auton-omously.

AM can also save on materials, as the machines use only what is required to fabri-cate the part. Traditional manufacturing pro-cesses involve cutting away material to make the desired shape, which produces waste. Finally, of course, there is the increased speed and the lower costs of production.

“I see AM transforming two ends of the spectrum,” said Frazier. “On the acquisitions side, AM will enable the design of unique light components that will enhance endur-ance and reduce fuel consumption. On the sustainment side, AM will enhance readiness and will ultimately significantly reduce the logistics and supply chain infrastructures needed to manage parts.”

The flip side of that proposition is that AM will require its own logistics and supply chain. “You will need to have the right mate-rials and the right machines on hand at the right locations,” said Davis. “There are logis-tics associated with purchasing, transporting and storing those materials.”

Davis also sees a risk with overselling AM. “It’s the same as with any other manufactur-ing process,” he said. “It has to be used the way it was meant to be used. You can’t make everything with it.” McMichael agreed that training of personnel is an important aspect of AM innovation, both for the sake of safety, and so that people “understand what they can and can’t do with AM.”

All of the armed services are interested in AM because of its potential as an innovation enabler. As with other technologies that are introduced to military personnel, creativity often takes over and new uses for the technol-ogy are discovered by the folks in the field.

That’s what happened when NAVAIR placed a small 3-D printer in its lab. “The technicians and engineers took it from there,” said Frazier. “They made dozens of useful things that saved us money that we never even envisioned we would be capable of doing. Once AM gets out there and prolifer-ates, our creative workforce will jump on it. We have to be agile enough to expand and allow them to use AM in ways that will help us. That, I think, is where we are heading.” O

Jason koehler


at www.mlf-kmi.com.


Worldwide Aeros Corp. (Aeros) has been granted a U.S. patent for its Flight System for a Constant Volume Variable Buoyancy Air Vehicle with Onboard Control-of-Static-Heaviness (COSH) Management.

COSH technology overcomes a histor-ical limitation of airships regarding their need for external ballast, and now permits the aircraft type to engage in a broad set of new missions including long-range, heavy-lift cargo transport.

“Large-capacity airships have long been a dream for cargo logistics flexibility, but impracticable, because if you off-loaded 100 tons, your helium-filled aircraft will float away if not first loaded with 100 tons of ballast at your predetermined destination. Inefficient and limiting, this is why airships never transitioned into cargo airships,” explained Igor Pasternak, COSH inventor and CEO at Aeros. “This patent will permit only Aeros and our partners to leverage the empowerment of true VTOL in

global heavy airlift and the independence from off-board ballast and ground infra-structure this capability provides.”

Supporting infrastructure indepen-dence unique from all existing transport modes, the proven COSH technology empowers exciting new opportunities in global commercial logistics, military logis-tics, and disaster relief response, among many others.

“Greatly surpassing the speed of cargo ships in global logistics, transport airships are poised to dramatically increase heavy cargo lift capability and destination alter-natives, while reducing the current cost of air delivery on a ton/mile basis,” said the company. “Further, they’ll significantly reduce fuel consumption for aircraft opera-tions, permit new heavy load operations in remote areas, and radically alter the hub and spoke distribution structure to one of direct and flexible air delivery.”

With U.S. Navy ships staying in service for extended periods, ensuring they are ready to meet national secu-rity goals requires continual efforts. In response to this need, Alion Science and Technology, a global engineering, technology and operational solutions company, has been awarded a contract valued at up to $192 million by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Deputy Commander for Surface Warfare (SEA 21).

Alion’s technical, program, business and financial management experts will help ensure that all non-nuclear surface ships (with the exception of the littoral combat ships) are maintained and modernized during their service life. Additionally, Alion will support training systems that will familiarize crews with systems throughout each ship.

“Every surface ship, whether recently commissioned or currently in-service, must be able to meet the coun-try’s national security objectives, whether that means responding to threats or providing humanitarian support,” explained Rod Riddick, Alion executive vice president. “Alion is poised to help make certain that the fleet is fully capable of supporting the Navy’s missions from the day each ship is delivered through its service life.”

The contract, which has one base year and two option years, and two award terms, was awarded as a task order under the Navy’s Seaport-E contract.

A Defense Logistics Agency Aviation team has saved the agency more than 20 percent on parts support spanning 11 aviation platforms compared to the parts’ historical costs.

DLA Aviation’s Strategic Acquisition Programs Directorate awarded a perfor-mance-based logistics contract to Boeing in late 2013 that provides a comprehen-sive framework to support most Boeing aviation platforms. The contract has an estimated value of $12.6 billion for the 10-year performance period.

According to Tammy Kozior, DLA Aviation director of procurement opera-tions in Philadelphia, performance-based logistics (PLB) is a sustainment strategy that incentivizes contractors to reduce cost and improve warfighter support by using outcome-based metrics, incorporating best practices and including appropriate incentives.

The PBL construct is one of eight initiatives included under the focus area entitled “Incentivize Productivity and Innovation in Industry and Government” in the Department of Defense’s Better Buying Power 3.0 initiative.

The contract’s initial intent was putting sole-source consumables under a PBL construct. Kozior said that the effort has resulted in more than 2,600 items being covered so far. The contract includes the potential for growth with

depot-focused programs aligned with warfighter requirements, and already contains some depot-level items.

“We are adding additional phases under a government- and industry-developed roadmap,” she said.

DLA Aviation’s contract with Boeing also embraces “should-cost” prin-ciples and facilitates cost management throughout the life cycle of each platform supported.

“Through unprecedented data transparency, the team base-lined costs using historical pricing, demand patterns and administrative costs to deter-mine a should-cost baseline,” Kozior said. “We enlisted the help of a third-party evaluator to assist in measuring potential savings.”

“One of the most important aspects of the program is the use of a fixed-price incentive contract,” said Charlie Lilli, DLA Aviation deputy commander. “This contract type incentivizes suppliers to continually drive down costs and allows DLA and the warfighters to share in those reduced costs. The over-arching objectives of the initiative are to enhance performance and reduce cost. It is considered a model for other aviation business.”

Article by Defense Logistics Agency public affairs.

Lighter-Than-Air Patent

Ship Life Cycle Support

DLA Aviation PBL

Compiled by KMI Media Group staffSUPPLY CHAIN



2015

energy innovator

Brig. gen. Mark M. McLeodcommanderDefense Logistics Agency energy

MAXIMIZE YOUR FLEET

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FORWARD THINKING

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Brigadier General Mark M. McLeod is the commander, Defense Logistics Agency, Energy, at Fort Belvoir, Va.

McLeod entered the Air Force in 1986 after completing Officer Training School, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. In addition to his various wing maintenance positions, he has managed programmed depot repair operations, performed C-5 weapon system manager duties, served as maintenance liaison to the Republic of Korea Air Force and oversaw CENTCOM strategic sea-airlift transportation movements. He has also commanded two expeditionary mainte-nance groups, performed logistics, installation and mission support planning and programming at Headquarters Air Force and served as the director of logistics for Pacific Air Forces. Prior to his cur-rent assignment, he served as director of logistics, engineering and security cooperation for Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii.

His major awards and decorations include: Defense Superior Service Medal with oak leaf cluster; Legion of Merit Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster; Defense Meritorious Service Medal; Meritori-ous Service Medal with oak leaf cluster; Air Force Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster; and Joint Service Commendation Medal.

Q: You not only manage fuel for DoD, but also for other federal agencies. Can you talk about the process?

A: Yes, and it’s not just fuel, it’s fuel and energy. DLA traditionally was a petroleum organization, and I think we really diversified ourselves beyond fuel into energy.

Our process is really a collaborative process on several fronts as we partner with our service customers—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, etc. The Army, in particular, is doing a tremendous amount of work at the installation level in terms of alternative fuels. Just recently at Fort Detrick, Md., and at Fort Drum, N.Y., they insti-tuted renewable capabilities to create installation energy resilience and independence. Added to that are all the benefits from the fuel savings and the cost of operation of the renewable systems.

This is a collaborative process with us acting on the service’s behalf as the acquisition and contracting agent. So there’s a very structured program where we’re DoD’s acquisition and contracting arm.

With our whole-of-government customers, there’s a lot of market-ing and a lot of outreach that we do to try to encourage people to use the umbrella contracts.

The size of our buying power gives us some leverage with suppli-ers to help drive the lowest prices for our customers. As a result, there have been a large number of direct delivery fuel contracts, and a lot of savings for our customers as a result.

Both DLA Energy and DLA headquarters are both very active, with the DLA J3 being directly involved in our outreach to other services

and government customers. The director and the J3 hold meetings frequently to make sure everyone knows about the capabilities we can deliver and the savings we can pass along.

Q: Do you have to convince them to use these contract vehicles?

A: I don’t know if I’d portray it that way. About 75 percent of the whole-of-government customers fall under our various authorities. We do have to educate the remaining 25 percent about our initiatives and push efficiencies in energy that we can offer.

I wouldn’t portray it as hard to find customers; I would portray it as figuring out the best way forward that works for each customer.

For many agencies and interagency organizations, it may mean a transition in their business process and how the changes could be attractive in terms of savings. Over the years, we’ve been able to cap-ture more and more of the energy market.

Q: How does your budget look by FY16?

A: We operate on a Defense Working Capital Fund revolving account. Rates are set at the Department of Defense with our collaboration in terms of product cost, product development and product delivery.

Infrastructure is also factored in, as DLA controls probably about two-thirds of the DoD infrastructure energy, so we are able to embed

Brigadier General Mark M. McLeodCommander

Defense Logistics Agency Energy

Energy InnovatorManaging Fuel and Energy for DoD and Whole-of-Government Customers

Q&AQ&A

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DEFEnsE LoGistiCs AGEnCy

MAXIMIZE YOUR FLEET

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30,000+ vehicles in service

PROVEN SUPPORT

100+ years of success maintaining large fleets

FORWARD THINKING

Next-generation tactical vehicles for the future of warfare


Brad B. BunnDirector

DLA Human Resources (J1)

Rear Adm. Vincent Griffith SC, USN, Director,

DLA Logistics Operations (J3)

Lt. Gen. Andy Busch, USAF Director


Brig. Gen. Allan E. Day USAF, Commander

DLA Aviation

Marshall EversDirector, DLA Office of Inspector General

Col. Elizabeth Delbridge-KeoughUSA, Commander

DLA Europe and Africa

David KochActing-executive director

Joint Contingency Acquisition Support Office

Col. Derrin E. Williams USA, Commander

DLA Central

Fred T. PribbleDLA General Counsel (DG)

Marvin WenbergActing-director

DLA Installation Support

Col. Richard A. Ellis USA, Commander

DLA Pacific

Brig. Gen. (P) Steven A. Shapiro USA, Commander

DLA Troop Support

Headquarters

Corporate staff

2015

Headquarters

Michael O. Cannon Director

DLA Disposition Services

Edward J. Case Vice Director


Command Sgt. Maj. Charles M. Tobin, USA Senior Enlisted Leader


Rear Adm. John G. King SC, USN, Commander

DLA Land and Maritime

Renee L. RomanChief of Staff


Brig. Gen. Mark M. McLeod USAF, Commander

DLA Energy

Brig. Gen. Richard B. Dix USA, Commander DLA Distribution

Ronnie FavorsAdministrator

DLA Strategic Materials

Stephen T. ShermanDirector

DLA Document Services

Raymond ZingarettiDirector

DLA Logistics Information Services

Matthew R. BeebeDirector

DLA Acquisition (J7)

Kathy CutlerDirector, DLA Information

Operations (J6)

Phyllisa GoldenbergDirector, DLA Strategic Plans and Policy (J5)

Rear Adm. Ron J. MacLaren

USN, DirectorJoint Reserve Force (J9)

J. Anthony Poleo Director

DLA Finance (J8)

Amy SajdaDirector

DLA Small Business (DB)

the cost for the care and upkeep of that infrastructure into the price for the customer.

There’s also an administrative fee from DLA that usually runs less than 3 percent of the cost. This covers the acquisition, program management and oversight and the umbrella of services we provide each customer.

We were very well-postured for FY15 and also for FY16. Right now, where the working capital fund rates are set and the market price of fuel is very attractive. We’ve been able to lower our rates to our customers and still build a cash reserve, which is very valuable to the department. It is a bank account at the end of the year that can offer something back to our customers; it can also be a bit of an investment tool up front for capabilities that we rebuild on their behalf.

Let’s circle back to the Defense Working Capital Fund. The rates are set such that there is stability for the service customers. In essence, think of this as “hedging” for the customer so they have stability of rates. But I want you to think about hedging in terms of service stabil-ity, in that the customer doesn’t have to plan for anything worse than the rate they have already been quoted.

This is the kind of stability that comes from DLA Energy and through the Defense Working Capital Fund.

Q: How do you buy fuel? Do you purchase at negotiated rates for a set period or do you also physically acquire the fuel?

A: It’s the former in our case. What you find in terms of how DoD works with the commercial supply chain is that we make niche prod-ucts. Our products have specific requirements to meet specific needs, but we are starting to take a different approach in some cases.

Take aviation fuel, for example. We used to take a fuel labeled JP8, a very niche fuel. Now, we take commercial-grade aviation fuel and add additives that match JP8 specifications.

Although DoD is a very large consumer of fuel, we are not abnor-mally large compared to other customers around the world. And in general, the idea of long-term contracts is not something that the commercial industry has warmed to. We’ve obviously explored that as we talked about hedging, but most of our contracts are really short-term contracts that take advantage of price points.

To answer the question as to whether we store fuel. The answer is yes, we absolutely do because there are two parts of the equation for DLA Energy for the warfighter. There’s the operational need and there is this in-case-of-emergency-break-glass oil reserve that we have at various places around the world. That’s more where we get into actu-ally buying and storing fuel.

The other thing to think about in terms of capacity is that it is very expensive to hold inventory. So we are always trying to find a balance between an oil reserve inventory you need for operational needs and the reserve you need on a critical surge basis.

If we built the infrastructure to support hedge inventory, we would have to spend a lot of money or create a lot of contract storage require-ments. We would be spending so much that we could easily lose any price point advantage as a result.

Q: How do you view the industrial base and ensure it is strong and viable?

A: Two points to that. With JP5 Navy aviation fuel, for example, which has a number of safety precautions built into it because it’s a carrier

fuel, we’re working very aggressively to maintain the relationships with all of its producers to ensure that the product line stays open.

Another dynamic is the use of commercially based fuels with us using additives to meet our requirements. This is good for industry in that they keep producing fuels for their global base and good for us because a gallon of JP8 is more expensive than a gallon of commercial fuel with our additives added to create our own JP8. We saved about $25 million for the Air Force just in terms of what we’ve done so far in the CONUS locations.

And it’s not just aviation fuel, but also ultra-low-sulfur marine fuel, a diesel-based product used for ground operations that with a little bit of refinement becomes completely acceptable for marine fuel—F76 in our lexicon. What you’re seeing around the world is migration to this low-sulfur diesel that works in ground vehicles but also works in a ship and might well fill the same requirements for us if we can get that specification to match very closely with our requirements.

We’re working with Australians right now to try and bolster their commercial supply chain. They realized that their niche products for the military are basically going out of existence and are adapting to commercial-based products. They have a product called ADF-10, which is an ultra-low sulfur ground-based diesel, which they’ve already started putting on their ships. Based on this product, the Australians asked if we could interoperate on that fuel. So we’re studying that right now, and looking at the specifications between our marine fuel and theirs. So far we are a match on 13 of 16 specifications. If it works, this kind of interoperability bolsters their supply chain and advances our warfighting capabilities by allowing us to operate without a separate infrastructure where we can buy off the commercial market.

Q: An example of the warfighter’s capability?

A: For many years, we’ve set up infrastructure based on what we thought the requirements were, and now you talk about evolving and emerging and near-peer competitors like the reestablishment of Russia in EUCOM and China’s expansion out in the South China Sea. When the infrastructure was first envisioned and developed, the threats looked different than they do today and there are bound to be friction points. Let’s say, for example, that China develops some anti-access/area-denial capability; DLA Energy now has to figure out how to adapt our infrastructure to that environment.

War plans change as conditions change. In essence, we have infra-structure relatively close in Japan, Korea and Guam, as well as reach-back to Hawaii. Now, we have to figure out perhaps how to redistribute that a little bit closer to where the requirements are.

We’ve been working these issues over time, and what we’re finding is our fuel infrastructure isn’t quite what it needs to be. We’re working with the COCOMs to do a couple of things, one is to move the fuel out where they will need it. Ideally, we want to have this in DoD capabilities that were built through MILCON—but if we have commercial actions in place, we may not need that kind of infrastructure.

Better yet are partnerships with other nations that allow DLA customers to use something similar to a credit card to buy what they need. We have hundreds of these kinds of agreements in place around the world to bring those kinds of capabilities into our warfighters’ planning thoughts.

I just don’t operate from one location; I can literally become agile enough and resilient enough to operate from hundreds of locations in terms of the fuel that we can provide.

www.MLF-kmi.com4 | MLF 9.5 | Defense Logistics Agency


Q: When using these contract mechanisms around the world, how do you ensure the quality and security of the product?

A: What an awesome question. First, we deal in very large contracts and very large bulk like

the rest of the commercial industry does. The agreements we have with the Exxons and Totals of the world, which were fully utilized in Liberia during the Ebola crisis, provide an assurance of product delivery. At the same time, when you go down into other parts of Africa where you’re just buying marine gas and oil off of the market, you don’t know a lot about the quality. Therefore, we have a very strong understanding of the major ports that we flow through. On behalf of DoD, DLA runs very robust quality oversight processing with the services and our customers. We have people and contracts that sample the fuel in storage and as it moves into our vessels to ensure its quality. This gives us constant monitoring over all of our contract sites.

When we first went into Liberia, we set up a contract with Total. They had most of the infrastructure there and we had other contracts in place with them as well. They had quality assurance inspections in place that envisioned the quality when the fuel was turned over to us, and we in turn had our quality assurance teams verify the quality.

Another issue with fuel quality comes from long-term storage issues of fuel. We are seeing some of this in the Pacific right now. We are seeing this with some of these fuels, in that we are encounter-ing unknown particulates in the fuel that we are looking into with some of the defense research labs. These issues have manifested themselves a couple of times in the Pacific with very short-term consequences to the fleet such as some clogged filters, for example.

We have spent a lot of time thinking about fuel quality with our service partners and providers to understand that we need a solid chain of custody right up until the product is pumped into the U.S. ship, plane or vehicle.

We are also focused on the security of the energy supply chain. Everything from product quality to cyber-security can impact the

delivery of energy products. We’re working with NORTHCOM to address those very issues. For example, we’re putting contract lan-guage into our existing contracts for cyber-protection.

One last point on commercialization. For the last 20 years, we have been fighting a commercial fight. If you think about Afghanistan and Iraq, and even the Gulf wars before, they were fought off commercially supplied products that we basically turned into warfighting capability.

We’re still doing that—we just did it in Liberia. We are now a commercial-first organization. Prior to Iraq and Afghanistan, we did the fighting off of the military capabilities and then waited for the com-mercial supply chain to come in and backfill the requirements. We’ve flipped that in practice for the past two decades, and we’re beginning to strengthen those ties to the commercial industry because they reflect warfighter power, resiliency and efficiency, and lower infrastructure and life-cycle costs for us in the long run.

Q: Is DoD/DLA working off of a single energy roadmap?

A: Most of the efforts that are going on in the department right now are service initiatives because the services have been given challenges by the White House, the EPA and the Department of Defense itself to achieve certain levels of energy efficiency.

What the services do is look to us in terms of buying power in terms of our ability to negotiate longer-term agreements. For example, there was just recently a 26-year agreement at Fort Detrick, Md. sup-ported by agreements with local providers to produce solar and other types of renewable energy. These types of long-term contracts succeed because they guarantee providers have a revenue stream and give the customer—the military—reliable and resilient power at lower costs. Long-term contracts are what DLA does really well.

We are also involved with the services’ look at alternative fuel. For example, the Navy’s Great Green Fleet has been working with us to try to come up with a bio-based alternative fuel product. DLA’s role is to make sure that bio-product is a specification match to our exist-ing petroleum products. We want to drive the industry to produce that spec product, making sure that it is absolutely transparent to

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the customer and there are no worries about it fouling highly tuned, turbine-based spec engines that run on spec fuel.

Our ability to create longer-term contracts is almost an invest-ment capital idea—the military comes in and provides confidence to the market, which provides some incentive to the manufacturer to get and stay involved. We’re working with the Navy to get the specification right, and then we can see what the market will do and whether the manufacturers will produce it, and at what price point.

As you might expect in a market that has lower prices for petro-leum products, there’s a tremendous amount of scrutiny, so we’re not just stumbling through this but working to make sure the quality and price come together.

Q: That stability could be a real incentive to a company.

A: Amen. There’s a company involved in some of our West Coast solici-tations that was in the process of acquiring their own fuel plant that would let them develop their own local biofuel product. Having the prospect of a guarantee that comes with a government contract gives them the confidence to make the investment.

From here, we’re going to seed the market and help launch it. The other thing that’s been really good is that there’s an Agri-

culture Department subsidy available that the Navy has been taking advantage of. There is funding available to farmers to produce the crops, and the Navy cleverly partnered with those guys and said, “If we use those farm products in order to create fuel products, could we use the ag subsidy?”—and the Agriculture Department agreed.

So now, part of the West Coast solicitation is the ability to help the industry set up their infrastructure by providing a little bit of price point parity for them—Congressional guidance right now is no more than 10 percent of the price point.

For our West Coast solicitation, we’re optimistic that a couple companies will meet that price point. We’ll see if they can meet the spec; that’s the second point. Within that price point construct, we think that we would establish the market and allow them, with market input, to invest in their own processes and bring prices down.

Q: What about your niche fuel business, like rocket aerospace fuels?

A: That’s the exotic side of fuels. If you look at the number of products that DLA Energy actually produces, it’s something like 44 specifi-cations of fuel. People mainly think about the gas, diesel, marine, aviation, etc. But there are also specialized markets like hydrazines, a volatile but powerful propellant used not only in military aircraft for alternate power, but in space as well. They’re very compact, high-net-energy kinds of products.

The commercial side of space-related launches is dependent on supplies that we provide. The same goes in the R&D world; if someone wants to do research into providing a new kind of rocket, they may ask us to provide that fuel base for their research.

Helium is another one. It’s not often thought of in the same cat-egory as specialized rocket propellant, but in the ISR world, helium is important.

Like a lot of niche products in aerospace, helium is a commodity with a fair amount of contraction in the commercial market. Fewer and fewer providers are becoming the broad providers for the world. So, our ability to partner with these providers is even reaching out beyond some of our traditional ways.

For example, we’re having a lot of conversations to find out who the helium users are. Universities use a tremendous amount of helium for research. As a result, we’re partnering with universities to see if we can apply these same umbrella contracts, take over that workload they have for acquisition, and provide them a cheaper product. The end result would also bolster our industries.

We’re taking this same kind of approach with the bulk world for the aerospace communities. The aerospace world, even within DLA Energy, stretches far and wide. Down at the old Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, they do a lot of work for NASA. Their fuel requirements are for both standard fuels as well as highly specialized fuels—many necessary for no-fail mission scenarios. Our ability to have back-up products for that no-fail scenario is an active part of our business.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

A: We’ve talked a lot about focus—especially through the eyes at the combatant command level. That’s our primary objective.

In the past few years, because the government has been taking a look at being more effective and more efficient, every agency has been handed down guidance to find ways to do that

We’ve taken an active role in that. We’ve looked at our infrastruc-ture; we’ve done things to tighten our belt and become better in our jobs. In doing that we found that our ability to support the combatant commanders needs a refocus.

We have plenty of fuel—we can get it from anywhere. The global ability of DLA to move a global commodity is unlimited. The challenge is translating that to the warfighter. The tactical and operational hand-off of that commodity needs to become more resilient. It has changed the focus away from being effective and efficient globally to being effec-tive and efficient operationally and tactically.

We’re working with our combatant commands to move capabil-ity forward to where they need it. We’re doing that in PACOM; we’re doing that in EUCOM; we’re bolstering that in NORTHCOM. We had a wargame in PACOM that laid out all of this strategy. We’re working very closely on the next wargame in EUCOM next year that will build on that. We’re focusing on what the customers’ eyes are on and the challenges they see.

At the same time, OSD is giving us some very clear demand signals on infrastructure. OSD’s perspective is that you have to provide a level of yearly funding to keep operationally ready.

We have to make sure that that DoD infrastructure is robust.What OSD has been telling us is they don’t think we’re invest-

ing enough money in order to maintain that infrastructure. I tend to agree largely because no one in the past has been the king of the infrastructure. DLA controls about two-thirds of it in terms of our capitalized sites that we provide to our customers. The services own about another one-third, which accounts for unit-level fuel activities.

Having a better understanding of what that whole requirement is and what the actual bill is to keep it robust is something we’re working with OSD on right now.

The third piece of this is the efficiency piece. You have to make sure that you can fight through the eyes of the customer, that you have the resources to do that and that you don’t waste money.

Once we understand our infrastructure and determine that we need to push more fuel in one location rather than another, it becomes part of a right-sizing exercise to ensure the warfighter’s needs are met.

That’s exactly the strategy we’re executing now. O

www.MLF-kmi.com6 | MLF 9.5 | Defense Logistics Agency


Tapestry Solutions was recently awarded the Global Decision Support System (GDSS) contract for applica-tion support services with the United States Air Force. GDSS operates in real-time, or near real-time, to accu-rately direct or redirect forces and provide current air operations situ-ational awareness.

GDSS replaced multiple legacy systems with a single-enhanced Command and Control (C2) decision support system using open systems infrastructure and a shared rela-tional database. AMC’s C2 decision support system assists the Defense

Transportation System in executing mobility force movements around the globe.

“Being able to sustain and enhance GDSS to further extend C2 capabilities to the warfighter is important to Tapestry Solutions,” stated Tony Rigazzi, vice president, defense product group. “We look forward to working with GDSS stake-holders to enhance and solidify the Mobility Air Forces ability to operate across the full spectrum of military operations.”

The five-year contract is valued at more than $47 million. All work

will be performed for the Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., started in April 2015. Tapestry

Solutions, a subsidiary of The Boeing Company, will maintain and enhance GDSS through September 2019.

Enhancing Air Mobility Agility

Compiled by KMI Media Group staffSUPPLY CHAIN

The Air Force has selected Array Information Technology (ARRAY) to lead a significant modernization of the Standard Base Supply System (SBSS), a critical system within the USAF supply chain.

ARRAY, along with its partners NTT Data, TSRI and PracTrans, will soon begin a critical modernization of ILS-S. ILS-S is the overarching program name for an integrated family of data systems supporting base-level supply chain management applications. ILS-S provides supplies and equipment support to daily and wartime flying missions for the Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units at 260 sites with more than 15,000 users throughout the United States and around the world.

“We are honored to be awarded the tremendous responsibility for modernizing the ILS-S,” said Mark Douglas, director of transformation at ARRAY and a former Air Force supply officer. “The SBSS component of ILS-S is a critical system for the Air Force that has performed amaz-ingly well since it was originally fielded in the 1960s. This modernization will dramatically increase the maintainability and affordability of this foundational Air Force supply chain capability. Achieving success on this modernization using industry leading technology and processes will open the door for similar modernizations on countless other Air Force data systems.”

The Greater St. Louis Federal Executive Board recently presented the 2015 Excellence in Government awards. Members of U.S. Transportation Command’s Africa Region Intelligence Support Branch, Intelligence Directorate, Operations Division, Scott Air Force Base, Ill., were among those honored.

“This program is the Greater St. Louis Federal Executive Board high-light of Public Service Recognition Week as authorized by Congress, and is our opportunity to salute the very best of the federal workforce,” said Lynn Schulte, Greater St. Louis Federal Executive Board. “These are the very best ‘Top 40’ of the (more than) 20,000 employees in our FEB area. We received 74 Excellence in Government nominations this year.”

The TRANSCOM team earned the award for work during the Ebola crisis. The award nomination stated, “The team is responsible for assessing

logistics infrastructure on the African continent to support United States Africa Command and interagency operations. The branch was challenged by the sheer scope of its responsibilities supporting numerous humani-tarian responses to crises, to include the international response to the outbreak of the Ebola Virus in Western Africa.”

Modernizing the Standard Base Supply System

TRANSCOM Team Recognized for Ebola Response


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Lieutenant General Andy BuschDirector


Supply Chain AlignerAligning and innovating Acquisition and Business Practices

Lieutenant General Andy Busch is the director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). He is responsible for leading the Defense Department’s only combat support agency specializing in logistics. The agency provides the military services with a wide range of consumable items such as food, fuel, uniforms and medical sup-plies, as well as the majority of the spare parts used in repairing and maintaining military equipment. In addition, DLA manages the reutilization of military equipment and provides a variety of logistics information products, as well as document automation and produc-tion services. DLA has a workforce of more than 25,000 located in 48 states and 28 countries.

Busch earned his commission in 1979 as a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo. He is a logistician with a core background in fighter aircraft maintenance. As an aircraft maintenance officer, he served in a variety of sortie production roles and commanded three maintenance squadrons and a maintenance wing. He also has experience in supply, transportation and acquisi-tion issues at the wholesale logistics level. Prior to his current assign-ment, he was vice commander, Air Force Materiel Command.

Busch is Level III-certified in life-cycle logistics and Level II-certified in program management, and is a designated Joint Quali-fied Officer.

His major awards and decorations include: Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster; Defense Superior Service Medal; Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster; Defense Meritorious Service Medal; Meri-torious Service Medal with four oak leaf clusters; Air Force Commen-dation Medal; and Joint Meritorious Unit Award with oak leaf cluster.

Q: Let’s start here with money. If you were testifying about the DLA’s FY16’s budget right now, what would you say are the chal-lenges that the budget creates for you? How are you addressing them and what’s the move-forward plan?

A: So, my thoughts on the budget question are in two areas: one is how I would communicate with the workforce and how I have com-municated with the workforce in the past. I would look back at the Department of Defense outlays over the past 40 or so years, which have been very cyclical.

The point to make to them today is that we’ve been here before. Now maybe that 28-year-old employee hasn’t been here before, but the 36-years time-and-service lieutenant general has been here before, and I have a whole lot of people in this building who have that same level of experience. They need to bring to bear that experience to say, “We’ve done this. We’re going to do it again. We’re going to come out a stronger agency and we’re going to continue to provide support.”

I think Winston Churchill said, “Now that we’re out of money, we’re going to have to start thinking.” There’s nothing like running out of money to make you start looking at business practices you didn’t want to embrace earlier.

That’s one part of the answer. I think the second issue is in terms of how I would testify to Congress. I would ensure consistent messaging with my DoD leadership—the potentially very challenging and damag-ing impact of sequestration—we need relief from that.

I saw sequestration’s impact when I was in my last job as the vice commander at the Air Force Materiel Command. I was operating at a major command and saw a lot of things with regard to how we executed our mission and the impact it had on people as we moved into furlough. Even if we had pulled back from furlough at the last moment, the stress caused by the preparation was something we shouldn’t take lightly. Even if the furlough didn’t happen, it was a stressful event.

I think the department has been commenting on alternatives to sequestration, with an option being some kind of budget relief. It would be my preference that any relief be considered in multiple years; otherwise, it doesn’t give us the kind of sustained messaging we need to send to industrial partners and to our workforce—that programs we start are going to be sustained moving forward.

Q: Does DLA have a planning group that’s working on a sequestra-tion-affected budget that would meet your goals if it went into effect?

A: Right now, no, we are not. As we get closer to the end of the fiscal year and are still operating in an environment where there is not a solution, then we will work in earnest following DoD’s direction.

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One thing I learned as a senior leader from the FY12 and FY13 experience was there were a few things that we said would never happen—and they did. From a learning experience, what I took away from the last round of sequestration is to be ready for those things we thought would never happen because the law is the law, and it triggered some consequences that we need to be prepared to address.

We will begin preparing in earnest, but right now I think I would not do so without some direction and intent from the department leadership.

Q: In the past, I’ve heard you talk about a real desire to closer align or better align DLA with the combatant commanders. What will it take to do that?

A: As you probably know, this is my third time at DLA. I was here as an O-5, a lieutenant colonel in ’95. I was at Richmond as a one-star in 2007 and now I’m back in DLA again.

I have these snapshots of time in my mind when I answer ques-tions like that. One example I use to talk about the agency’s alignment is to look at Pacific Command because I traveled out there in February. In 1995, we had about 200 people in PACOM and today we have about 1,200. A great many are blue-collar tradesmen responsible for distribu-tion or disposition services. If you look at the at the penetration of all of our supply chains, all of our significant activities like distribution planning or disposition services or even things like JCASO, the Joint Contingency Acquisition Support Office that we provide, are pushed out into every major headquarters and subordinate headquarters in the Pacific theater. It’s very difficult to go to a place where Americans are going to do DoD business and not see a DLA presence that’s appro-priate to support the mission—and if they’re not there, I guarantee you they’ll be flying there from somewhere.

Right now, we’re preparing for the next generation of the Marine Corps Rotational Force - Darwin (Australia). We don’t really have any-one in Darwin that supports the operation, but it’s a major initiative so we’re planning on the second phase of the rotation and we want people directly supporting the operation.

Across the board, what we’re doing with the combatant command-ers is focusing on where we are now and where we need to be. “We do something for every combatant commander” is the message I provide them. We’re looking for their signals to see whether or not we can improve in certain areas, and I’ve received feedback from the combat-ant commanders or their deputies that we’re working on.

Beyond doing something for every combatant commander, a key point I want to make is that my relationship with TRANSCOM is spe-cial because of the overlay of our business processes and because the missions we support are so interwoven. I probably spend more time with General Selva’s (TRANSCOM commander) staff than the others just because of the general nature of our relationship.

Q: Let’s switch gears and talk about Better Buying Power and more timely Better Buying Power 3.0. How does that impact DLA and what does it mean for DLA?

A: When I interviewed with Mr. Kendall a year ago, I had my elevator speech of things I wanted to work on; one that occurred to me was the opportunity of more closely aligning DLA by activities for better buying power principles.

If you read all of the Better Buying Power versions—1.0, 2.0, 3.0—they very much looked like directions for program managers

and major weapon systems, and one could think they’re not really speaking to DLA. I don’t think I would agree with this view, so I talked to Mr. Kendall to say that I wanted to strengthen that alignment. His response to me was “Better buying is all about continuous process improvement (CPI).” So, if we look at the $35 billion to $40 billion of taxpayer money we’re responsible for spending every year, I don’t think we can claim that continuous process improvement is not in our job description. It’s something we need to do.

Feedback I received from him and what I’m passing on to our folks is the messaging of continuous process improvement. We’re looking at areas similar to Admiral Harnitchek’s $13 Billion in Six Years initiative, where he wanted to wrestle $13 billion in savings over six years. That was a large enterprise-level effort that I would like to build on with CPI.

The other thing related to Better Buying Power is innovation and acquisition in our business practices. My messaging to the workforce has been along the lines of performance-based logistics (PBLs). I think there are opportunities with PBLs and possibly other innovations and business practices. I also spoke to Mr. Kendall about exploring ways to improve our success in PBLs. While they are very hard to develop and deliver, once we have PBLs, we are generally pleased with them.

The last Better Buying Power focus we want for the agency is improved tradecraft and acquisition. My predecessor issued direction on improving the professionalization of the workforce by requiring a large range of our employees to obtain life-cycle logistics certifications under the DAWIA certification processes. What was left to me is the implementation.

We have to work on refining, which includes working with DAU to develop coursework that provides a more DLA-related focus, and we have to work on incentivizing and motivating our senior executives to participate in the process.

So, I see Better Buying Power impacting DLA in three areas: con-tinuous process improvement; innovation in our business practices; and professionalization of our workforce.

Q: Several months ago, Heidi Shyu gave a talk, which focused on the analogy of the acquisition bus and the challenges to a program man-ager bringing their program in on time and within budget—including lots of regulation and lots of stakeholders. Is there a way you have found of empowering program managers and improving acquisition efficiency?

A: I didn’t see Ms. Shyu’s acquisition bus analogy, although it really rings true with me.

You know though, from a major weapons systems acquisitions perspective, the only thing that we do here are the major information system programs, and we have been very successful with them. With much credit going to DLA leadership before me, guys like Keith Lip-pert, Al Thompson, Bob Dail and our own staff have delivered on our enterprise business system, which was developed as BSM (Business Systems Modernization).

Given all the challenges with bringing on these enterprise sys-tems, why was DLA successful at developing our program? Without the benefit of seeing Ms. Shyu’s chart, I would say we don’t have the acquisition bus. We don’t have a lot of drivers with their own steering wheels and their own brakes, and that’s allowed us to deliver on the promise of our ERP.

Mr. Kendall talked about it a year ago when I interviewed with him, and he brought it up again in February when he said he wanted to create a business system center of excellence in DLA. I think there’s


some recognition that DLA has an extended and sustained history of developing these systems and controlling the effects of that analogy that Ms. Shyu talked about.

With regard to the rest of our business, getting out of information systems, I think the area in which we see a lot people with steering wheels and brakes are on PBLs. So, I look at DLA, and I said the DLA I joined in 1995 was very transactional. If you want a part, we’ll go buy the part, we’ll stock the part, we’ll deliver the part, et cetera, and if you have a problem you’ll deal with us on a transactional basis.

Five to seven years ago, we were really expanding on the long-term contract coverage for a lot of our items by having strategic sourcing arrangements with our big companies and some of our subsystem providers. Now we’re getting into the PBL environment. In the long-term contract area and in the PBL area, there are a lot of interactions with our customers together to come up with common metrics, the right funding strategies and the right motivation—industry has to be on board as well.

We do have, but probably to a lesser extent, some of the exact same features that Ms. Shyu talked about. Every one of our big, long contracts that we’re signing today unfortunately will take years to develop—PBLs are taking longer. So we have to fight the things that she talks about.

Q: Everyone seems to praise the PBL, but yet it seems to me that the number of PBL contracts that are written are relatively few, and don’t reflect that enthusiasm. So much like there are goals for small

business—how much of your business has to go toward small busi-nesses—would it be worthwhile to think about some similar goals for a PBL?

A: I think the department took a big step forward with the PBL Hand-book, but it was published three or more years ago. It’s a very good document. I read it; in fact, I read it several times in the last year before coming into this job. I think it helps us with common definitions.

Let me go back to Better Buying Power. You know, Mr. Kendall has a clear expectation that we explore the use of PBLs anywhere pos-sible. He asks, “What is your addressable market?” What he’s saying is, okay, you have your portfolio. How much of it is appropriate for PBL relationships?

To answer your immediate question, I don’t know right now what percentage of our portfolio is appropriate for PBLs. What I do know from experience in delivering them is it takes a long time; it takes will-ing partners between industry, the service we support (or services if it’s a multi-service PBL), and us to make it happen.

PBLs are an alignment of everyone’s interest. In our strategic plan, we have a goal that focuses on that part of Better Buying Power, innovation, which would translate into PBLs. So far, nothing is set in terms of what the addressable market is—do we want to have five major PBLs or do we want to have X billion dollars covered under PBLs? That’s what we are developing right now. This will help us address what Mr. Kendall has asked us to do, and we’ll continue to work on that.

RAPIDGate-Logisitcs-02192015.indd 1 2/27/15 9:31 AM


Q: What is your role in cybersecurity in protecting DLA and its supply chains?

A: Our J6, Kathy Cutler, has that responsibility. She has computer emergency response teams (CERT) that respond to intrusions and abnormal activity. So far at the current threat level, the CERT teams have delivered on the threat at the level that it is presented to us.

In the broader context of what I said earlier on my work with the combatant commanders, our business systems in many ways are linked with TRANSCOM. We have a very robust relationship with General Selva and Admiral Brown of TRANSCOM on a series of issues, one of which is cybersecurity. In fact, it was a day one issue.

TRANSCOM is a combatant commander that receives a high level of support from Cyber Command. Therefore, my interest is in aligning myself as much as possible to TRANSCOM for the kinds of cyber protection and cyber awareness that General Selva receives. That’s part of what we are exploring with TRANSCOM and Cyber Command, but it’s still too early to see whether that will work out.

Q: What is DLA’s approach to inventory control, monitoring of inventory levels and deposal of excess material?

A: It’s a balance. On the one hand, I have DoD policy and national expectations that I won’t let the inventory grow by leaps and bounds. Therefore, I will continue down the path that Admiral Harnitchek was on in terms of reducing the inventory where appropriate, where the policy says that there is no future use based on demand history or we have way beyond anything that economic retention would warrant keeping it. We will continue to meet those objectives nationally.

Weapons systems managers who need one item that is some-where in our system is a different issue that focuses on demand planning and collaboration. Here’s an example. I was just down at Fleet Readiness Center Southeast in Jacksonville recently, and we were talking about the challenges the Navy is having with the F/A-18. In a scenario not uncommon within the Department of Defense, we will have plans to retire our weapons systems, but then the reality of the follow-on system acquisition will cause us to have to extend operations of the legacy system—in this case, some ver-sions of the F/A-18. The Navy is not retiring some of the systems at the rate they expected and the supply chain has to react. The way we do this is by embedding the demand planning function and the collaboration function with the weapons systems manager to ensure we’re buying just what we need. If we try and do this remotely, if we do it at arm’s length, the accuracy of our support and the targeting of our support are going to suffer.

One of the benefits that came out of the BRAC round in 2005 when we consolidated the stock, storage and distribution functions is that it created a fairly large DLA footprint at the services’ industrial activities. Now, at each of our depots, we have a DLA footprint that works the collaborative efforts to ensure we have the right parts at the right time and we don’t build excess inventory at a national level.

Q: And that allows you to be more engaged in supply chain decisions at a much earlier point in the process?

A: Yes, we are at a much farther forward footprint and working hand in hand with the program managers. Whatever the scope is that they decide, we’ll work on the materials list together and ensure the right amount of inventory is available.

Q: Is 3-D printing—additive manufacturing—a factor with DLA? Are you investing in that technology?

A: Yes, we do. 3-D printing and additive manufacturing is a current R&D focus for us. We have projects that are focused in this area and we are pursuing it.

As an R&D project, the thing that I worry about—based per-haps on experiences watching the Services R&D projects is how we migrate those research projects into implementation.

The old valley of death scenario comes to mind where we cross that valley of death from when the good idea is hatched and the project is delivered to somebody who will actually use it.

For 3-D printing and additive manufacturing, we are actually in the infancy of getting to where I have a service customer who will accept the product that we provide through this new manufactur-ing technology. I know one of our major customers has established a goal, over the course of the next three years, to develop the pro-cesses that will allow us to develop flight-critical parts through the additive manufacturing process—that’s a big step. It’s okay to do additive manufacturing for a coffee cup where the most important thing is to make sure the handle stays on. It’s something completely different for a flight-critical part—that’s an entirely different reality.

We’ll continue to work with that customer because there will be some proof-of-concept lessons learned that we can take to our other customers who have an interest in the process as well.

My goal is to create linkage in the R&D project to a customer who is willing to invest the engineering resources to accept the parts we’re trying to produce.

Q: Do those customers pay for that services from you, or is that developed on your R&D dime?

A: The current effort I’m describing is mostly through DLA’s limited R&D budget. But that’s not to say if we find a willing partner and can use other people’s money to help advance the research that we would not work with them.

If we can demonstrate an ability to create a productive relation-ship with the service’s engineering activities, such that they will buy into what we are trying to produce through additive manufacturing, then I think we have a way ahead.

Q: I believe it was your predecessor Admiral Harnitchek who started the Captains of Industry forum. Is that a process you see continuing in one form or another?

A: Yes, Captains of Industry was started under Mark and I do see it continuing. But I will answer the question a little differently. We have had this kind of engagement, known by different names in the past, at different levels over the years.

For example, when I was at DLA Aviation we used to call it the Strategic Suppliers’ Alliance, where we would bring in all of our aviation partners and do the kinds of things that we do at Captains of Industry.

What Captains of Industry did was to elevate industry outreach to the director’s level. Going back to Better Buying Power, my interest and focus is the discussion on innovation. I’m interested in industry coming to me with ideas on how we can do business. If you look at the subsistence prime vendor relationship, there has been an evolution of how we structure the business relationship


and how we evaluate proposals, mainly as a result of Captains of Industry feedback.

I’m looking for those ideas and thoughts across every one of the sectors that we support. So we do look to continue the Captains of Industry. I mostly will link them to my commitment to and my chal-lenge from Mr. Kendall to focus on innovation.

Q: Are you comfortable with where we are right now as far as hav-ing systems that can find or detect counterfeit parts and bad actors?

A: I’m never comfortable on this issue because we have so many contract actions and such a large vendor base. Consider that 30 percent of our annual spending is focused on small businesses—this alone injects thousands of people and how do I watch a group of that size and ensure we stop working with those who do not have our best interest at heart. So, yes, this issue concerns me a lot. I’m not concerned about it so much with large OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) with established practices and established supply chains. While not necessarily concerned about them directly, they have their own small business suppliers as well.

There are a couple of things that we’re focusing on, one being in the area of microcircuits where we do DNA marking and tagging, which is a pretty robust program. I think the threat in that part of our business has been reduced significantly as a result of the tagging process or as a result of people being scared away by the fact that there is a tagging process.

But I don’t know to what extent that is a scalable option. The process itself is very manual; it’s very labor-intensive. When looking at marking and tagging of other supply chains, we have to consider if it is sustainable across our big enterprise. When you consider all things that we are concerned with, I think it’s a very selective technology.

The other tool that I think has potential is high-risk pro-curement analytics—HRP analytics. Essentially the HRP analyt-ics—similar to the fraud detection on your credit card—is fraud detection for parts procurement based on a number of factors in an algorithm. In the broader sense of counterfeit parts in DLA, I think HRP probably has as much potential as DNA tagging does just for the small microcircuit piece of our business.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

A: I am really delighted to be here. When I first came to DLA in 1995, my professional background would have not necessarily have pointed me in this direction. And I thought, “Well, why am I here?” However, it didn’t take me long as a lieutenant colonel to figure out there’s a whole lot more to logistics than I had learned in the 15 years leading up to it.

I tell people that I knew this was going to be a cool job, but I had no idea how cool it was going to be. DLA is a great place to work and I love this mission. The people who come here to work with me every day are professionals and it’s really neat to work here. O

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By mikia muhammad

dla troop support-installed deviCes are a time-saving teChnology that improves inventory aCCuraCy at reCruit training Centers.

Improving inventory accuracy and returning training time to recruits are proven benefits of Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support’s apparel-tracking technology, a Clothing and Textiles (C&T) representative said.

In 2014, DLA Troop Support installed radio-frequency iden-tification (RFID) technology equipment at the Navy Great Lakes recruit training center and all four of the Army RTCs, Army Lieu-tenant Colonel Douglas Miller said.

Air Force and Marine Corps RTCs began using the technology in 2007 and 2011, respectively. All of the recruit training sites are actively using the RFID technology for uniform issuance, except Fort Sill, which is scheduled to go live in June 2015, C&T business process analyst Angela Richwine said.

DLA Troop Support provides the basic items recruits need upon entering military service including service-specific utility uniforms, boots, socks and undergarments.

C&T owns approximately $44 million in inventory at the eight recruit training centers throughout the country, Miller said. For RFID to work, each item has to first be tagged for it to be scanned by the machine.

RFID tags are attached to initial-issue items and contain a unique serial identifier, Richwine explained. Once the tag is scanned, it sends information to DLA Troop Support to give an accurate report of inventory on hand.

In addition, as servicemembers walk through the scanner chutes wearing issued clothing and equipment, the tag readers can catch any errors.

Traditionally, recruits would participate in manual size and quantity checks of all distributed items by marking forms to deter-mine any discrepancies, said Vernalynne Carter, deputy section chief for Air Force clothing at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

The Air Force’s use of RFID at Lackland has returned 50,000 additional training hours a year to recruits, reducing the time it takes to outfit approximately 60 airmen from three hours to 90 minutes, Carter said.

“Not having to do manual checks has saved us a tremendous amount of time [and money],” Carter said.

It is also extremely efficient, she added.Using the RFID technology allows Lackland to process up to

six groups per day versus four groups with manual bag checks,

Carter said. It also helps make sure recruits have all the right items of appropriate sizes and quantities.

“It’s given us better accuracy; we went from a two-day to six-hour inventory [process],” Carter said. “It’s well documented that we have the best inventory accuracy rate of all the RTCs.”

Miller’s data support this claim.Inventory variance rates at Lackland are 0.2 percent, compared

to other RTC’s rates of 5.1 percent, he said.Richwine said the potential success of the technology varies

with the respective process of each site.“Their willingness to change their process and embrace the tech-

nology kind of enhances the benefits they get from it,” Richwine said. After a visit to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego to see the

technology firsthand, Miller said the other services saw how benefi-cial the scanners would be in their own facilities.

“Once they saw how much the operation improved timeliness and gave time back to [servicemembers], they were a lot more receptive,” Miller said. O

Navy recruits receive initial issue items at Great Lakes recruit training center in Illinois during the installation of DLA Troop Support radio-frequency identification technology. Great Lakes RTC is one of four training sites to receive the technology this year in an effort to reduce recruit issuance time and increase inventory accuracy. [Photo courtesy of Defense Logistics Agency, by Brian E. Walsh]


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MLF RESOURCE CENTER

CalendarJune 23-25, 2015Mega RustNewport News, Va.www.navalengineers.org

June 23-25, 2015Army Network ModernizationReston, Va.www.armynetworkmodernization.com

September 1-2, 2015Fleet Maintenance & Modernization SymposiumSan Diego, Calif.https://www.navalengineers.org/events

September 10-13, 2015NGAUSNashville, Tn.www.ngausconference.com

September 14-16, 2015Air & Space ConferenceNational Harbor, Md.www.afa.org

September 22-24, 2015Modern Day MarineQuantico, Va.www.marinecorpsexpos.com

September 28-30, 2015NDTA-TRANSCOM Fall MeetingNational Harbor, Md.www.ndtahq.com/FallMtg15Home.htm

October 12-14, 2015AUSAWashington, D.C.www.ausa.org

Features air Force Contractor Logistics supportThe Air Force and industry are looking for the perfect balance of contractor-provided services.

Life Cycle ControlsManaging life cycle issues when real-world OPTEMPO outpaces the planned OPTEMPO.

air Force sustainment Center updateAFSC’s Supply Chain Wing is the first responder for Air Force logistics customer support. This profile looks at their support for the MAJCOMs and COCOMs alike.

educating the LogisticianAs the ways and means of global engagement are evolving, so, too, must the ways we train, educate and retrain the logistician.

July 2015 Vol. 9, Issue 6NEXTISSUE

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Patrick Seidensticker is a key mem-ber of the Dell Rugged Solutions team involved in partner engagements, solution development, technical product support and more.

Q: What does your company bring to the logistics table and how does that pass benefits on to the military?

A: Dell is currently the only IT vendor that can deliver a full suite of IT solutions. We are now the only partner the military can turn to for everything from end-point devices in the field to solutions for the data center—and Dell Rugged solutions are a significant part of that complete IT ecosys-tem, especially for our military customers.

Our rugged solutions are a great example of this even within Dell’s client solutions business. Our rugged solutions are constructed using the architecture for our industry-leading Latitude commercial notebook portfolio so that customers can enjoy the top performance of Latitude with the enhanced survivability of a rugged device. At Dell, we took specific customer needs and feedback to develop the rug-ged line; this is something we do at both large and smaller scales throughout our portfolio.

Q: What are your primary strategic goals for the next 12 months?

A: Our top priority is doing what we can to develop and refine our solutions for our customers. We are constantly looking for feedback from our military customers in particular, and it is a primary factor in how we choose to refine our products. You’ll see evidence of us incorporating this feedback into our existing design to drive functional improvements. This year, we’ll also be looking for ways to improve product performance in the field, reduce costs and make it easier to integrate our designs from an IT perspective into various deployments.

Q: What are some examples of how you work with the military?

A: Dell has a long history of supplying technology to the military that extends back to one of its first large contracts as a young company with the Naval War College. A good example of Dell’s work with the military is its rugged line, as the first fully-rugged notebooks were actu-ally developed at the direct request of its military customers. Due to the quality of Dell’s technology, its expertise in supply chain management, its IT management tools and the need to simplify the number of vendors, the military was interested in having Dell enter this critical space.

Q: How would you characterize the com-pany’s performance recently, specifically in innovation and efficiency?

A: Since going private just over a year ago, Dell has accelerated its pace of innovation and stay focused on meeting customer needs as opposed to shareholder demands. Our line of rugged solutions is a perfect example of how this new version of Dell has put customer needs first. Last year, we launched three new Latitude Rugged note-books: the Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme, a fully rugged notebook with a 14-inch screen; the Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme, a 12-inch fully rugged flip-hinged convert-ible notebook; and the Latitude 14 Rugged, a 14-inch semi-rugged notebook. With the launch of these new products, Dell now

has the broadest suite of rugged products in its history.

The full line of Latitude Rugged note-books has a number of versatile, modular features that allow the technology to stand up to the harshest conditions, including and especially those our military custom-ers face every day. First, we redesigned the docking station for our rugged notebooks and introduced an industry-first pogo-pin docking connector. The new docking con-nector doesn’t have any movable, service-able parts, so it’s ready to go when the servicemember is ready.

Unlike other rugged docking stations available in the market today, all of the Dell Latitude Rugged notebooks can be used with the same vehicle docking sta-tion, eliminating the confusion of having too many peripherals needed to support the technology in the field. Once a vehicle is outfitted with a Dell rugged docking sta-tion, it will accommodate any of the three models listed above.

Other technology worth noting on the Dell rugged notebooks are the RGB back-lit sealed keyboard, the outdoor-viewable resistive touch displays, and the thermal cooling system to manage heat in demand-ing conditions.

These are some examples of where Dell is headed as a private company and why cus-tomers with very specific needs, such as the military’s need for survivable technology in harsh conditions.

Q: How important are industry partner-ships in meeting your corporate objectives?

A: Dell places a premium on its industry partnerships to develop solutions that will meet the unique needs of its customers, particularly those in the military. A good example of this is our partnership with Havis. With Havis, we were able to ensure that our rugged devices were able to be used on everything from a Stryker to an MRAP with minimal modifications. O

[email protected]

Patrick SeidenstickerDirector, Product Technology

Dell Rugged Mobility Solutions

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Military Logistics Forum


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