ing of more than 4 million items, processing more than 30 mil-lion annual distribution actions and administering more than $900billion of DoD and other agency contracts.

Recent years have seen the coupling of the DLA’s tre-mendous databases, tracking technology, military partnershipsand electronic commerce to leash the power of the Internet.Nearly every consumable part of the military from milk to medi-cal supplies to ammunition is managed through this agency.Nowhere else in the U.S. does computer-driven logistics meanso much, nor affect so many daily lives.

Based in Fort Belvoir, Va., more than 50,000 civilianand military personnel work for DLA in facilities from supply

centers to in-plant residencies withdefense contractors and propertyreutilization offices.

DLA oversees nine pri-mary commodities: clothing, in-cluding uniforms, helmets andshoes; construction material, such aslumber and plumbing accessories;electronic supplies used in mainte-nance and repair of military equip-ment; fuel, such as bulk petroleum;food, canned, frozen and dehy-drated; general supplies, such asmachine tools and wet-cell batter-ies; and medical supplies, includingprescription drugs and surgical ma-terials.

We b - e n a b l e dtechnologies have greatly influenced the overhaulin recent years of the purchasing, tracking anddelivery of supplies. “ Better than real-time” ishow the system has been described by Carla vonBernewitz, executive director of Material Man-agement, Information Systems Technology inDLA.

Commercialization has crept into its programs,allowing for supply chain management on theNet. “Delivery of information at the desktop iscritical. We are trying to leverage our existinginfrastructure. We have even enlisted FederalExpress in Memphis. We are pre-positioned andcan request high priority when necessary,” saidvon Bernewitz.

For more than 50 years, DLA has been the pro-curement agency for DoD. Back in the 1940s, itwas determined that vast warehousing would be

the model of choice. However, today’s mobile

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

LOGISTICSBetter than real-time. By Dawn Marie Yankeelov

Most Americans can barely keep up withwhat’s in the kitchen pantry. Imagine theDepartment of Defense’s cupboard. TheDefense Logistics Agency (DLA) ,man-ages the complete, computerized track-

military is focused on 24-hour response and dealing with immedi-ate needs with a click of a desktop computer key.

Commercial products from household names are now pro-viding items previously bought from hundreds of vendors throughEDI (Electronic Data Interchange). With the Prime Vendor pro-gram, reciprocal links to suppliers and military consumers takesplace. For example, the purchase of food has moved from buyingcenters to individual customers. Troops now eat the same foodfound in area hotels and restaurants. Competitive pricing is guar-anteed, and brand names are now on all bases such as Parris Is-land, S.C., Marine Corps Base within 48 hours.

Medical inventory is handled in much the same manner.DLA supplies one of the largest hospital networks in the world.Mail order pharmacies and medical air express made great stridesin aiding a monolithic delivery process, but Prime Vendor con-tracts went further. McKesson Drug Company won the first phar-

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Above: Members of the DLA Contingency Support Team use radiofrequency technology to check out pallets in Taszar, Hungary. Left:DLA Europe Contingency Support Team members work logisticsissues during Bright Star 95 in Egypt.

maceutical contract several years ago for the Washington, D.C.,area. Coverage in the program is now global. Emergency deliver-ies can be made within six hours. Losses from expirations and over-stocking have been eliminated.

Online catalogs for medical supplies, food and clothingallow for unique inventory control, linked to a Material Manage-ment Intranet. “In the past we would have contracted for 15 differ-ent vendors for just two different products. This required long-termwarehousing,” von Bernewitz said.

With the recent Virtual Prime Vendor program, there isno warehousing of product. Virtual Prime Vendor allows tai-lored logistics support to particular military “customers” by elec-tronically linking all consumable parts, whether for combat readi-ness, emergency preparedness or day-to-day operations.Agreements allow the military regional purchases with an

PRIME VENDOR AND VIRTUAL PRIMEVENDOR PROGRAMS

established delivery process - less governmentese andmore commercial handling. With Virtual vendors, there arespecialized contract management services from pre-award topost-award; worldwide disposal services as well as informa-tion of excess military property; worldwide hazardous mate-rial disposal and information in its management; specializedproduct testing; and access to the Federal Catalog system.

Electronic commerce has moved the agency towarda paperless society, and more progress is expected. By 2010,all contracts will be handled in cyberspace, without benefit ofa pencil touching paper. Contracts have migrated to commer-cial corporations willing to handle larger orders and, whennecessary, stockpile at their facilities. The savings show upnot only in less warehousing requirements but also in personnel.

The Quick Response Manufacturing approach isplayed out with large and small vendors alike. A small fe-male-owned business based in Phoenix, Ariz. called AtlasHeadwear supplies Nike, Inc., one of DLA’s Quick Responsevendors. Atlas now can provide the military with uniform capswithin 72 hours of receiving an order.

Yet another approach, Dual Use Technology, allowsshared production agreements with manufacturers and com-mercial clients. This ensures that when a facility’s full pro-duction capabilities are needed for national defense, it willoccur in an immediate fashion.

Other manufacturers involved in this militarypartnering include such diverse players as Alabama-basedAmerican Apparel, the NationalIndustries for the Blind,and Terry Manufacturing, a small minority-owned firm thathas a shared production agreement with McDonald’s.

Other large corporations that participate in supplying DLAthrough an electronic commerce forum are 3M, Grimes Aerospace,Cummins Engine, Allied Signal and Boeing.

One of the challenges in DLA is to coordinate the infor-mation required on a Request For Proposals. Not every documentcan be boiled down into words. Even office furniture sometimesrequires extensive technical drawings. DLA, through computer-aided acquisition and logistics support (CALS), has been able tocreate the architecture necessary to have plug and play specifica-tions available online for bids. The issue of physical possession ofdocumentation in order to provide accurate bids used to be a bigone, said John Karpovich, Chief Information Officer for DLA.~We used to have to send out packages to potential vendors, up-wards to $10 or more of paper with maps, drawings etc. Now tech-nical data is hot-linked to engineering-related materials,” he pointed

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

AMERICAN BUSINESSIN THE MILITARY

The Automated Manifest System and radio frequency taggingat work at Taszar Airfield, Hungary.

CALS (COMPUTER-AIDED ACQUISITIONAND LOGISTICS SUPPORT)

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out. An Automated Bid Interface was designed by Logicon inMcLean, Va., for this streamlining effort.

In 1995, the use of the World Wide Web heated up atDLA, according to Karpovich. “The maturation of the Web hasfed the demand side. How else can we reach every potential sup-plier internationally? This has, in turn, created a 60 percent sav-ings in time. When you post a proposal on the Web, you have aninstantaneous international bid room.”

With Java applications, and Microsoft and Netscape serv-ers and software, the military has spent the last 10 months refin-ing its virtual inventory control points. More than $50 millionwill be spent with Microsoft and Netscape in the next five years.

DLA’s five inventory control points buy the items usedin all military areas. The agency supports more than 1,400 weap-ons systems and purchases 86 percent of the total number of itemsused by the Defense Department. More than 20 million requisi-tions a year, representing sales to military customers of more

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

A Marine recruit scans inputinto the computer for instanttransmission using electronicdata interchange technology.

than $11 billion annually, work their waythrough DLA.

The ICPs are the Defense Fuel SupplyCenter in Fort Belvoir, Va.; the Defense Indus-trial Supply Center and Defense Personnel Sup-port Center in Philadelphia; Defense SupplyCenter Columbus in Columbus, Ohio; and DefenseSupply Center Richmond in Richmond, Va.

Success stories have occurred in everyfacet of military operation, including DefenseFinance & Accounting. Karpovich said there hasbeen a big savings in both accuracy and print-ing costs. Coding issues, such as unmatched dis-bursements, have virtually cleaned themselvesup.

DLA is also working on a proactiveapproach to anticipate contingency support problems and to im-prove peacetime support in a plan dubbed the “Integrated Con-sumable Item Support Model.”

Even property that is being re-purposed can be found viaa laptop. The Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office in Atthe Defense Logistics Services Center in Battle Creek, Mich., theFederal Catalog system assists in the location of more than 6.5million active supply items. Related information is available inthe Federal Logistics Information System. This is where 150,000transactions are logged as stock numbers are checked and re-checked, codes are verified, shipping and disposal logs are viewed

and other packaging information can be found.BattleCreek, Mich., uses the Net to buy and sell property viathe Net. DLA can be found at http://www.dla.mil.

Once ordered, the tracking process of goodsand services through DLA leaves very little guesswork.Information Spectrum, Inc., developed an automatedmanifest system for the military that creates instantreceipts and logs necessary information about ashipment’s contents. An optical memory or laser cardin a thin credit card format is used and can withstandharsh weather or combat conditions. These plasticcards required intensive testing; however, a 1994 pro-totype test at Ft. Polk, La., proved that processing re-

ceipts could be done in 66 percent less time.Personnel requirements were cut by more than a third.

AMS has since been deployed in Somalia, Haiti, Korea andBosnia-Herzegovina.

Yet another tagging approach keeps real-time monitor-ing available through wireless communication tools. RF tags aresatellite-monitored and can be read by hand-held scanners withprecision. A tracking mechanism known as INTRANSIT, or In-ternational Transportation Information Tracking, records mes-sages and positions from moving vehicles. This monitoring al-lows for personnel on the receiving end to be prepared with ap-propriate equipment or staff to move the cargo to its final desti-nation. *.

THE AUTOMATED MANIFESTSYSTEM AND RF TAGS

SPECIAL NEEDS