‘No More Walls’: Enhanced support to warfighters, industry central to integration

Defense Logistics Agency Weapons Support leaders emphasized that enhancing support to warfighters and industry partners is the goal as the major subordinate command continues to integrate its land, maritime and aviation supply chains.

"We are not simply flipping a switch, changing a name, and calling ourselves a new command," DLA Weapons Support (Columbus) Commander Navy Rear Adm. Julie Treanor stressed to a large group of industry partners June 2 during a "Knowledge Bar" presentation at the DLA Supply Chain Alliance Symposium and Exhibition in Columbus.

Treanor said that between the Columbus and Richmond locations, DLA Weapons Support represents about a $12 billion spare and repair parts supply chain that supports the joint force with about 7,500 people at more than 50 global locations, providing holistic sustainment support for the entirety of the military fleet.

With so many moving parts, the integration is a massive undertaking and is reaching its final milestones as the command moves toward full operational capability, set for Oct. 1 of this year.

"It's been a journey, with a lot of challenges," said DLA Weapons Support (Richmond) Commander Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Launey. "And it is taking a lot of collaborative teamwork and internal alignment to make all this work. But through this process, we have found considerable commonality and synergy between the two teams."

Over the past year, integration teams at the former DLA Aviation in Richmond, Virginia, and DLA Land and Maritime in Columbus, Ohio, conducted an exhaustive analysis of the entire organizational structure. These Integration Development Cell teams included Audit Risk Management & Internal Control and Continuous Process Improvement; Customers Operations, Demand Planning, Sales & Operations Planning and Supply Standards; Customer Operations Organization; Engineering, Technical and Quality; Human Resources; Legal; Metrics, Governance, Tools and Capabilities; Policy and Process; Operations Planning, Aviation Logistics Operations Center and Command & Control Center; Retail Integration; Shared Services; Strategic Contracts; Supplier Operations Organization; and Tactical Procurement.

The IDC teams looked for duplicative efforts and evaluated best practices, efficiencies and commonalities side-by-side, the leaders said.

"This is not something that we're undertaking lightly," Treanor said. "One organization is not taking over the other. Rather, we are blending them seamlessly, tactically and strategically to optimize support and enhance prioritization across the joint force."

Both leaders said that this approach is already seeing better resource alignment and faster capabilities delivery.

Treanor highlighted a recent success story where the command took a best practice from one team and carried it over to another through the creation of integrated support teams comprised of subject matter experts in all areas of acquisition and supply.

She noted that grouping these subject matter experts together empowers them with the authority to solve problems independently, only requiring senior leadership intervention to remove any roadblocks.

"We saw that this combination would provide us acumen, cross-collaboration, a new sense of team and the ability to accelerate decisions and solutions," Treanor said.

Launey said that the integration is also yielding major benefits during recent military exercises, where practicing shared command and control capabilities transitioned seamlessly into supporting real world operations.

"It showed that by working together, the command is more accountable, agile and responsive across the board," he said.

Treanor told the group that the integration recently hit a major milestone in terms of financial alignment. From a portfolio and financial hierarchy standpoint, the command is operating as one, having submitted its 2027 budget as a single entity.

"There are no more walls between us," Treanor said. "The benefit of that is to allow us to be better informed on supplier needs, market trends, capacity and operational constraints to pivot as we need to."

Both leaders expressed to the group of industry partners that this milestone signals a shift from a transactional relationship to more of a strategic partnership with its industrial base.

"This allows us to employ a unified and seamless demand signal and engagement framework for industry to allow for a better operational construct to benefit the warfighter," Treanor explained to the group. "There will be a single point of entry, a single command, a single commander, and you will be allowed to engage with us across the entirety of your support more seamlessly."

Treanor emphasized that the unified financial hierarchy would allow the command to reduce administrative costs and pursue more overarching acquisition agreements.

Both leaders challenged industry partners to actively collaborate to align processes and streamline support to the joint force.

"Every decision that we make collectively as an industrial base, should be centered on that support to the warfighter," Launey said.

Launey noted that despite the internal churn caused by the ongoing integration, daily support to DLA Weapons Support's stakeholders has not missed a beat.

"To a warfighter in the field, internal organizational processes and boundaries are irrelevant," Launey said. "The end goal remains the same: getting the right part to the warfighter rapidly to ensure mission success."

Treanor said the integration could not have occurred without the contributions of DLA Weapons Support's workforce.

"We have an exceptional and resilient workforce at both locations who are dedicated to the mission," Treanor said. "They are at their desks every single day despite the challenge, whether it be operational, a supplier challenge or a warfighter need."

Launey agreed.

"Looking across both sites, you see a single team doing outstanding work," he said noting that the combined team is now working as a collective single line.

"I am proud of the work that we've done, Treanor said. "I think we are ahead of pace for what we thought could be accomplished and the team is very excited about the opportunities they see ahead."