DLA, Navy Pilot National Inventory Program at Whidbey Island

FORT BELVOIR, Va., Nov. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- "We're operating as a NIMS site at Whidbey Island," said Navy Cmdr. James Piburn, referring to an important pilot program between the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agency for the National Inventory Management Strategy at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash. This pilot's success will assist in revolutionizing the way consumable materials are managed at hundreds of military facilities throughout the world.

NIMS has existed for several years with successes in subsistence, fuels and medical commodities already established. It has gained additional momentum and more focus in the repair parts (Class IX) arena as a result of Program Budget Decision 422. PBD 422 mandated that all services develop plans to reduce their retail consumable inventories and transfer the ownership and management of these items to DLA. DLA will then own this inventory until consumption by the end-use customer.

"One of the greatest benefits of this initiative is better visibility of the entire DOD-funded supply chain, which gives DOD and DLA a better ability to make sound decisions on how much material to buy and when to buy it," said Mike Pennington of Defense Supply Center Richmond's NIMS team.

This is the second NIMS site to go online. Naval Station Ingleside in Texas has been operational for two years and continues to meet or exceed all customer requirements, according to Piburn. Material availability improved from 49 percent of all requirements being filled locally to the current steady state of nearly 70 percent. This increase has contributed to a drop of six days in customer wait time, from 14 down to eight days. All this was accomplished with only $500,000 worth of stock repositioning, made possible through the increased visibility of consumer demand that NIMS provides.

NAS Whidbey Island is larger than Ingleside and presents a more complex set of challenges. In addition to multiple aircraft platforms, one of which has multi-service applicable systems, NAS Whidbey Island has a different information technology system to manage its material. Ingleside's retail inventory management programs were already closely aligned with DLA's legacy Standard Automated Materiel Management System and the Business System Modernization program which is replacing SAMMS, so very little redesign and testing of the interface was needed to implement NIMS. NAS Whidbey Island uses a different system, and required the design of a middleware device, or "black box." The box functions like an information technology interpreter, translating between the Navy and DLA IT systems to perform all financial and material management accountability transactions.

Prior to implementing NIMS, Naval Air Station Whidbey owned and managed a separate layer of retail inventory consumable goods, ranging from parts for aircraft weapon systems to flight suits, helmets, and gloves. The price of these items could range from as little as 14 cents for a valve to more expensive items like a $50,000 machine bolt or $200,000 pressure switch. Once NIMS was implemented, the existing Navy warehouse personnel continued to manage the receipt and issue of that same layer of inventory, but the inventory is now owned by DLA. Since DLA has visibility of demand as it occurs, DLA specialists can see when the stock gets low and push material to re-supply the shelves.

In addition to the advanced interface between information technology systems, the new integration required significant coordination between the two agencies and within the DLA enterprise. It involved close cooperation from across all of DLA, including the supply chain owners, comptroller, information technology, customer support, and the Defense Distribution Center, among others, to test all existing functionalities and design the capabilities of this new program to match these needs. People who worked on the project agreed that the collaboration was a success.

"The collaboration was terrific. We had all the right players. The communication was wonderful, the working group sessions and the conference calls were excellent," said Cindy Calhoun, who works for the DDC.

For the war fighter, the biggest benefit will come as a cost avoidance. Feedback from customers indicates they like the fact that DLA will place material at their operational location and they're not expected to pay for it until the wrench turners need the part for maintenance.

Merging distinct wholesale and retail inventories into a national inventory allows the inventory to be managed in a more integrated manner.

"Other benefits include a reduction in redundant inventory. DoD ends up investing less in inventory and the customer is getting material where and when he needs it," said John Gruenbaum, who works on the Defense Supply Center Columbus NIMS team.

The Navy and DLA NIMS teams continue to pursue an aggressive schedule to rollout all Navy sites as quickly as possible. The next site to implement beginning in February will be the Fleet Industrial Supply Center in San Diego, Calif., along with its seven partner sites. Following closely behind that, Naval Air Station Oceana in Norfolk, Va., is planned for a March rollout.

DSCR, DSCC and DDC are DLA field activities. DSCR and DSCC are inventory control points and DDC is the headquarters for 26 defense distribution centers worldwide.

DLA provides supply support, and technical and logistics services to the U.S. military services and several federal civilian agencies. Headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va., the agency is the one source for nearly every consumable item, whether for combat readiness, emergency preparedness or day-to-day operations. More information about DLA is available at http://www.dla.mil/.