DLA Guidance: Something’s Gotta Squeeze

Originally posted on Defense Industry Daily

Vice Admiral Mark Harnitchek has been heading the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) for 2 years and presented an update on the agency's challenges and progress during WBR's 2013 Defense Logistics conference. He candidly talked about how DoD at large, and DLA specifically, had benefited from "budget largesse" in recent years, especially with supplemental budgets (i.e. OCO / war spending) and had grown "thicker in the middle" as a result. In plain admission of the government's shortcomings, the development of a "culture of judiciousness" to apply better judgment and save money is necessary within DLA. This is a welcome evolution in public discourse after so much hand-wringing about sequestration and befuddlement at the very idea of having to operate within financial constraints.

Continue reading

NDIA Logistics Forum 2013: Joint Logistics Panelists Agree to Shed Weight

Originally posted on Defense Industry Daily

Lt. Gen. Brooks L. Bash , Director for Logistics at the Joint Staff, centered his presentation on the constraints that logistics has and will always impose on warfighting. From that perspective, for the US to pivot to the Pacific only makes things harder with the huge distances involved. New threats to the US supply routes, which by and large have not been challenged since WWII, come in varied shapes from missile profileration to swarms of small ships. From a broader macro perspective, logistical chokepoints such as the straits of Hormuz or Malacca could severely damage the economy if they become hotspots.

Continue reading