Wolfenbarger co-hosts AF/DLA Day; DLA pledges improved support, less cost Published Sept. 23, 2013 By Amanda Neumann Defense Logistics Agency Public Affairs DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY -- Top Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency officials discussed decreasing operating and material costs and other topics of mutual interest Aug. 28 at the McNamara Headquarters Complex. Air Force/DLA Day is an annual meeting that gives senior leaders and staff from the military service and the agency a chance to discuss logistics issues of mutual interest. DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek co-hosted the event with Air Force Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger, commander of Air Force Materiel Command. "As the war fight ends, there have been lots of efforts keeping forces in Afghanistan fed and fueled, and here at DLA, we're taking a real hard turn on how much we cost," Harnitchek said during his opening remarks. "Our big year was probably two years ago. We were at $46 billion worth of sales; about $41 billion was the stuff that we sell and $5 billion was the cost of us. What I've asked our gang to do is take 10 percent out of both the cost of material ... and the cost of operation." DLA's goal is to improve support to the services while lowering costs, Harnitchek said. "As our demand base shrinks -- and it's already shrinking quite a bit, especially on the supply-chain side -- all that overhead we've been lugging around for the last 10 to 12 years of the war really becomes very evident," he said. "So if you're in a working capital fund activity, and I know many Air Force activities are, you become very conscious of how much it is that we cost and how much our stuff costs. Our strategy here is ... to actually improve support while taking a lot of the cost down." DLA will depend on all its customers, including the Air Force, to help the agency succeed in its efforts, Harnitchek said. "When we're all done five years from now, DLA will probably cost in the neighborhood of $13 billion less than we cost today, so it's important we get it right," he said. "That's our commitment to you guys. What I ask you all to do, as one of our big customers here, is tell us when we don't have it right and help us to get it right." Wolfenbarger said the partnership between DLA and her service has already brought progress and opened the lines of communication, something that is essential to future endeavors between both agencies. "When we first started those AFMC/DLA Days, we did it because we felt there did need to be more progress made and my sense is, in fact, we have made great progress on some of those earlier issues," Wolfenbarger said. "But that doesn't mean that we're done. I think we've got some things that we'll end up talking about today that are, if not issues, opportunities for us to continue to collaborate." Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Installations and Mission Support Lt. Gen. Judith Fedder agreed with Wolfenbarger, emphasizing that sequestration has put stress on both the Air Force and DLA. "I also underscore that at no time like the present has it been more important to have partnerships, not just on providing that day-to-day kind of support, but doing things that are different in response to the environment we're in," she said. "How we've been able to work together to accommodate some of the constraints that we've had under sequestration is an example of the kinds of things that we need to do together to think differently about how we provide this kind of support to the operational units as well as our Air Force industrial production." During the four-hour roundtable discussion, attendees heard updates from DLA Aviation and DLA Finance. Representatives from the Air Force, including the Air Force Sustainment Center, also discussed topics including cost effective readiness, operational retail support and procurement support.