DLA to consolidate, improve aviation facilities at Navy sites

Courtesy Photo | DLA Aviation employees and contractors supporting the Navy in San Diego, like Aurora Agustin, will be working together in the same area next year after a consolidation effort to bring their operations in various older, smaller storage and receiving areas under one warehouse roof.  

SAN DIEGO, UNITED STATES

11.15.2010

Courtesy Story

Defense Logistics Agency   

By Stephen J. Baker

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - The Defense Logistics Agency will boost efficiency and reduce costs with consolidation and improvement projects for DLA Aviation facilities at two Navy installations over the course of the next year.

The projects, which involve collaboration from multiple DLA organizations, are focused on two warehouses: Building 660 at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego and Building 148 at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. The work in San Diego is scheduled to begin this month and be completed by March. A preliminary layout and design for the Cherry Point project is due for completion this month, but the actual work won't start until early next year.

In a weekly report to the agency's director, Navy Vice Adm. Alan Thompson, DLA Installation Support Director Air Force Col. Tom Laffey wrote that Building 660's interior will be substantially reconfigured to consolidate DLA Aviation's supply storage, distribution and receiving operations in San Diego, which will improve the overall efficiency by 50 percent. It will also allow the agency to return several buildings requiring a "high level of maintenance" to the Navy.

DLA Aviation's San Diego team provides parts support to Navy Fleet Readiness Center Southwest, which maintains the F/A-18 Hornet, E-2 Hawkeye, C-2 Greyhound and AV-8B Harrier aircraft, along with the service's SH-60 Seahawk, CH-53 Super Stallion and H-1 Cobra helicopters.

Marsha Johnson works on the customer operations transition team for DLA Aviation at its headquarters in Richmond, Va. The team is focused on guiding an ongoing organizational realignment for employees who will be working in the transformed spaces at the San Diego and Cherry Point installations. She said many of the older, smaller storage and receiving locations at the San Diego site will be consolidated into Building 660.

"Benefits include operational efficiencies and a reduction in the time between receiving, storage and delivery to the customer," Johnson said. "In addition, transportation costs will be reduced by eliminating the transportation and handling from the receiving area to the storage area."

Johnson said the newer facility will also improve quality of life for employees. The project includes updating the fire protection system, reconfiguring storage racks, renovating restrooms, creating a bearings storage room, and adding new material handling and metal cutting equipment.

"The working environment will improve dramatically due to the already recapitalized facility that is targeted for the DLA Aviation team to consolidate its mission, and this facility also has state-of-the-art, energy-efficient lighting already installed," Laffey reported.

Ray Hall, chief of installation management for DLA Installation Support in Richmond, said consolidating into a single building isn't the only way efficiency is being improved. He said upgrading the fire protection system will actually help maximize storage space, since the new system meets the necessary requirements for material to be stacked higher than 12 feet in Building 660.

Overall, Hall said the project has been a true team effort.

"You want to talk about 'We Are DLA,' this is a good example," Hall said, referencing the initiative launched by DLA this year to create a single-agency environment. "You take one element out of this, and we wouldn't have success."

While DLA Installation Support's team in Richmond is leading the projects in coordination with DLA Aviation, Hall said, industrial engineers from the DLA Installation Support team in New Cumberland, Pa., also made vital contributions. New Cumberland is the home of DLA Distribution.

"What they bring to the table is that they are really considered the experts within DLA for storage aids and automated material handling systems," he said. "They coordinated with the base personnel on the fire protection system design and designed the storage aids."

Hall said the storage design is based on requirements generated by the DLA Office of Operations Research and Resource Analysis.

"They figured out the storage requirements as far as the size and quantity of supplies and how much storage space is needed. They helped us get the most efficiency out of our storage," he said.

Johnson said the project in Cherry Point is similar to the one in San Diego, with many of the same benefits. Hall said that by next year, DLA Aviation employees currently performing related functions in different areas will be working in four of the six bays in Building 148. Navy personnel will still occupy the other two.

"We're trying to get the best facilities possible for our people there," Hall said.

The agency's Cherry Point team provides parts support to Navy FRC East, the service's center of excellence for rotary aircraft. FRC East performs maintenance on a wide variety of helicopters along with the vertical take-off and short landing AV-8B Harrier and V-22 Osprey aircraft.

Johnson said requirements for improvements to DLA Aviation office areas at NAS Jacksonville, Fla., are also being identified.

"A plan to accomplish the work will be developed in the near future," she said.

DLA Aviation's Jacksonville team provides parts to support Navy FRC Southeast, which maintains the P-3 Orion, F/A-18 Hornet and EA-6B Prowler aircraft and the SH-60 Seahawk helicopter.

• Date Taken: 11.15.2010
• Date Posted: 11.17.2010 08:40
• Story ID: 60318
• Location: SAN DIEGO, US