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PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - Tucked away at a Philadelphia Navy compound is a Defense Logistics Agency testing center that ensures uniforms worn by military members meet strict standards for color, wear and safety, a supply chain technical and quality control director said.
The facility, known as the Product Testing Center, supports DLA Troop Support’s clothing and textiles supply chain, ensuring dress and utility uniforms, accessories and other uniform items meet service specifications for use by soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, Ali Ahmed said.
“Testing is an integral part of the business,” Ahmed, who holds a doctoral degree in textiles science, said. “Before we send goods to the troops it has to be tested. My job is to make sure everything that goes out meets the requirements.”
Ahmed oversees the clothing and textiles supply chain’s supplier support division, which performs technical and quality control functions for recruit and dress clothing, utility uniforms and accessories, individual equipment and other items that go through various testing processes to meet standards set by the services.
Technical and quality specialists work with the center to test these standards, both before an item go into production, as well as after production is complete but before the items are accepted by the services.
Testing can take place in three different stages of the procurement process, Ahmed said.
The first is during the pre-award or product demonstration model phase. The second is during first- article testing, which requires the contractor to produce sample materials after the contract has been awarded. The third stage is during lot acceptance testing, which is similar to FAT, however, it requires a Defense Contract Management Agency quality assurance representative to randomly select samples for further inspection and testing from a bulk production lot on site.
While DLA Troop Support product specialists evaluate the visual and dimensional properties of items, the Product Testing Center performs physical, chemical and shade evaluation tests as required for certain items.
Both the clothing and textiles supply chain and the Product Test Center are located on the same Naval Support Activity installation, which makes communication faster and increases productivity, Ahmed said.
More than 90 percent of the work performed in the product testing center directly benefits DLA Troop Support Clothing and Textiles, although the center is technically a DLA facility under the command and control of DLA Land and Maritime, Paul Conrad, the product testing center manager, said.
Conrad said color science testing conducted in the shading laboratory is a unique function of the center as it requires its technicians to have near-perfect color identification skills.
Color science technicians work on an almost 24-hour basis analyzing yards of fabric to make sure contractors meet specified shade standards within acceptable tolerances. They look at all colors within the 11 different camouflage patterns ordered by the services to make sure they are identical throughout a lot of fabric.
“In the military, shading is one of the most important things you can ever have, and we do it all under different types of light,” Conrad said. “Every piece of fabric the military buys has to be shaded by this laboratory for meeting certain tolerances, and if it doesn’t meet it, the contractor can’t ship it.”
| Date Taken: | 09.20.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 10.03.2012 14:29 |
| Story ID: | 95651 |
| Location: | PENNSYLVANIA, US |
| Web Views: | 163 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, DLA Troop Support, Product Testing Center partner on military uniforms, by Mikia Muhammad, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
