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How data, AI are cornerstones of DLA’s digital strategy
The Defense Logistics Agency, like many agencies, is facing the challenge of a reduced budget and a growing set of mission responsibilities.
While its fiscal 2026 request is a few million dollars more than what it received in 2025, DLA is still facing almost a $50 million cut next year as compared to 2024.
To counter a smaller pool of funding, DLA has come up with three priorities to better allocate resources that agency leaders say will help them better execute their objectives and drive results.
“One year after we released our DLA strategy, we are not taking our feet off the gas,” said DLA Director Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly at the agency’s Collider Industry Day on Sept. 3. “We are accelerating and building on our successes with an urgency to support innovation and mission excellence.”
To that end, DLA outlined what it’s calling three sets:
- Set the agency
- Set the globe
- Set the supply chains
Brad Bunn, DLA’s vice director, said these three priorities expand upon the four pillars of the agency’s 2025-2030 Strategic Plan: People, Posture, Precision and Partnerships.
Brad Bunn is the Defense Logistics Agency’s vice director.
“We see those as imperative for us to improve on and work down some of the supply chain challenges we have as we support the joint force and prepare for potential conflict in the future,” Bunn said in an interview with Federal News Network.
Bunn said the first set focuses on the agency workforce and transforming how employees work.
“One of the main objectives under our people imperative really has to do with increasing our competency in understanding data — how data can be operationalized to bring velocity and speed to our business — and building that competency across the entire workforce,” he said. “We’ve got about 24,000 people in DLA, mostly civilians, and they are in the business predominantly of acquiring, procuring supplies and materials and interacting with the industrial base to do that. So there’s a lot of grunt contracting work that we do. We also have a global storage and distribution network that we operate, and that’s very hands-on warehouse management. But one thing that has emerged over the past decade is that data is a common thread across all of that and all of our people, from our warehouse workers who receive and store material, to our contracting specialists, to our human resources and finance, our analysts, our supply chain experts. They need to have a better understanding of what data can do for us and how we can get better insight, so that we can respond quicker to the needs of the warfighters.”
Simerly said the workforce transformation means DLA must improve the data fluency of their employees and how they apply artificial intelligence.
“We are embracing AI as a cornerstone of our digital strategy. We have to move from doing manual tasks to more mission critical thinking,” he said. “We have about 56 AI models in development, testing or use, all from employee-generated use cases. We already are empowering smarter decisions across the DLA.”
DLA is taking a bottom-up approach to AI. It’s developing skillsets within its workforce, what Bunn called citizen developers, who have the technology, tools and skills sets to solve their problems on the ground.
Embracing a forward leaning mindset
Then at a more strategic level, Bunn said DLA is trying to use AI to improve how the agency does forecasting and planning.
“So much of what we do is really about understanding the requirements of our customers, and then buying ahead of that need, or buying down risk by investing working capital fund dollars so that we have the material that they need when they need it,” Bunn said. “A lot of that, especially when we’re talking about legacy or aging weapon systems, has to do with an industrial base where obsolescence is a major issue. The better we can forecast that demand, then we can send that demand signal to industry. That could be a game changer for us, because a lot of what we chase are back orders for repair parts or that kind of stuff that needs to go to a depot for a repair overhaul action, or a shipyard, or a logistics center that’s overhauling a B-52 or whatever it might be. We play a huge role in that, and our understanding of what that customer needs well before they even know they need it is really what we’re getting after.”
Improving forecasting and planning is part of the other two sets.
Simerly said setting the globe is about empowering logistics where it matters the most and embracing a forward-leaning mindset at home and in the Indo Pacific Command (IndoPACOM) region.
Bunn said that seeing as DLA is a combat support agency, it has to sure that the global Joint Force has the material and capabilities they need so they can be ready and resilient in a fight.
“Some of that is about positioning, material, supplies, people and things like that, but it’s also about building resilience in the industrial base and using other kinds of innovative methods so that we can respond quicker if there’s a requirement — whether it’s fuel or food or repair parts for weapon systems or medical material and pharmaceuticals,” he said.
Supply chain data integration needed
The third set focused on supply chains and the need for DLA to modernize nine different systems. Simerly said that modernization would help DLA “move faster, think smarter, improve data integration and innovation and responsiveness and resilience.”
Bunn added that DLA currently has too many disparate supply chain systems and can’t apply AI tools or do forecasting without better data integration.
“What we’re trying to do is integrate all of those and have a better understanding, have a common digital thread, so we can understand the supply chains themselves, from out of the factory to the foxhole, and then make sure that they’re protected. There’s a lot of cyber threats out there,” he said. “There are other kinds of threats out there too, so a lot of this is about managing risk across those supply chains.”
The supply chain modernization effort also would benefit DLA around areas like inventory management, auditability for financial management and customer service.
“We’re leveraging more advanced technology in our storage and distribution network, including things you might see in an Amazon fulfillment center, and leveraging data across the entire supply chain, from what is in the commercial side to what we have in our possession,” Bunn said. “As it transits from our custody, as customers order from us, and it gets all the way to the end user, understanding what that data thread is, so that we can have visibility of that — it’s important for us as consumers to know when you’re going to get that.”
The post How data, AI are cornerstones of DLA’s digital strategy first appeared on Federal News Network.
