DLA’s Modernization Saves $23M, CIO Says

The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) is transforming its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, focusing on user experience, data integration and the strategic implementation of artificial intelligence, and is already seeing cost savings as a result of its modernization efforts, officials said Wednesday.

“We’ve transformed [our workflow] to really focus on customer experience and customer interaction,” DLA CIO Adarryl Roberts said during the ServiceNow Federal Forum in National Harbor, Maryland. “The ERP becomes part of the ecosystem.”

The agency’s DLA Connect initiative addresses the challenge of navigating a complex landscape of applications to support the warfighter, secure the supply chain and DLA’s mission. DLA Connect creates, Roberts added, a unified platform where users – whether DLA employees, federal partners or commercial contractors – can access necessary functions easily and without multiple login issues.

“We started off with [thousands of users and applications]. Most of you know, in federal government, we have our cyber rules. We don’t want users that are active in that system within three to 60 seconds, so we log them out,” Roberts said. “What we do at DLA, people are having to use multiple systems at a time to support customers. [DLA Connect helps] figure out where you can streamline everyone’s experience.”

DLA requires ERP customization, because of the agency’s size and complexity. Roberts said that DLA Connect users can configure their dashboards to prioritize frequently used applications and information, eliminating the need to search across multiple systems. Customization, Roberts said, improves efficiency, reduces the time spent navigating complex IT infrastructure and makes it easier to work with DLA.

“That’s really been a driving point for DLA, it’s streamlined,” Roberts said. “That makes it easier to do business with DLA. It’s also helped us, from a technical architectural perspective, to streamline our data infrastructure.”

The DLA’s modernization efforts have already yielded significant results. Through application rationalization and streamlining, the agency has reduced its application portfolio, Roberts said, resulting in “about $23 million in savings.”

Roberts also said that DLA is embracing AI to further enhance its ERP capabilities, while noting the importance of strategic investments, focusing on tangible outcomes of AI implementation.

“You have to take time and really focus on what are those strategic outcome places on investments early that really justify the need for further investment [in AI],” Roberts said.

Ultimately, Roberts said that DLA wants to be best-in-class for logistics and customer support.

“We’re not trying to just be the best in the federal government,” said Roberts. “But, industry-wide, we want to be the leaders.”