Zebra
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2011
- Messages
- 6,060
- Likes
- 2,303
May. 28, 2012 - 11:48AM |
By ZACHARY FRYER-BIGGS
[Rows of mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles are staged in the port yard of the Charleston, S.C., seaport prior to shipment to U.S. Central Command. (U.S. Army)]
With billions of dollars in excess inventory stuffed in warehouses, and a flood of items expected to return from Afghanistan in the near future, the U.S. Defense Department is facing an inventory crisis without an easy way to eliminate extra items, a former director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) said.
That could translate to yet another cost that Pentagon planners have failed to foresee, and one they'll have to address as the department tries to cut expenses.
Keith Lippert, a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral who stepped down as DLA director in 2006, told an audience May 23 at the Defense Logistics and Materiel Readiness Summit in Alexandria, Va., that the inventory problem facing DoD is troubling given current fiscal pressures, and certain to get worse.
"There is a need to dispose of material," he said. "We have to free up this warehouse space, and in terms of priorities of all the things that they do at DLA and the services ... if there are 25 things that have to be done, disposal is probably number 26."
The excess inventory is all-encompassing: parts and supplies for vehicles, gear, weapons — everything the U.S. military has needed over a decade of fighting two wars.
"You add to this everyone coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq, all the material coming in, it's just going to compound the problem," Lippert said.
Beyond the issue of priority, Lippert said, excess inventory is also a practical problem. Many of the items must either be sold for pennies on the dollar, marketed for a higher value through foreign military sales, or destroyed, simply because the U.S. lacks enough space to store all the items once they return from overseas. All three solutions require manpower that is already stretched thin trying to keep track of needed parts in warehouses with too many items.
DoD’s Next Crisis: Excess Inventory | Defense News | defensenews.com
By ZACHARY FRYER-BIGGS
[Rows of mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles are staged in the port yard of the Charleston, S.C., seaport prior to shipment to U.S. Central Command. (U.S. Army)]
With billions of dollars in excess inventory stuffed in warehouses, and a flood of items expected to return from Afghanistan in the near future, the U.S. Defense Department is facing an inventory crisis without an easy way to eliminate extra items, a former director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) said.
That could translate to yet another cost that Pentagon planners have failed to foresee, and one they'll have to address as the department tries to cut expenses.
Keith Lippert, a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral who stepped down as DLA director in 2006, told an audience May 23 at the Defense Logistics and Materiel Readiness Summit in Alexandria, Va., that the inventory problem facing DoD is troubling given current fiscal pressures, and certain to get worse.
"There is a need to dispose of material," he said. "We have to free up this warehouse space, and in terms of priorities of all the things that they do at DLA and the services ... if there are 25 things that have to be done, disposal is probably number 26."
The excess inventory is all-encompassing: parts and supplies for vehicles, gear, weapons — everything the U.S. military has needed over a decade of fighting two wars.
"You add to this everyone coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq, all the material coming in, it's just going to compound the problem," Lippert said.
Beyond the issue of priority, Lippert said, excess inventory is also a practical problem. Many of the items must either be sold for pennies on the dollar, marketed for a higher value through foreign military sales, or destroyed, simply because the U.S. lacks enough space to store all the items once they return from overseas. All three solutions require manpower that is already stretched thin trying to keep track of needed parts in warehouses with too many items.
DoD’s Next Crisis: Excess Inventory | Defense News | defensenews.com
