DLA successfully tests medical supply chain to bolster future warfighting readiness

An international crisis that simultaneously chokes production and surges demand was the opening scenario for a week-long Defense Logistics Agency wargame that put the nation’s medical supply chain under pressure starting July 7, according to the agency.

The Assured Resupply for Medical Operations Readiness Wargame, known as ARMOR, brought together more than 120 participants from federal agencies, the military, healthcare companies, academia and clinical practice. Working in small cross-sector teams, attendees tested how the United States would sustain medical materiel in a highly contested, protracted conflict and where chokepoints would emerge.

Air Force Maj. Gen. David Sanford, DLA’s director of Logistics Operations, framed the exercise as a push to act before the next emergency. “Small, incremental steps are not sufficient,” Sanford said. “We need to do the planning now and drive substantive change so we can be ready to go if there is a crisis.” He also invoked President George Washington’s maxim that “to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”

According to DLA, teams examined bottlenecks across production, distribution and pre-positioning of medical supplies, along with resource constraints, foreign dependencies and industrial capacity limits in both government and commercial sectors. Participants flagged the lack of shared, real-time data as a major gap, arguing that better visibility into “upstream” inventories across federal and private systems would speed decisions on what to buy, where to source it and how to stage it.

Sanford emphasized that more open dialogue among government and industry will be necessary to sharpen contracting, forecasting and stock optimization so the Joint Force can endure sustained operations. The exercise also explored how to reduce risk from overseas suppliers and how to strengthen domestic surge capacity—issues laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic and still central to medical readiness planning.

Insights from ARMOR will feed into the National Defense Strategy’s effort to accelerate the defense industrial base, DLA said. Past DLA wargames have been used to brief lawmakers on targeted investment needs and to offer acquisition officials alternative procurement approaches across multiple supply classes.

The agency said it will use the results to prioritize investments in data systems, resources and interagency agreements aimed at hardening the medical supply chain ahead of future crises affecting both civilians and service members.

Sanford closed the event by acknowledging the breadth of expertise in the room and the potential for the group’s findings to translate into concrete changes that improve resilience across the medical industrial base.