DLA Weapons Support closes critical sustainment gap with proactive acquisition effort

The Defense Logistics Agency’s weapons support unit is moving earlier into the Pentagon’s acquisition timeline with a new contracting approach meant to prevent parts shortages and readiness dips when new systems hit the field.

Under the Rapid Sustainment Initiative, DLA Weapon Systems Support will engage at Milestone B—after prototype selection—rather than waiting until later in production. The shift gives DLA a contracting “bridge” to build sustainment pipelines during the transition from development to fielding, leaders said, aiming to have spares and repair parts on hand as units are delivered.

“DLA typically gets involved at Initial Operating Capability or Milestone C … which is entirely too late in the life cycle,” said Megan Mielke, a division chief in DLA’s Strategic Acquisitions Process Directorate who led the RSI team. “With this initiative, we have proven that we are better suited to get involved at the beginning of Milestone B.”

Central to RSI is the insertion of placeholder contract line item numbers early in a weapon system’s production award. Once a component receives a National Stock Number, DLA can update the placeholder to the real NSN without a full contract modification, speeding provisioning and avoiding delays tied to traditional change processes. “This mechanism allows us to switch out the part number CLIN for the NSN as long as it’s the same vendor,” Mielke said.

The change targets a persistent problem: sustainment planning that lags design and production. Army Brig. Gen. Beth Behn, who commands the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, described the cost of chasing support after the fact. “Five years later, it’s not so bright and shiny, nobody did anything on the sustainment side, and we are stuck trying to figure that out,” she said during an April engagement hosted by DLA leaders in Columbus, Ohio.

DLA officials pointed to the Infantry Squad Vehicle’s expansion from one planned variant to several as a case where spare-parts strategies did not keep pace with configuration changes, underscoring a broader, system-level challenge.

The initiative is being executed with TACOM and the Army Contracting Command, with the goal of aligning parts prioritization and supply-chain visibility before fielding. Todd Hawotte, acting deputy director of the Army’s Integrated Logistics Support Center, said the command is also piloting a phased provisioning approach to better track rapid design updates. “The anchor of this strategy is the utilization of a new automated provisioning tool, designed to parse through large data dumps, especially at material release,” he said. “During that timeframe, we would concentrate on provisioning mandatory replacement parts and really leverage the warranty process to help bridge that gap.”

Leaders cast the joint effort as a step toward acquisition reform. “I think it is incredible work that the team has done in breaking down barriers and really aggressively pursuing solutions from an ingenuity standpoint,” said Navy Rear Adm. Julie Treanor, commander of DLA Weapon Systems Support in Columbus. Behn added, “I see these types of innovations as an incredible opportunity.”

Beyond RSI, the April 10 site visit focused on industrial-base fragility and obsolescence. TACOM outlined a potential organic manufacturing option for “12-cycle” transparent armor glass used in its program, while DLA highlighted its microcircuit emulation capability to replace hard-to-source legacy electronics. The teams also reviewed TACOM’s Stockout Tactical Readiness Inventory Knowledge Engine, a digital tool that fuses readiness and supply data to prioritize orders by unit deployment status, maintenance timelines and other factors.

Behn met with a DLA team that supports roughly 1,500 land-based weapon systems and recognized members with commander’s coins. Treanor praised the group’s frontline role with customers. “They are a critical component in our mission to provide the best support possible,” she said. “This team is on the front lines every day ensuring we have robust and integrated communications … and are the rock stars behind the results.” Behn added, “It’s good to put faces to the processes and to know there are incredibly committed and talented patriots supporting the warfighter.”