Property reutilization prioritized for 2025

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. -

Military units have always been first in line to claim used and excess items handed over to the Defense Logistics Agency as surplus stock. Now, as part of the agency's new 5-year strategic plan, DLA's reverse logisticians will focus more closely on increasing DOD reutilization frequency to help elevate troop readiness.

"I want us to transition this year to the mindset that our real job, our real benefit to the warfighter, is giving them free stuff," said DLA Disposition Services Director Mike Cannon during his opening address at the major sub-command's leadership summit in Battle Creek, Michigan, October 21. "It's using the disposal process to [reutilize] as much as possible."

Cannon said that DLA Disposition Services currently finds a new home within DOD for roughly 4.5% of the items the armed services and defense agencies turn in.

"If we could just triple that … we would be giving back to the warfighter over six billion dollars-worth of stuff every year," Cannon said. "That would make us the fourth largest supply chain in all of DLA. More than Aviation, more than Maritime, more than clothing and textiles, more than construction and equipment. More than food."

Cannon provided the assembled region directors, area managers and headquarters attendees with some examples of system improvements that could help field sites begin bumping up their reutilization numbers, like an inventory software connection to the want lists that reuse customers create for their commands.

"If you're a customer and you put something on a want list and we put it on the shelf, you'll get an email," Cannon said. The problem, he said, is that property receivers don't currently know what is on those want lists, so some turn-ins of seemingly questionable value get downgraded to scrap and never make it into the property reuse inventory for possible requisition. "How do we help our receivers? How do we tell [them] that that's an important item?"

He said one possibility would be to incorporate want list data into the agency's Warehouse Management System so that a desired item is automatically flagged during processing prior to any downgrade.

"We've got a number of initiatives that are going to help our workforce identify the best stuff to put on the shelf," Cannon said, noting that even if the additional items don't get reutilized, they may eventually be released for public sale, which helps recoup agency operating costs and drive down the bill the services pay for agency disposition support.

"DLA makes three to four times as much selling something as we do scrapping it, and we make way more than we'd make if we throw it in the trash," Cannon said.
He said this priority shift could initially slow the pace of processing at field sites, but "that's OK," and he assured attendees that the organization would tailor its metrics and expectations to fit the adjustments.

During the summit opening, Cannon also touched on successes from the past year, like the speedy adoption of WMS, absorbing DLA Document Services and its unique mission, and supporting special projects like the disposition of border wall materials and destroying signage from installations and ships formerly named for Confederate historical figures. For 2025, he said the organization could expect further DLA Document Services realignment, additional rollouts of Foundational Learning block training, more forward progress on auditability, and continued divestiture support for an Army restructuring project that could bring in 100,000 excess items.

The DLA Disposition Services annual leadership summit brings its personnel together from sites all over the world and lasts until October 25. The training schedule includes offerings for leaders on topics like ethics, contracting, transportation, hazardous waste management, hiring flexibilities and special incentives.

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