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Background on Executive Agent
 The Director of DLA has been designated by the Deputy Secretary of Defense as the DoD Executive Agent (EA) for Subsistence, Bulk Fuels, Construction and Barrier Materiels, and Medical Materiel. DoD EA designation for Clothing and Textiles is pending. As DoD EA, the Director of DLA is the focal point for providing continuous, sustainable and global end-to-end supply chain support as required by end users. The DoD EA ensures effective support throughout operations by developing coordinated processes and support plans for transition from peacetime to wartime and/or contingency operations.
Department of Defense Directive 5101.1 DoD Executive Agent defines EA as the “head of a DoD component to whom the Secretary of Defense or the Deputy Secretary of Defense has assigned specific responsibilities, functions and authorities to provide defined levels of support for operational missions, or administrative or other designated activities that involve two or more of the DoD components.” EA builds upon and accelerates specific, ongoing military service, Combatant Commander (COCOM) and agency initiatives to meet the requirements of the QDR and the NDS. But most important, EA helps provide improved, uninterrupted, efficient and effective support to the warfighter.
DLA’s involvement with EA started when the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Materiel Readiness tasked DLA to lead Joint Integrated Process Teams (JIPT) to draft Concepts of Operation (CONOPS) and DoDDs for the Class I - subsistence, Class III -bulk fuels, Class IV - construction/barrier materials, and Class VIII - medical materiel supply chains. Later in December 2002, Program Budget Decision (PBD) 425 directed DLA to perform an EA assessment of the Class II - clothing and textiles supply chain. The efforts of DLA-led joint work groups has thus far resulted in the Deputy Secretary of Defense designating the Director of DLA as DoD EA for Class I (Subsistence), III (Bulk Petroleum), IV (Construction and Barrier Materiels), and VIII (Medical Materiel).
DLA’s EA implementing strategy is to continue the effective EA collaborative process that was used in the development of the EA CONOPS and directives. This was accomplished through the use of JIPTs comprised of members from OSD, joint staff, COCOMs, military services and other DoD Components.
Implementation is well underway for the first three commodities (Class I, III, and VIII). DLA has conducted “ROC Drills” in collaboration with all affected DoD Components to jointly identify gaps and seams that exist in the Class I, IV and VIII supply chains. A recent ROC drill was conducted in collaboration with U.S. Southern and Pacific Commands (SOUTHCOM and PACOM). The EA ROC drills have been successful in bringing together strategic, operational, and tactical elements of the supply chain to simultaneously engage across organizational boundaries, and to identify and resolve issues for the warfighters.
DLA-led EA JIPTs are actively engaged in formulating solutions for identified gaps and seams. They are in the process of developing commodity EA implementation plans of actions and milestones (POA&M) and will recommend courses of action to the EA. They will initiate and submit necessary business and program change proposals to DLA and participate in the Joint Capability Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process as necessary to implement EA improvements for the warfighter.
Some expected and derived benefits of assigning EA responsibility include:
• improved support to the warfighter and increased operational effectiveness;
• a standard definition of EA;
• a focal point to orchestrate the EA supply chains;
• clarification of key roles and responsibilities
• up-front planning, full collaboration and coordination;
• joint material management and requirements determination;
• resources to do the job;
• end-to-end supply chain performance measurement and reporting;
• increased interoperability and material standardization;
• optimal integration of commercial capabilities into military processes.
EA directly supports DoD’s Logistics Transformation, the Focused Logistics Joint Functional Concept and OUSD AT&L’s plan to implement a distributed and adaptive logistics capability.
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