Enhancing Air Force support: Aviation team develops comprehensive approach to demand forecasting

RICHMOND, Va. -

The Defense Logistics Agency Aviation's Business Process Support Directorate is taking significant strides to bolster retail operations across Air Force air logistics complexes with an innovative new predictive demand planner dashboard.

The dashboard enables demand planners, or DPs, to assign and prioritize workloads accurately across the planning community, ensuring that resources are allocated effectively to meet mission requirements. The tool consolidates critical workload notes into a centralized data repository, which is updated daily. This functionality streamlines team communication and collaboration, reducing inefficiencies and fostering a more cohesive operational environment.

In today's fast-paced military environment, making informed, real-time decisions is crucial. The dashboard's daily updates provide DPs with current data, facilitating timely adjustments to plans and strategies as needed. This adaptive approach ensures DLA Aviation can respond swiftly to the evolving demands of the Air Force, maintaining a high level of support and operational effectiveness.

One of the standout features of the new dashboard, developed from a customer request, is its ability to merge multiple forecasting methodologies. By integrating the Air Force's forecasts with DLA's statistical forecast and planning techniques, the dashboard can create a more accurate picture of anticipated demand over 24 months.

"The initial focus of the dashboard was to bring in as many data sources as we could, keeping DPs from having to spend so much time in several different systems," said Thomas Wright Jr., an industrial/customer support analyst supporting DLA Aviation operations at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, for the Business Process Support Directorate.

Wright said the aggregated data allows DPs to focus more on just one file, avoiding numerous working hours previously spent researching data across multiple sources.

Among the dashboard's advanced capabilities is predictive analysis, which identifies potential order response time, or ORT, failures and backorders before they occur. By leveraging historical data and sophisticated algorithms, the system is designed to foresee potential supply chain disruptions, allowing the DLA team to address challenges proactively. Ultimately, this means minimizing delays and increasing the overall reliability of DLA support.

"Since this is still a new process, it will take some time to develop a measure of success," Wright said. "However, there are some ways we can measure progress and tool impact, and tracking ALC ORT is one of them. As the national item identification numbers (NIINs) are worked from the highest priority down, we hope to see improvement in the ALC ORT rate. Another measure we can track visually is the demand planner notes. As the DPs work their NIINs, we can see notes on high-priority NIINs with follow-up dates. These notes and dates allow supervision to see progress in the DP's huge workload."

Currently in its testing phase at DLA Aviation at Ogden on Hill Air Force Base, Utah, the dashboard represents a shift in how logistical support is managed, promising to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in meeting Air Force demands.

"We view this tool as a prototype for future improvements to this process. Since this is a first step, there may be several versions of the program as we move forward," Wright said.

His team anticipates some challenges as the agency transitions from the Distribution Standard System to the Warehouse Management System, a platform that facilitates and tracks storage and distribution activities. However, he said dashboard coding can always be adjusted accordingly.

"No tool can be useful if it doesn't change with the enterprise requirements," Wright said. "Like other tools we have developed, we make periodic adjustments and can make major upgrades when needed. The bottom line is you need a starting point, and we see the DP Tool as a great start for supporting our internal and external customers. From here, the sky is the limit!"

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