$ EFFICIENCIES


MAKING THE NUMBERS WORK


Tobyhanna Army Depot saves time, money by


reducing the complexity of its supply chain management by Mr. Steve Stark


P


roduction at Tobyhanna Army Depot, PA, requires a vast amount of raw metal—hun- dreds of different materials—and


a lot of vendors to supply those metals. While that was a solution, it also became a problem.


Working with multiple vendors over the years resulted in a complex process for cata- loguing metals, which in turn periodically resulted in stock number redundancies or multiple part numbers, according to Michael Henry, chief of the Production Management Directorate’s Materiel Man- agement Division at Tobyhanna.


Tobyhanna Army Depot is the largest full- service electronics maintenance facility in DOD. Its mission is total sustainment: the design, manufacture, repair and over- haul of hundreds of electronic systems including satellite terminals, radio and radar systems, telephones, electro-optics, night vision and anti-intrusion devices, airborne surveillance equipment, navi- gational instruments, electronic warfare,


116


and guidance and control systems for tactical missiles. A major element of the U.S. Army Communications – Electron- ics Command, Tobyhanna prides itself on the state-of-the-art automated test equip- ment and other advanced technologies it uses to deliver products and services.


With no standard supply format, it was time-consuming and inefficient to research all possible materials every time a customer submitted a request. To avoid the excess inventory that resulted from placing unnecessary orders, employees had to perform a manual review of every part to find a match. Tis happened on virtually every project and led to increased lead time, excess materials and higher costs. It also became a storage issue when the same material was stored in mul- tiple locations, which made the search more difficult.


Ultimately the solution, which Toby- hanna developed after extensive analysis, was to consolidate its supply and sup- ply tracking by using TW Metals Inc., a


global supplier of specialty metals and the Northeast prime vendor of raw met- als for DOD activities on the East Coast. Tus Tobyhanna tapped into the effi- cient supply chain already established for TW Metals.


ONE PROCESS, MANY REQUIREMENTS Tobyhanna, as an Army Working Capital Fund installation, gets its operating capi- tal from its revenue. So it has to deliver high-quality products on time.


“To improve efficiency and streamline pro- cesses, we developed a standard process that met all of the depot’s requirements,” Henry said. “Te TW Metals project has helped us address issues and better man- age our raw metal stock.”


Previously Tobyhanna Army Depot part numbers were not easily identified; items could not be ordered through the DOD Supply System when using the locally generated part numbers. Tobyhanna part numbers consisted of a description


Army AL&T Magazine


January–March 2013


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