The Federal government is facing challenges to its logistics missions, from growing threats to global disruptions that show little sign of letting up. Recently, new disruptions have threatened global supply chains, driven by world events including slowed supply chains at the crucial Panama Canal and Suez Canal.
For Federal agencies, supply chain hurdles include everything from transportation delays and port congestion to shipping slowdowns stemming from geopolitical tensions, two GDIT experts said in a recent discussion.
Over the past five years, “supply chains became a hot topic – disruption in the availability of products and commodities – and that’s something we have to deal with every day,” said Melissa Frye, a senior program director at GDIT.
Frye confronts supply chain challenges in her work supporting the Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security through a contract providing end-to-end supply chain management and facility security.
“We really are at the mercy of that global environment, that geopolitical climate that we can’t predict,” Frye said. “We face that challenge head-on with the customer. We pre-procure and pre-position stock so if something happens worldwide, we’re ready to deploy.”
Sophisticated supply chain risk management services, strengthened by emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), are essential to the logistics mission.
“Running an effective supply chain with systems, processes, and people is complex,” said Alex McGuire, vice president and chief supply chain officer at GDIT. “There are proven systems and processes for maturing supply chains, and we are constantly leveraging and improving them.”
Supply chain logistics issues came to public attention during the pandemic, with the Biden administration issuing a 2021 executive order that directed a comprehensive review of U.S. supply chains to build resilient supply chains to protect the United States against shortages of critical products.
Since then, the administration and Federal agencies have taken actions that include the creation of a White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience, and the Department of Energy’s release of cybersecurity principles to safeguard energy supply systems.
GDIT is addressing these logistical issues with comprehensive supply chain risk management. The company’s approach is to unearth and address the risks along the chain, while remaining focused on end users, McGuire said.
The government is focused on making sure agencies have what they need, when they need it. To deliver on that promise, “60 to 100 distinct risks, from cyber to counterfeit products” must be tracked, he said. “What’s been critical to our teams is making sure that each person in the process knows what they need to do with respect to each risk. Then, when things are changing in real life, everybody knows how to react.”
Every step along the supply chain provides multiple layers of quality control to meet customer expectations and ultimately, help customers fulfill their missions.
GDIT is “that trusted partner in making sure the things we are buying for our customers are the right choices,” Frye said. “It even gets down the level of when we receive something in the warehouse, we have an extra quality check. If anything looks out of place, we’re not using that product for our customer.”
The risk management system is increasingly aided by data-driven decision-making AI, Frye added. “We have 13 years of consumer data,” she said. “It’s not only helping us make internal decisions, it’s helping us make decisions for our customers out in our worldwide mission.”
GDIT also employs cloud technologies and digital engineering to fulfill the logistics mission, McGuire said.
But “the secret sauce here is that it’s not just the technology. It’s the empowered people,” Frye said. “We don’t just upskill people – we empower them to make decisions, do their jobs, and further the mission. It’s optimized processes, and that leads to the technology overlay and sustainable innovation.”