Q&A: Rear Admiral Michael J. Lyden
Written by Jeff McKaughan
MLF 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 10 (November/December)
Maintaining Support Levels to Naval and Joint Warfighter Customers
Rear Admiral Michael J. Lyden
Supply Corps
United States Navy
Commander
Naval Supply Systems Command
Chief of Supply Corps
Supply Corps
United States Navy
Commander
Naval Supply Systems Command
Chief of Supply Corps
Rear Admiral Michael J. Lyden became commander, Naval Supply Systems Command, and the 45th chief of Supply Corp, in October 2008. He commands a worldwide work force of more than 25,500 military and civilian personnel in providing a broad array of logistics support and retail services to U.S. and allied naval forces. As chief of Supply Corps, he is responsible for community management of more than 3,500 active and Reserve Supply Corps officers and more than 27,000 active and Reserve enlisted personnel.
Prior to assuming his current position, Lyden was the director of supply, ordnance and logistics operations in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV N41). He came to OPNAV from Headquarters United States European Command, Stuttgart, Germany, where he served as the director, Logistics and Security Assistance (ECJ4).
Previously he held two other Joint positions: commander, Defense Supply Center Richmond, Va., a field activity of the Defense Logistics Agency, Fort Belvoir, Va., and as executive officer to the director, DLA.
Lyden earned a Bachelor of Science in management engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was commissioned through the Navy ROTC program in 1978. He also earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business Administration and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
Afloat, he served as supply officer aboard the frigate USS Valdez, and later as stock control officer in the initial crew of the combat stores ship USNS Sirius. Lyden completed his sea assignments as supply officer of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
His shore and staff assignments include duties as supply management instructor, Navy Supply Corps School; Supply and integrated logistics support analyst, Program Appraisal Division, Office of Chief of Naval Operations (N81); executive assistant to the Assistant Commander for Inventory and Systems Integrity, Naval Supply Systems Command; director, Operations Policy and Integrated Logistics Support Divisions, Naval Aviation Supply Office; supply officer, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash.; head, Spares Programs and Policy Branch, Office of Chief of Naval Operations; and deputy commander for Financial Management/Comptroller, Naval Supply Systems Command.
Lyden’s personal awards include two Defense Superior Service Medals, two Legions of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, six Meritorious Service Medals, the Navy Commendation Medal, and a number of unit and campaign awards. He is qualified as a Naval Aviation Supply officer and Surface Warfare Supply Corps officer and is a member of the Navy Acquisition Professional Community.
Lyden was interviewed by MLF Editor Jeff McKaughan.
Q: Admiral, is NAVSUP organizationally structured the same today as it was 12 months ago? What will it look like 12 months from now?
A: Like many other organizations within the Department of Defense, NAVSUP has instituted several transformational changes over the last several years. Starting in 2004, we collapsed several organizations focused on petroleum, ordnance and transportation into Naval Operational Logistics Support Center, in Norfolk, Va. Then, in 2006, NAVSUP established Commander, Fleet & Industrial Supply Centers, in San Diego, Calif., to focus on global logistics and contracting issues and to drive best practices across the seven Fleet and Industrial Supply Centers [FISCs].
Over the last year, NAVSUP has continued to evolve both of these organizations within its overall NAVSUP Enterprise construct to ensure continued alignment with Navy’s new missions and associated requirements. Each FISC was aligned directly with its respective numbered fleet to serve as the single face for the NAVSUP Enterprise. This action complemented the existing emphasis on the Navy’s warfare enterprises—air, sea, sub-surface, expeditionary, and net warfare—and shore infrastructure.
In October 2009, the NAVSUP Navy Family Support Office— previously aligned under Navy Exchange Service Command— was realigned under NAVSUP Headquarters. The Navy Family Support Office is responsible for Navy personal property, postal, food service, and disbursing/cash. The realignment placed all key players in the five strategic focus areas of NAVSUP’s Commander’s Guidance under NAVSUP Headquarters.
Over the last year, NAVSUP has continued to evolve both of these organizations within its overall NAVSUP Enterprise construct to ensure continued alignment with Navy’s new missions and associated requirements. Each FISC was aligned directly with its respective numbered fleet to serve as the single face for the NAVSUP Enterprise. This action complemented the existing emphasis on the Navy’s warfare enterprises—air, sea, sub-surface, expeditionary, and net warfare—and shore infrastructure.
In October 2009, the NAVSUP Navy Family Support Office— previously aligned under Navy Exchange Service Command— was realigned under NAVSUP Headquarters. The Navy Family Support Office is responsible for Navy personal property, postal, food service, and disbursing/cash. The realignment placed all key players in the five strategic focus areas of NAVSUP’s Commander’s Guidance under NAVSUP Headquarters.
Finally, one of NAVSUP’s initiatives in 2010 will be to determine the optimal alignment for support to Navy’s new Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. Tenth Fleet.
Q: Will you be issuing an updated version of your Commander’s Guidance for 2010? Can you offer an early look at what some of the highlights will be?
A: NAVSUP published 2010 Commander’s Guidance in November 2009. It maintains the same five major focus areas: global logistics support; alignment; our people; Navy enterprise resource planning [ERP] and logistics systems; and sailor and family support. NAVSUP’s emphasis will be on “staying the course,” moving initiatives to execution, and delivering on our long-term commitments to our stakeholders.
Behind our transformational efforts in 2010 will be a continued laser focus on “Basic Business” and “keeping our eye on the ball.” NAVSUP will do this through a tight metrics portfolio and regular business “battle rhythm.” NAVSUP must maintain its support levels to our naval and joint warfighter customers while we lay the groundwork for our future.
The transformational headline this year will be implementation of Navy ERP version 1.1—the Navy’s Single Supply Solution—which is planned for Spring 2010. This system will replace numerous legacy systems that were designed in the 1960s, are expensive to operate, and have reached the end of their expected life. Navy-wide, 126 applications—more than 60 at NAVSUP alone—will be replaced by ERP. This implementation will, more importantly, integrate the supply and financial processes for the NAVSUP enterprise. Information technology savings of more than $200 million and inventory management savings of more than $300 million have been identified.
NAVSUP will expand our portfolio of supply chain strategies that reduce total ownership costs, lead a Department of Navy process to more cost-effectively acquire supplies and services through service-wide strategic sourcing initiatives, and formulate an energy management strategy for the enterprise. NAVSUP will bring the concepts of the Global Logistics Support Strategy to fruition as it institutionalizes the Global Logistics Support Network.
NAVSUP will expand our portfolio of supply chain strategies that reduce total ownership costs, lead a Department of Navy process to more cost-effectively acquire supplies and services through service-wide strategic sourcing initiatives, and formulate an energy management strategy for the enterprise. NAVSUP will bring the concepts of the Global Logistics Support Strategy to fruition as it institutionalizes the Global Logistics Support Network.
Supporting all of this will be our continued emphasis on our people as NAVSUP strives to become a “Top 50” employer. NAVSUP sees increased challenges in 2010 and anticipates additional Navy operational demands, as well as increased budget pressure. We met similar challenges in 2009 and succeeded. NAVSUP is postured to do the same this year.
Q: In relation to FY09, how does your FY10 budget compare, and what are your expectations for 2011 funding?
A: NAVSUP is a “supporting” organization to our “supported” customers. NAVSUP continues to match our service levels and products to the customer’s funding levels. As funding gets tighter, NAVSUP must ensure we provide the best value possible. A key part of this is our commitment to deliver savings from our conversion to ERP, in-sourcing, and savings in Navy transportation related to Department of Defense initiatives.
All of these issues will require our attention in 2010 to make sure budget constraints do not have a negative impact on our support. Looking forward, FY11 will be just as challenging, and the NAVSUP Team must continue to focus on initiatives that will save money.
All of these issues will require our attention in 2010 to make sure budget constraints do not have a negative impact on our support. Looking forward, FY11 will be just as challenging, and the NAVSUP Team must continue to focus on initiatives that will save money.
Q: Contracting approaches everything from the value and cost perspective as well as a performance and standards perspective. What does NAVSUP do to ensure transparency in the contracting process? Besides the obvious, ensuring the warfighters have what they need to execute their missions, are the number of contract protests a valid way to measure contracting transparency?
A: NAVSUP follows the regulatory requirements for posting notices to the public for solicitations and contract awards. This process provides access and transparency to the procurements that are managed by our contracting offices. In addition, for complex procurements, our contracting offices may arrange for vendors to participate in pre-solicitation or pre-proposal conferences to ensure a full understanding of the performance and business requirements of a specific procurement and to promote competition to the fullest extent possible. Finally, our contracting offices debrief vendors who have been unsuccessful in winning jobs with NAVSUP so they know how their proposal was evaluated and the basis for the contracting officer’s award decision. Although it sometimes appears that protests stem from a perceived lack of transparency in the contracting process, our contract process specifically works to maximize contract transparency.
Q: All of the services maintain strong private-public partnerships. What are some examples that set the standards for such agreements between the Navy and industry?
A: I am proud to say that NAVSUP leads the way in the implementation of partnerships through performance based logistics [PBL] arrangements. Nineteen successful PBL partnerships between industry and Navy organic depots are in place—and more than 15 others are in the works. In a partnership, an organic depot provides skilled depot touch labor and assumes the role of subcontractors to industry. Industry manages the repair process, provides piece part support, assists with facilities, and incorporates commercial processes.
Partnerships are an effective use of Navy depot expertise that allows sharing of best practices while ensuring compliance with core statute provisions that specify continuing organic depot repair capability and workload. In 2009, obligations against partnerships represented more than 86 percent of total aviation PBL funding. Some demonstrated results of successful PBL partnerships include:
• Material availability on F/A-18 heads-up displays and digital display indicators has increased from 47 percent to 99 percent through implementation of a PBL with Rockwell Collins.
• The F404 Engine PBL, a five-year firm-fixed-price contract initially awarded to General Electric in July 2003, has reduced repair turn-around times by 25 percent and work in process by 75 percent.
Q: How has obsolescence management factored into your acquisition and contracting process when looking to acquire new items and support more mature systems?
A: Delegation of obsolescence management responsibility is another important component of the PBL program. The PBL provider is required to build an obsolescence management plan into his support strategy to proactively resolve obsolescence and diminishing manufacturing source issues. The PBL provider plans and budgets for life of type procurements, technology insertions, and development of new sources to address obsolescence. This approach is incorporated on PBLs designed to support both new and legacy systems.
In traditional, non-PBL support, NAVSUP works closely with the hardware systems commands to identify diminishing manufacturing sources and uncover new material sources to mitigate and resolve obsolescence issues throughout the life cycle of weapons systems.
Q: With supply needs ranging from large facilities to individual ships at sea, the technologies required to maintain your supply chain from tracking, predicting, ordering, shipping, and receiving of supplies must be daunting. Please describe the IT solutions that you have in place to manage and integrate your supply system.
A: NAVSUP is working a multi-faceted strategy to manage and integrate our future supply system, as well as the larger Global Logistics Support Network. This plan is being developed and executed in coordination with other Navy logistics organizations, for example., maintenance, and our National Partners such as U.S. Transportation Command [TRANSCOM] and the Defense Logistics Agency [DLA]. It includes four IT elements: operational force IT—afloat and expeditionary units; an ERP solution for the Navy supply system; distance support capabilities to connect processes between afloat and ashore; and the global asset visibility and transportation tracking capability provided by TRANSCOM and DLA in the future Integrated Data Environment.
NAVSUP’s Operational Logistics Strategic IT Blueprint outlines the systems being developed and deployed to provide future IT at the unit level, either on afloat units or within shore based expeditionary commands. This plan eliminates, streamlines, and moves significant workload ashore–such as stock control, records keeping, etc.—leaving only essential tasks such as receipt, stow, issue, and inventory remaining at the operational unit level. As part of this, NAVSUP is working with the fleet to develop/incorporate the use of new technologies—such as wireless capabilities, passive radio frequency identification, and item unique identifier tagging/ marking. This capability will ride on Navy’s distance support data exchange backbone between units and the supporting organizations within the NAVSUP Enterprise.
Ashore, the Navy is establishing ERP as the single supply solution for spares and repair parts management. It will address primary supply functions including inventory management, asset visibility, order fulfillment and material requirements planning. The outcome will be optimized fleet support at reduced cost.
The final piece of the future IT architecture is integrating the Navy and National Partner data, via AIT and middleware, into and across a single global picture that provides asset visibility and order tracking to link CONUS logistics and inventory organizations with naval units in the “Last Nautical Mile.”
Q: Are there ways to make the supply chain more joint than it is today?
A: Supply chains are designed to support the warfighter. Within each service there must be some autonomous capability to meet the unique demands of that service. However, anytime the services can leverage another service’s capability, supply system performance can be enhanced. In the growing joint environment there is increased need for the services to understand all the available capabilities and be able to tap into those capabilities.
In terms of jointness with national partners, the Navy is dependent on TRANSCOM and DLA in sustaining today’s supply chain. Navy relies on the Military Sealift Command—key component of TRANSCOM—as a significant provider of strategic sealift. NAVSUP has also partnered with DLA and continues to transfer more common functionality to DLA, including warehouse operations. Moving in this direction will enable the Navy to focus on logistics planning and execution.
Q: As the Navy and the other services adapt to a new era of operations, do you see the number of professional Navy logisticians increasing due to growth of the command, shrinking as the systems become leaner and more efficient, or something in between?
A: Although viewed as critical for the execution of the Navy’s worldwide logistics operations, I do not anticipate the actual number of professional Navy logisticians increasing in the current budget climate. The value we provide to our warfighters has allowed us to maintain our current staffing even in times of severe budget pressure.
I see the composition of our logistics professional work force being realigned with the implementation of Navy ERP. This initiative will enable us to leverage the improved data management capabilities and redeploy Navy logisticians into other logistics processes, including our Global Logistics Support Network, where our professional logistics work force will manage across the full “end to end” supply. ♦