Analysis of the United States Marine Corps' utilization of Defense Logistics Agency disposition services as a source of supply

Abstract

The mission of Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Disposition Services (DDS) is to provide centralized Defense (DoD) disposal management of excess and surplus military property supporting U.S. military forces worldwide, federal agencies, state agencies, and foreign military sales. An important component of this mission is the reutilization of excess military equipment within the military services in order to prevent wasteful DoD purchases. DoD reutilization-the use of excess or surplus property to meet known or anticipated requirements-has been a prominent topic within the U.S. Congress since a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in 2005 uncovered billions of dollars in wasteful DoD purchases. Since that report, the DLA has launched several initiatives to improve Service reutilization of military equipment. Projected near-term DoD budget cuts will serve to further highlight the topic. The purpose of this research is to analyze the extent to which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) is implementing reutilization through its use of DDS as a source of supply. The results and recommendations of this study will enable decision makers within the USMC and DLA to address institutional and systemic obstacles to maximum DDS reutilization within the USMC, thereby improving overall DoD economy.