By carrying out all purchasing for Marine Corps Base Quantico’s two largest maintenance sections, the new Industrial Supply Center not only saves time and money but also helps to track every dollar spent on parts and equipment, said Lt. Col. Vincent Applewhite, head of the Logistics Division.

 “As the budget is being reduced, we’re increasing our oversight of the limited resources that we have,” Applewhite said.

In October, the base Logistics Division stood up the Industrial Supply Center to handle all purchases for Facilities Maintenance and the Motor Transport Maintenance Section, its two biggest customers, as well as the Materiel Readiness Branch and Traffic Management Office.

In the past, the Facilities Maintenance Section had 12 government cardholders and eight approving officials to purchase all the shop’s supplies, in addition to their primary work of planning jobs.

“Now, they can focus their efforts on planning instead of purchasing,” said Darrel Davis, the section’s deputy director.

Davis said the process of ordering through the new supply center took some time to smooth out and still has some software glitches, “but other than that, the process is rock solid.”

“I think it’s the best thing we’ve done in a long time,” said Eric Woznick, equipment repair supervisor at Motor-T Maintenance. “It does free people up so we can actually get more work done.” He added that working through the new center has also shortened the time it takes to get parts.

Woznick’s shop previously had three government cardholders and an approving officer to make purchases.

“The Industrial Supply Center started out as an effort to reduce the number of credit cards in use,” Applewhite said, noting that the Department of Defense has been mandated to reduce its number of requisitioning accounts. He said Congress has also mandated that the DOD prepare for a “clean audit,” accounting for and justifying each dollar it spends. Having a centralized location for purchases will help the base achieve that goal.

Tracking historical data in a centralized shop not only improves accountability, but also allows the unit to improve efficiency, said Kelvin Murphy, head of the Materiel Readiness Branch, under which the new center falls.

“Before, there was no method to measure the processes, and therefore no way to identify problem areas within a given process,” Murphy said. “Consolidating allowed us to look at ways to improve response times.”  

Where about two dozen people once handled requisitioning, the Industrial Supply Center has just four government cardholders and an approving officer, as well as a material handler. Running the new shop is Oren Ancar, supply management specialist and the approving officer for purchases.

Last month, he said, his shop filled 240 purchase requests for Motor-T Maintenance — tires, batteries, filters, hydraulic lines and other common vehicle parts — and 198 for Facilities Maintenance, ranging from generator parts to windows, paint and utilities.

“It took a month or two just to get the process down and get the bumps out of the road,” Ancar said. “Now that things are flowing, parts are coming in a little faster than they normally would have.”

“Now we have more vehicles waiting on mechanics, where before, we had mechanics waiting on parts,” Applewhite said. “You never want a mechanic sitting around idle, waiting to do repairs.”

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com