The Defense Logistics Agency unnecessarily incurred costs to store more than 760,000 items in long-term storage, valued at some $170 million, that “far exceeded the historical demand,” according to a DoD IG report.
It said that although a policy memo directed DLA to review items for continued retention after 24 months, that policy did not specify how to determine acceptable inventory levels for those items.
Further, although the DLA reused some 216,000 long-term storage inventory items through an automated process designed to identify items for reuse, that process missed some 87,000 items that could have been reused. The result was that in 2014 the agency missed opportunities to reduce purchases on items valued at some $18 million that were already in inventory.
The report said that management agreed with the audit’s recommendations.
