The Defense Logistics Agency’s research and development arm recently hosted its annual Roundup Meeting, where leaders from across the agency reviewed 16 enterprise problem statements.
At the event, Adarryl Roberts, chief information officer at DLA, said the agency’s R&D team must “apply a problem-first approach to these enterprise problem statements instead of leading with shiny solutions.”
The Roundup is the culmination of visits that R&D leaders conduct across the agency’s subordinate commands and directorates. The visits enable the leaders to identify enterprise problem statements, which they rank according to agency priorities.
“DLA is becoming a digital-first organization,” stated Brad Bunn, the agency’s vice director. “Nothing is off the table as to where we will apply R&D’s capabilities to tackle the agency’s major problems and find solutions that have a clear, measurable benefit to the warfighter.”
DLA’s Ongoing Enterprise Challenges
The enterprise problem statements identified at the recent Roundup ranged from enterprise IT planning to scalable data and package sharing.
According to David Koch, R&D director at DLA, current agency projects aim to address enterprise problem statements mentioned at the event, including Department of Defense interoperability, reclamation of critical materials and manual acquisition processes.
R&D leaders also looked at the return on investment and the potential impact of the problems from an enterprise-wide perspective.
Senior leaders who attended the Roundup agreed to track project funding through fiscal 2026 to improve the transparency and agility of R&D investment and then apply outyear planning between 2027 to 2030.
