The Defense Logistics Agency and the Veterans Health Administration have signed a potential 10-year, $3.6 billion partnership agreement to centralize the acquisition process for goods and services between the two agencies.
How Will the Agreement Benefit DLA & VHA?
DLA said Thursday the interagency agreement aligns supply chain requirements and seeks to centralize logistical support to all VHA healthcare facilities across the U.S.
The agreement also intends to formalize a partnership documenting the general terms and conditions agreement.
“In the past, the VA had an expressed interest in using DLA Disposition Services for their disposal needs, requiring a single agreement with them,” said Hadiza Abdullah-Bello, DLA’s liaison to Veteran Affairs. “With this new agreement in place, VHA can now request goods and services from all our supply chains whenever the need arises.”
On March 12, Kristin French, DLA’s deputy director of logistics operations, and DLA Deputy Chief Financial Officer Shawn Lennon signed the Level 2 interagency agreement with Ronald Miller, VHA’s deputy assistant under secretary for health for support, at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
“Signing the agreement will enable DLA to consolidate and minimize the number of agreements DLA has with a particular trading partner to meet Departments of Treasury and Defense policies and increase the efficiency of the end-to-end purchase request process within the G-Invoicing platform,” said April Weaver, one of DLA’s General Terms and Conditions Center of Excellence, or GT&C COE, team leads.
What Is G-Invoicing?
G-Invoicing is a platform mandated by the Department of the Treasury to enhance the quality of intragovernmental buying and selling data across the federal government.
“G-Invoicing enables the agencies to set up the agreements, standardize the data, improve policies and process gaps to ensure DLA receives a clean audit opinion,” said Maxwell Walens, the DLA Finance’s GT&C COE branch chief.
