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News | July 10, 2017

Agency initiatives fuel Texas-size discussions

By Bob Dobrowolski DCMA Technical Directorate

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas, July 10, 2017 — Defense Contract Management Agency employees from the Central Region met with the Technical Directorate’s engineering team from Fort Lee, Virginia, to gain an updated insight on various agency and directorate initiatives.

The employees came from the following contract management offices: DCMA Lockheed Martin Fort Worth, LM Grand Prairie, LM Dallas, LM Camden, DCMA Dallas, DCMA Bell Textron in Fort Worth and Special Programs-South. During the two days of meetings held April 18-19 here and in Fort Worth, the group discussed the new Technical Directorate organization, counterfeit mitigation, engineering surveillance, non-conforming materials and the Supplier Risk System.

Chris Brust, the Technical Directorate’s Engineering Division director, said the event allowed CMO employees to better understand the directorate’s mission.

“Time was spent discussing the new directorate and the agency hierarchy resulting from the recent Major Headquarters Activity initiatives,” said Brust. “This discussion proved beneficial because it aligned personnel with their new team and duties, and in a personal way, put faces with names and positions.”

One of the major topics discussed, including a live demonstration, was SRS, with a focus on functionality, underlying data integrity and responsibilities in using the system. As the agency continues to rely on systems such as SRS to provide actionable information, understanding the impact of local data not being seen or entered into the enterprise system, was a key discussion point and produced even further understanding among the participants.

“Knowing the importance of the data being entered into systems that SRS uses will influence the integrity of that data,” said Brian Weber, an engineering supervisor from LM Fort Worth.

Another important topic covered was Counterfeit Risk Mitigation. With recent changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation clauses and continued instances of suspect counterfeit being reported, CRM continues to play an essential role in preventing counterfeit parts from entering the Department of Defense supply stream and programs.

“Its impact to surveillance planning is ongoing and requires training and technical specialist awareness of what may constitute potential counterfeit and what actions are to be taken when it is suspected,” said Brust.

During the engineering surveillance session, Brust’s team covered training requirements, instructions and technical pricing support. They also covered electrical connector issues and material readiness levels during the non-conforming materials session.

“There have been many changes at headquarters,” said Brust. “This was a great opportunity for the field and the new Technical Directorate team to discuss the complex issues we are all currently working on.

“The feedback has been positive. I believe everyone involved is appreciative of the opportunity to work together on the issues and challenges we all face. We will address and overcome the challenges more effectively by doing what we did here — work together to exchange information, ideas and inputs.”