The Defense Contract Management Command has gained independence from the Defense Logistics Agency.
In a March 27 memorandum, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre established the new Defense Contract Management Agency, whose leaders will report directly to the Pentagon.
"Establishing DCMA will allow us to be more responsive to both our military service and Defense agency customers," said Maj. Gen. Timothy P. Malishenko, who will remain director of the organization. Malishenko will report to the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
The Defense Logistics Agency will lose nearly a third of its workforce, 12,539 employees, to the new DCMA. Only 29 positions will be eliminated over the next two years as a result of the restructuring, 23 from DLA's headquarters management staff and six from the contract management command's staff.
Lynford Morton, a spokesman for the new DCMA, said the agency's independence completes the work of a 1989 task force, which recommended that Defense contract management functions be centralized. In 1990, contract management operations from across the department were consolidated under DLA.
The Pentagon has now decided to split contracting and logistics so that each organization can focus on a single mission, Morton said.
DCMA headquarters staff will relocate from DLA's Fort Belvoir, Va., home to new leased space in northern Virginia. The new space has not yet been selected. The move is scheduled to be completed by Dec. 6. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency is slated to take the vacated space at Fort Belvoir.
The DCMA will administer thousands of contracts each year to provide goods and services to the military. The agency will also be charged with the task of streamlining and standardizing Defense contracting processes.
DLA is restructuring its remaining operations to strengthen top-level control of the agency, under a plan announced earlier this year by Lt. Gen. Henry T. Glisson, director of DLA. DLA is also conducting a host of public-private competitions that may lead to the outsourcing of several DLA depots.