The Pentagon's top acquisition office is sitting on millions of dollars' worth of spare parts for the C-130 that might never be needed, a top Defense Department watchdog said.

The Defense Logistics Agency's Aviation office has "accumulated inventory unique to the C-130 aircraft that exceeded actual customer orders," said the Inspector General, the Pentagon's internal investigative and oversight office.

The watchdog evaluated 68 different parts the DLA had in inventory worth $16 million, but found the military was only using $1.36 million of those parts per year between 2012 and 2014.

"If inventory management is not improved, DLA Aviation will continue to acquire future inventory that exceeds customers' actual orders," the IG said. "Additionally, DLA Aviation will use funds to manage and store this inventory, resulting in increased materiel prices to its customers."

Part of the problem, investigators said, is that DLA never changed its orders once the purchasing process was started.

In October 2013, DLA Aviation began the process to buy 230 airfoil ribs for the C-130's wings. Shortly afterward military leaders decided they needed fewer parts. However, DLA never reduced the quantity it was trying to purchase, the IG said, and instead issued a contract in April 2014 for the full 230 airfoil ribs.

At the rate they are being used, investigators estimate DLA now has a stock of C-130 airfoil ribs that will last the Air Force 18 years.

DLA "missed opportunities to cancel or reduce purchases" by not paying better attention to the changing amounts their customers were using and reporting, the IG said.

The DLA Aviation office said it is working to improve its oversight process to more quickly adapt to the military's demands.

"DLA continues to hold cost summits with our customers that include discussion on improving customer demand collaboration as a means of driving down cost," the agency said in response to the IG.

"Timely supply support to the warfighter is of paramount interest to DLA, and efforts to measure the cost-efficiency of DLA's investment in inventory must be weighed against ongoing operational requirements," DLA said in a statement sent to the Air Force Times.

"DLA has made significant progress in improving inventory management through improved demand planning, and with continued customer collaboration, even better results can be achieved," the agency said.

The C-130 Hercules is one of the most commonly used Air Force cargo planes. The aircraft can carry anything from "utility helicopters and six-wheeled armored vehicles to standard palletized cargo and military personnel," the service said.

DLA officials also said they are implementing new tracking measures to better account for their inventory. The IG noted that DLA did not always count parts that were on order but had not yet arrived, meaning acquisition officials often missed just how many items they actually had.

In addition, the IG took issue with the level DLA Aviation used to initiate a review of excessive inventory. DLA guidance sets two limits for parts purchases: a minimum amount of parts needed to meet mission demands, and a maximum amount of allowed inventory.

DLA headquarters' policy is to review parts when stock hits 125 percent of the minimum needed amount to see if some of the inventory is excessive. But the Aviation office instead only chose to review the parts once they hit the maximum amount allowed.

"DLA Aviation could benefit from more aggressive review procedures, with lower threshold criteria to identify and cancel excessive purchase requests before awarding contracts," the IG said.

Keeping so many parts in storage can lead to its own fiscal waste, said Bridget Serchak, IG spokeswoman.

"If DLA holds excessive inventory, their overhead costs are increased, resulting in the price of each part increasing over the course of time," she said. "Additionally, storing parts over several years runs the risk of the parts being corroded, or DLA runs the risk that the part will become obsolete and wasting money on a part that will no longer be used."

The IG's investigation is the first looking at C-130 parts acquisitions by DLA. Investigators said they are also looking into whether DLA purchased parts for the cargo plane at reasonable prices.

Investigators estimate DLA oversees almost 26,000 C-130 parts, valued at $263.5 million.

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