Q&A with Maj. David Taylor, U.S. Army Fellow at Amazon

By Mrs. Beth Clemons (Army Contracting Command)September 22, 2014

TWI at Amazon
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

Maj. David Taylor is an Army Acquisition Corps officer participating in the U.S. Army's Training With Industry program at Amazon in Seattle. Prior to his TWI assignment, Taylor served as executive officer to the commanding general, U.S. Army Contracting Command.

Q: How were you selected for the TWI position?

A: There's an assignment cycle every summer. The Acquisition Management Branch at Human Resources Command sends out a message to all eligible officers asking if they would like to compete for a variety of challenging, unconventional assignments. Two of the most commonly offered are the Advanced Civil Schooling and TWI. Both are highly competitive and selections are made based on your career timeline, promotion potential and movement availability

Q: What will you be doing at Amazon?

A: During my one-year assignment I will be working with the North American Operations Engineering Team on three distinct projects: capital planning and procurement interface; assisting in the creation of a standard cost template for real estate projects and come up with location-based and building-type-based cost model; and my final project will involve the non-inventory material supply process in fulfillment centers procure and store supplies.

Q: How do these projects relate to the contracting knowledge you've gained during your various assignments?

A: After Amazon's record growth of its operational footprint, it is attempting to further refine its processes to launch new fulfillment centers (think distribution center) across North America. One shortfall in the capital planning and launching of new FCs is the inability of the procurement team (think contracting) to forecast and source the non-inventory and capital equipment needs of the future/in-progress FCs. The idea is with prior forecasting, the suppliers of corrugate (shipping boxes, and misc. packing materials) are not caught off guard by the launch of an FC and are able to ramp up production/supplies to meet Amazon's capacity demands. This is where the capital planning and procurement interface comes in.

There also exists opportunities to reduce the overall costs by reducing procurement costs, reducing replenishment lead times and reducing overall inventory on hand which requires valuable floor space to store. There are two strategic questions that will be answered as part of my third project: what is needed to scale the procurement efforts for national operation; and what system improvements are required to enable scalability for this space.

Q: What do you hope to learn from this experience?

A: During my year with Amazon I want to further develop my analytical skill set while focusing on continuous process improvement at an enterprise level. Working with Amazon has only reemphasized to me the approach that I need to take in the Army's and Acquisition Corps' current environment - start with the customer and work back, attack the process and engage people and always assume positive intent.

Q: What is next for you when you finish at Amazon?

A: My wife, Liz, was born and raised in Washington and her family still lives there so we are happy about spending the next year being close to them. My daughter, Lily, is able to spend a lot of time with her grandparents. I don't know where I will be assigned next my but I hope to return to Huntsville, Ala.