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Defense Computers: Air Force Needs to Strengthen Year 2000 Oversight

AIMD-98-35 Published: Jan 16, 1998. Publicly Released: Jan 16, 1998.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Air Force's program for solving its year 2000 computer systems problem, focusing on the: (1) status of the Air Force's efforts to oversee its Year 2000 program; and (2) appropriateness of the Air Force's strategy and actions for ensuring that the problem will be successfully addressed.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of the Air Force The Secretary of the Air Force should immediately require that the Air Force ensure its cost estimates factor in the actual resources it believes are needed to renovate and implement systems so that it can make informed resource tradeoff decisions and ensure that this estimate is periodically refined throughout the year 2000 program.
Closed – Implemented
The Air Force tasked its components with developing realistic cost estimates for Year 2000 systems renovation and implementation, and to periodically refine these estimates. In the August 1999 Defense Year 2000 quarterly report to OMB, the Air Force reported that it will cost about $1.2 billion to complete its Year 2000 program, an increase from the $625 million it estimated in August 1998. The Air Force's $1.2 billion Year 2000 cost estimate has not changed since October 1998.
Department of the Air Force The Secretary of the Air Force should ensure that an approach is developed to continuously track how components are going about identifying interfaces, how they plan to correct interfaces, and whether they are instituting memorandums of agreement.
Closed – Implemented
The Air Force tasked its year 2000 program managers with identifying interfaces and documenting data exchange information in formal agreements (i.e., memorandums of agreement/understanding and interface control documents) and to enter the status of these efforts in the Air Force Year 2000 database. Because the Air Force is still remedying some mission critical systems, the process of identifying and documenting system interfaces is ongoing. As interface agreements are finalized, program managers/owners are to enter them in the Air Force Year 2000 database.
Department of the Air Force The Secretary of the Air Force should ensure that components are developing test plans and identifying the need for additional testing resources and design an approach to obtain any needed testing resources that are identified by Air Force components.
Closed – Implemented
The Air Force analyzed test resource needs and concluded that the existing mix of in-house and contractor resources were sufficient. Also, the Air Force issued guidance directing its program/system managers to develop test plans for conducting system certification tests, functional end-to-end integration testing, and operational readiness evaluations, and assigned responsibility for ensuring that these test plans are developed to its individual components. In April 1999, the Air Force received $163.8 million in Year 2000 supplemental funds, of which, about $112 million is to be used to complete year 2000 testing. The Air Force does not expect to complete its Year 2000 testing until late 1999, and is tracking test completion dates and cost through its Year 2000 database to determine, on an ongoing basis, whether additional test resources are needed to procure new hardware and software to support testing, to develop additional test plans, and to conduct additional tests of some remediated systems.
Department of the Air Force The Secretary of the Air Force should act to ensure that components have prepared contingency plans for their mission-critical systems.
Closed – Implemented
The Air Force revised and expanded its Year 2000 Management Plan to provide better guidance for completing contingency plans, and now requires Year 2000 contingency plans for all mission-critical systems as part of the exit criteria for completing the renovation phase. In August 1999, the Air Force Year 2000 Program Office reported that a system contingency plan had been competed for all of its mission-critical systems.

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Topics

Contingency plansCost analysisEmbedded computer systemsInformation resources managementSoftware verification and validationStrategic information systems planningSystems compatibilitySystems conversionsY2KU.S. Air Force