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Savings Attainable By Eliminating Duplicate Stocks In The U.S. Marine Corps

B-146828 Published: Nov 10, 1970. Publicly Released: Nov 10, 1970.
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Highlights

Previous work by the General Accounting Office (GAO) gave indications that the Marine Corps Supply Activity was managing items which were also managed by other Department of Defense supply components and the General Services Administration. This limited review was made to determine if the Marine Corps inventory was a duplication of inventories of the ether supply components and to determine the potential for improvements in economy and effectiveness of supply management if any duplication were eliminated.

The Marine Corps manages and stores large numbers of items that either have been designated for management under a single manager within the Department of Defense or are managed and stored for all Government users by the General Services Administration. This results in a sizable duplicate investment in inventories and in considerable additional costs due to duplicate management functions --computing requirements, buying, storing, and distributing.

As of June 30, 1969, the Marine Corps Supply Activity had 265,000 line items valued at $280.5 million on hand and on order. An analysis of these items showed that 185,000 line items (70 percent) valued at $148 million were also managed by the Defense Supply Agency, the Army Tank-Automotive Command, or the General Services Administration.

Elimination of the duplicate stocks would reduce the Marine Corps inventory investment by $123 million--$66 million representing potential excesses which could be disposed of and $57 million representing savings on stocks which would not have to be replenished. (Another $25 million would have to be retained since it consists of prepositioned war reserve stocks.) In addition, GAO estimates that annual savings of $18.5 million in management costs could be realized by eliminating these duplicate stocks.

Furthermore, the Marine Corps supply system is not providing as effective support for these items as other military customers are receiving directly from the designated managers. The Marine Corps and the Department of Defense have been aware of this duplication for over 2 years, but attempts by the Department of Defense to correct the situation have met with only limited success.

The Marine Corps has resisted efforts to require it to relinquish its management and stockage of these items.

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