Federal Prison Industries: Delivery Performance Is Improving But Problems Remain

Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) developed and assessed statistics on Federal Prison Industries' (FPI) delivery performance; and (2) obtained the views of selected customer agencies' procurement officials on FPI delivery practices.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Bureau of Prisons	In order for FPI to have a more accurate and reliable measure of timeliness for use in evaluating its delivery performance, the Director, Bureau of Prisons (BOP), should direct FPI's Chief Operating Officer to identify orders with destination due dates and account for shipping time for these orders when evaluating delivery performance.	Closed – Implemented BOP has completed its action in response to this recommendation.
Bureau of Prisons	In order for FPI to have a more accurate and reliable measure of timeliness for use in evaluating its delivery performance, the Director, BOP, should direct FPI's Chief Operating Officer to develop and implement an approach for documenting the reasons for due date revisions, whether customers were notified of the reasons for changes, and whether customers approved of revised due dates.	Closed – Implemented BOP has completed its action in response to this recommendation.
Bureau of Prisons	In order for FPI to have a more accurate and reliable measure of timeliness for use in evaluating its delivery performance, the Director, BOP, should direct FPI's Chief Operating Officer to appropriately consider due date revisions and whether customers approved of them in evaluating timeliness.	Closed – Implemented BOP has completed its action in response to this recommendation.
Bureau of Prisons	In light of the concerns raised in this report by some of the top officials from FPI's major buying agencies and in light of FPI's stated broad commitment to total customer satisfaction, the Director, BOP, should direct FPI officials to contact these key customers to begin the process of resolving problems and improving relations.	Closed – Implemented BOP has not completed its action in response to this recommendation.
Bureau of Prisons	The Director, BOP, should direct FPI's Chief Operating Officer to begin evaluating and monitoring delivery performance by customer agency to develop data to use in its efforts to achieve greater customer satisfaction.	Closed – Implemented BOP has not completed its action in response to this recommendation.

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Justice and Law Enforcement

Contract oversightContract performanceCorrectional facilitiesCustomer serviceDelivery termsFederal supply systemsManagement information systemsPerformance measuresTotal quality managementUntimely protests