Defense Management: Printing Operations at the Department of Defense

GAO discussed issues concerning the Department of Defense's (DOD) printing and duplicating operations. GAO noted that: (1) DOD could have saved over 60 percent of its total printing and duplicating expenditures if it had procured printing and duplicating services through the Government Printing Office (GPO) and not performed the work in-house; (2) the DOD methodology and pricing scheme was reasonable and indicated the advantages of commercially-procured printing and duplicating services; (3) the level of printing and duplicating orders DOD procures through GPO may be overstated, since its accounting systems do not classify high duplicating orders as printing orders; (4) although the Defense Printing Service (DPS) acknowledged that potential savings could be achieved through GPO-procured printing services, it disagreed that duplicating services could be procured more economically through GPO; (5) although DOD has continued to down-size its printing and duplicating operations and personnel, DPS has not been able to avoid operating losses; (6) DOD has not sufficiently followed congressional directives requiring it to procure increased amounts of printing and duplicating work through GPO; and (7) DOD Joint Computer-Aided Acquisition and Logistics (JCALS) Program contract modifications could be inconsistent with its authorizing legislation.