Best Practices: Commercial Quality Assurance Practices Offer Improvements for DOD
NSIAD-96-162
Published: Aug 26, 1996. Publicly Released: Aug 26, 1996.
Skip to Highlights
Highlights
GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) quality assurance practices, focusing on: (1) the problems that DOD has had in improving such practices; (2) private-sector practices that could be beneficial to DOD; and (3) DOD efforts to improve its quality assurance activities.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | The Secretary of Defense should: (1) establish measurable steps to implement and monitor the progress of the Defense/Industry Quality Liaison Panel plan closely; (2) periodically assess its success in implementing basic standards such as ISO-9000; (3) develop ways to encourage the adoption of advanced quality concepts of design for manufacturing, process controls, and supplier quality programs throughout the defense industry, using commercial practices as a guide; and (4) as suggested in the plan, establish incentives for defense contractors to participate, such as providing credit during source selection for successful implementation of these advanced quality practices. Such selection criteria could also provide world-class companies greater opportunities to participate in the DOD weapons acquisition programs. |
The Department has instituted various changes in line with the report's recommendations to: (1) establish measurable steps to implement and monitor progress of the Quality Panel's plan; (2) periodically assess success in implementing basic standards such as ISO-9000; (3) develop ways to encourage the adoption of advanced quality concepts of design for manufacturing, process controls, and supplier quality programs; and (4) as suggested in the plan, establish incentives for defense contractors to participate.
|
| Department of Defense | To assist DOD in changing its own quality assurance culture, the Secretary of Defense should expeditiously determine who in the DOD acquisition community can best oversee the advanced quality functions used by defense contractors in developing and producing weapon systems, using commercial practices as a guide in assigning these functions, and provide all necessary training for any new responsibilities that DOD personnel need to perform. |
According to DUSD (A&T) officials, quality assurance oversight will likely remain the responsibility of the Defense Contract Management Command (DCMC). However, they stated that DCMC should be reorganized to carry out these responsibilities more effectively and in line with the commercial practices GAO found.
|
Full Report
Public Inquiries
Topics
Best practicesContract oversightCost overrunsDefense cost controlDefense procurementDepartment of Defense contractorsInspectionManufacturing contractsPrivate sector practicesQuality assuranceSchedule slippagesWeapons systemsComparative benchmarking products