Defense Logistics: DOD Initiatives Related to Cutting Costs

GAO discussed issues related to the Department of Defense's (DOD) defense management report savings initiatives, focusing on DOD efforts to: (1) consolidate supply depots under the Defense Logistic Agency; (2) develop standard automatic data processing (ADP) systems under the Corporate Information Management Initiative (CIM); and (3) develop computer-aided logistics support. GAO noted that: (1) consolidation of supply depots under single agency management combined with other DOD initiatives can result in more efficient and cost-effective depot operations, but DOD needs to develop better ways to identify savings and quantify the impact of individual policies and directed initiatives; (2) DOD officials attribute nearly $36 billion of the $70 billion in estimated savings directly to DOD implementation of CIM; (3) $5.6 billion of savings attributed to CIM is directly identified with information technology initiatives; (4) DOD progress toward basic CIM goals of business process improvement and automated systems standardization has been slow, since it has not developed data standards or standardized business processes across the existing military department systems; and (5) DOD has taken action to strengthen and revitalize computer-aided logistics support by automating millions of pages of technical data needed to support weapons systems.