Depot Maintenance: Key Unresolved Issues Affect the Army Depot System's Viability
GAO-03-682
Published: Jul 07, 2003. Publicly Released: Jul 07, 2003.
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Highlights
The Army's five maintenance depots produced work valued at $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2002, with the remaining 49 percent of the Army's depot work performed by contractors. GAO was asked to assess (1) the trends in and the reliability of depot workload projections; (2) whether workloads are sufficient for efficient depot operations, initiatives are under way to improve efficiency, and additional workloads are possible; (3) whether the Army has identified depots' core capability and provided workload to support that capability; and (4) whether the Army has a long-range plan for a viable, efficient depot system.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To improve the reliability of future maintenance workload projections in all DOD maintenance depots, the Secretary of Defense through the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, Logistics, should require the Army Materiel Command in conjunction with the Army acquisition community to develop and implement standard business rules and procedures for identifying and reporting Army depot workload projections from the Army acquisition community. |
Closed – Implemented
In its June 17, 2003, response to GAO's draft report, the Department agreed with this recommendation. The Department noted that it believed that the Army Materiel Command could develop standard business rules and procedures for identifying and reporting Army depot workload projections through the Army Workload Performance System. Nonetheless, the Army Materiel Command alone could not establish standard business rules and procedures for identifying and reporting Army depot workload projections from the non-Army customers. The Department undertook an effort to improve the procedures with the Army Materiel Command Community with the implementation and maturation of the Army Workload Performance System. Further, the Department initiated a study to address workload projection data for inter-serviced workloads across the services. These efforts should result in improved workload projection data both with the Army community and from other services.
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| Department of Defense | To improve the reliability of future maintenance workload projections in all DOD maintenance depots, the Secretary of Defense through the Under Secretary of Defense Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, should require the DOD depot maintenance community to develop and implement ways to improve the identification and reporting of depot inter-service workload projections across all the military services using standard business rules and procedures. |
Closed – Implemented
In its June 17, 2003, response to GAO's draft report, the Department stated that it plans to address this recommendation with a study to examine how the identification and reporting of inter-service workload projections across the military services can be improved. On June 24, 2003, the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense (Maintenance Policy, Programs and Resources) announced a "Depot Maintenance Inter-service Workload Projection Study." The study was completed with the identification of improved procedures for providing improved workload projection data to the depots.
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Topics
Work measurementArmy basesStrategic planningBest practicesU.S. ArmyDepot maintenanceMilitary forcesPrivate sectorLogisticsStrategic plan