Survey of the Activities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service

Gao ID: 091303 August 4, 1976

GAO examined the National Weather Service's (NWS) Automation of Field Operations and Services (AFOS) program objectives based on current and projected requirements, AFOS automatic data processing (ADP) equipment procurements, AFOS system hardware and communications components, AFOS experimental site testing and evaluation, AFOS projected manpower requirements, and the overall AFOS implementation plan.

GAO found that there are several managerial and functional areas that appear questionable with respect to achieving necessary systems efficiency and economy. A complete automation of Weather Service Office functions by placing AFOS systems at most Weather Service Offices may be excessive; remote access terminals might be a more efficient automation alternative and could result in significant hardware and software savings. GAO stated that NWS could save about $80,000 for each Weather Service Office which it can equip with a remote access terminal instead of completely automating the site. GAO had no opinion as to its reliability or cost effectiveness, because it did not analyze those aspects of the planned AFOS communications circuits. However, GAO did identify certain managerial tasks that should have been accomplished during the communications planning process. In addition, GAO noted that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) ADP management and planning division has not made any management reviews of the proliferation of ADP equipment within the NWS area. Finally, GAO found that the system plans for integration of automated observation and data acquisition subsystems with AFOS were inadequate.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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