More Direction Needed To Establish a Uniform Depot Maintenance Accounting System

Over the past 15 years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has made several unsuccessful attempts to establish a uniform depot maintenance cost accounting system.

The most recent attempt to establish such a system, begun in 1975, has met with substantial difficulties in its implementation stage. The scheduled startup date, October 1976 at Air Force depots, has been delayed, and an interim system does not provide for the allocation of actual direct labor. Implementation of this part of the system may take 3 more years. The new system as now used at Army and Navy maintenance depots is not producing uniform cost accounting data because these services are continuing to use diversified approaches in developing such data. A uniform system would enable DOD management officials to assess the effectiveness of depot maintenance operations which cost several billion dollars in fiscal year 1976. Problems identified in implementing a uniform cost accounting system were: (1) lack of sufficiently comprehensive guidelines to preclude the use of widely varying methods of computing and reporting costs; (2) lack of leadership to ensure that managers knew the objectives and uses of the system; and (3) failure of depots to follow the DOD handbook.

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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