GAO Reviews of Department of Defense Procurement in the United States

Much of the audit work of GAO relates to procurement, with about 10 percent of the total staff resources assigned to procurement. A large part of this work is concerned with procurement by the Department of Defense, including the process of acquiring major defense systems and the process of contracting. Each of these two activities is governed by its own set of management concepts and regulations. Areas of concern in the management of the acquisition of major weapons systems include: proper definition of needs; objective analysis of cost and effectiveness of alternative systems; research, development, performance, and testing; and production. Auditing of the contracting process emphasizes such concerns as the selection of appropriate supply sources, proper evaluation of proposals, proper conduct of contract pricing negotiations, contract administration, and contract terminations. Providing timely information to the Congress on individual systems for which funds are being requested accounts for a large portion of GAO's work on major weapons systems. Steps being taken to increase the productivity and reduce the costs of defense contractors include development of a profit policy, implementation of a value engineering program, improvement of manufacturing technology, cost reviews designed to determine how much projects should cost, and development of a work measurement system.