Managing Weapon System Software

Progress and Problems (Unclassified Digest of a Classified Report) Gao ID: PSAD-78-112 July 10, 1978

The Department of Defense (DOD) estimates that it spends over $3 billion annually for weapon system software, and the cost is steadily rising. However, software performance has often been unreliable because of serious technical and management problems with the way it is designed, developed, tested, and maintained. These problems increase weapon system life-cycle cost, extend development schedules, and degrade mission performance.

Due to the lack of visibility in the acquisition process, software management is not given the same emphasis as hardware even though software is critical to operational performance of the major weapon systems.

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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