Survey of the Procurement Process at the Naval Supply Center Puget Sound and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard

GAO surveyed the procurement process at two Navy installations in Washington, the Naval Supply Center, Puget Sound, and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS), examining procedures for determining needs, making purchases, and receiving and controlling material acquired.

Cost savings could be achieved in procurement of nonstandard stock items by requisitioning larger quantities or consolidating purchase actions. Repetitive purchases increase the Supply Center workload and minimize opportunities for quantity discounts and lower prices from increased competition. About 50,000 purchase requisitions are processed annually by the Supply Center, using an automatic data processing system for controlling shop stores inventories and generating small-quantity purchase requisitions. This system could be used to consolidate requisitioning quantities. Present reordering is based on a complicated formula which includes many factors, but not the lower costs attainable through quantity buying. The Navy could cut costs of acquiring shop inventory items by identifying high-use items and consolidating purchases, particularly by combining requisition quantities or issuing competitive, indefinite-delivery, order-type contracts to cover the estimated material requirements for a fixed price.

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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