The Defense Science Board's Task Force on Embedded Computer Resources Acquisition and Management

The Comptroller General discussed Department of Defense (DOD) Instruction 5000.5x and the GAO review of the objectivity of a Defense Science Board task force. The task force was convened to review DOD acquisition, management, and utilization of computers to support its military mission. The objectives of the proposed DOD Instruction are to curtail high costs from hardware and software proliferation and increase the effectiveness of embedded computer management. Although the Instruction had merit during the 1970's, there are serious challenges to its validity in the 1980's. GAO believes that its earlier recommendation that DOD not implement the Instruction is still appropriate. Some firms that are heavily engaged in providing computers to support military missions have little or no commercially oriented computer capacity. It is to the advantage of such firms for DOD to establish a policy of standardization on their computer lines. Given the huge sums of money involved, it is critical that any group established to judge and make recommendations on the standardization issue be as free from overall bias as possible. The financial and employment ties of task force members should be thoroughly analyzed to insure the absence of inherent biases and conflicts of interest. GAO believes that DOD did not properly attend to this important requirement. When the task force deliberation occurred, the Army had entered into four advance development contracts aimed at the eventual selection of a single production contractor to fill the Army's requirements for embedded computers. The Navy's program had progressed beyond the advance development stage. Unlike the other services, the Air Force avoided standardizing below the architecture level set by the Instruction. A review of the financial statements of task force members showed that 7 of 11 members had financial interests in one or more of the firms that had standardization contracts under the Army, Navy, or Air Force programs. Given the interests of the task force membership in supporting the proposed policy, GAO believes that the conclusions of the task force cannot be relied on as an independent assessment of the proposed DOD policies on embedded computer acquisition and management.