Test Transfer of Consumable Supply Items to DLA from the Military Services

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) test transfer of about 200,000 consumable items, some of which are considered essential for the operations of weapon systems, to the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) from the military services. GAO also evaluated the cost and military readiness impact of returning items to the services and evaluated the methodology of the transfer to determine if the test should be terminated and if weapon system management sensitive items should be returned to the services.

GAO found that the items transferred to DLA were not selected in a statistically valid manner; therefore, the transferred items were not representative of the 1 million consumable items that were not transferred. Accordingly, the test results cannot be projected to the remaining consumable items. In addition, GAO found that the cost and readiness impact of returning weapon system management sensitive items to the services cannot be determined until specific criteria to identify the items are implemented. DOD and the services are working together to implement criteria for identifying weapon system managment sensitive items. The Air Force and the Army want their weapon system sensitive items to be returned to preserve the readiness of their weapon systems. The Navy and Marine Corps do not want any of their items returned.

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.

Director: Henry W. Connor Team: General Accounting Office: National Security and International Affairs Division Phone: (202) 275-4141