Added Emphasis on Consolidation of Multiple Purchase Requests Could Result in Significant Savings

GAO reviewed the potential for consolidating multiple procurements at agencies under the U.S. Army Materiel Command, including the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Command (TACOM) and the U.S. Army Troop Support and Aviation Materiel Readiness Command, which was recently reorganized as the U.S. Army Aviation Systems Command (AVSCOM) and the U.S. Army Troop Support Command (TROSCOM).

GAO found that the agencies reviewed are not consolidating procurements to the maximum extent feasible. Multiple procurement actions have been processed concurrently for identical items, and about 23 percent of the procurements reviewed could have been combined with other purchases of the same items to obtain lower unit prices. GAO found that about 13 percent of the awarded contracts could have been eliminated. GAO believes that the lack of efficiency is caused by: (1) overemphasis by procurement personnel on minimizing the time required to process each procurement; (2) a lack of aggressive action to match procurements for identical items; and (3) a TACOM local directive that had the effect of discouraging consolidation under certain circumstances.

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