Navy Contracting

Improvements Needed in Contracting for Simulator Maintenance Services Gao ID: NSIAD-87-6 October 29, 1986

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the Navy's Contractor Operation and Maintenance of Simulators (COMS) program to: (1) determine whether the Navy complied with statutory and regulatory requirements for contracting out the operation and maintenance of its simulators; (2) determine the support for the Navy's claims that the program is saving money and that simulators are more available for training than they were prior to COMS; and (3) assess the Navy's administration of the program.

GAO found that: (1) the Navy did not fulfill a Department of Defense (DOD) commitment to Congress to perform full cost-comparison studies on all activities, without regard to their size, before contracting out the operation and maintenance of simulators since, in the absence of these cost studies, there was no definitive evidence that contractors could perform the maintenance at a lesser cost than an efficiently organized in-house work force; and (2) there was no evidence to conclusively determine that simulators were more available for training with contractors than with in-house maintenance. GAO believes that: (1) the Navy could reduce contract costs by adopting more realistic simulator availability requirements and by reducing excess simulator capacity; and (2) there may be opportunities to reduce the number of in-house personnel devoted to monitoring and supporting the contractors.

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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