Procurement

Spare Parts and Support Equipment for Air Force C-5 Transport Aircraft Gao ID: NSIAD-88-57BR May 23, 1988

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the San Antonio Air Logistics Center's procurement practices to determine whether it: (1) procured spare parts for the C-5B aircraft economically and according to Air Force policies and regulations; and (2) provided the reserve units scheduled to receive the C-5A aircraft with only necessary ground support equipment.

GAO found that the Center: (1) purchased the spare parts indirectly through the prime contractor rather than directly from the parts vendors, which may have resulted in an overpayment of between $13 million and $19 million; (2) may have overobligated between $9.7 million and $30 million for the spare parts on the basis of inaccurate contractor price estimates; (3) may have purchased war reserve spare parts for the C-5B earlier than necessary; and (4) did not consolidate spare parts purchases to obtain the benefit of economical quantities. GAO also found that, since the ground units receiving C-5A aircraft for the first time requisitioned unnecessary ground support equipment, the Air Force: (1) moved up a scheduled review of ground support equipment; and (2) reduced the equipment authorized for reserve-unit use by about $2 million.

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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