Automated Information Systems

The Army, Navy, and Air Force have spent more than $82 million so far to design, operate, and maintain their own automated information systems for military recruiting. These systems, however, perform basically the same tasks. While the Defense Corporate Information Management (CIM) initiative is intended to eliminate such duplication, these systems have not been included in the CIM effort, primarily because recruiting systems were considered a low priority. In developing their separate systems, the services have encountered design and development problems that have caused delays and cost increases. Placing these systems under the CIM umbrella would focus management attention on these problems and help reduce expenditures for these duplicative systems without any measurable reduction in capability.

GAO found that: (1) the individual services spent over $82 million to design, develop, operate, and maintain their own automated information systems for military recruiting; (2) although the CIM initiative is designed, in part, to eliminate duplication of efforts, DOD has not included military recruiting systems in the CIM initiative because military recruiting systems are considered a low priority area; (3) the services' separate automated recruiting systems development efforts are producing multiple information systems to meet common functions; and (4) the services' recruiting systems have encountered design and development problems that have caused increased costs and time delays.

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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