Defense Procurement

Small businesses are concerned about their continuing inability to compete for Defense Department (DOD) contracts because they cannot get timely access to current, accurate, and complete technical data. DOD is still working on automating its systems to provide data in digital form. The military services run 24 repositories to manage the receipt, storage, and distribution of technical data for DOD procurement. The repositories generally lack the necessary records to monitor their own timeliness, although they generally respond promptly to most requests for technical data. Data problems continue to inhibit contractors from competing for government work or completing the work after a contract is awarded. Repository managers say that data quality problems often begin during the acquisition process and cannot be fixed. Repositories mainly receive, store, and distribute information. DOD is relying heavily on automation to improve the operations of its technical data repositories. Although the automation effort began slowly because of inadequate direction and coordination, DOD is now making progress.

GAO found that: (1) although repositories were required to maintain records on data technical requests, they were unable to evaluate how quickly they responded to requests or determine the status of received requests, since they lacked logs and other records to measure their efforts; (2) although the majority of the 23 private contractors reviewed stated that the repositories generally responded to their data requests in a timely manner, 19 contractors, or about 83 percent, reported having experienced data quality problems, including illegible drawings, obsolete data, and inaccurate or incomplete information; (3) contractors reported general dissatisfaction with repositories' efforts to resolve data quality problems and difficulty communicating with government personnel about the problems; (4) repository managers stated that they were unable to resolve data quality problems, since the problems often originated during the acquisition process, and they were only responsible for receiving, storing, and distributing data; (5) DOD is relying on automation to improve its technical data repository operations; and (6) data quality problems inhibit contractors from competing for government work or completing their requirements under government contracts. GAO also found that: (1) the Army and the Air Force have jointly implemented an automation plan, and seven Army and five Air Force repositories are in the process of converting their data to the new systems; and (2) although the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) are implementing a joint plan, their automation efforts are slower due to funding and technology difficulties.

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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