Defense Industrial Base

DOD's Manufacturing Technology Program Needs Systematic Evaluation Gao ID: NSIAD-92-74 March 12, 1992

To improve the productivity and responsiveness of the defense industrial base, Congress has appropriated about $2 billion since 1980 to the Defense Department's (DOD) Manufacturing Technology Program. Yet DOD lacks reasonable assurances that the program, which provides research and development seed money to help develop advanced manufacturing processes and equipment, is being effectively implemented. Long-standing problems with the program's central management information system have gone uncorrected. The services' annual reports describe individual projects but do not address the extent to which program goals, priorities, and planned approaches are being carried out; cost savings or financial benefits attributed to specific projects are unreliable. DOD has not developed a way to assess the program's impact. While DOD is required to develop a Manufacturing Technology Plan, so far it has not established guidance that will enable it to measure and evaluate program effectiveness.

GAO found that: (1) the ManTech Program provides research and development to help develop advanced manufacturing processes, techniques, and equipment; (2) OSD oversees the ManTech Program and requires the services to supply detailed project information to its central database and to prepare annual reports; (3) although OSD acknowledges that the central database is incomplete and not used, it has done little to resolve the deficiencies; (4) although the services' annual reports complied with OSD requirements to describe ManTech projects, the reports did not address the extent to which the services carried out program goals, priorities, and planned approaches because OSD did not require this information; (5) OSD does not have a methodology for assessing the ManTech Program's impact or producing reliable estimates of the cost savings or financial benefits from individual ManTech projects; and (6) in response to a legislative mandate, OSD indicated that it would take a stronger role in planning, but so far has not established guidance that will enable it to evaluate program effectiveness.

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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