Air Force ADP

The Air Force has spent about $1 billion to replace 108 outdated logistics computer systems with 14 new ones. According to the Air Force, six of the 14 are still being developed, one has been canceled, and seven have been delivered. Although GAO has not assessed whether the delivered systems were cost effective, one system delivered in 1987 at a cost of $21 million--$8.9 million below estimate--was ineffective and should be discontinued. The Air Force itself has not thoroughly evaluated the benefits of any of the delivered systems and will have a hard time doing so because it lacks adequate performance measures. Further, the Pentagon has not yet done the analyses needed to evaluate ongoing logistics systems, select the most promising, and curtail the rest. These analyses must be completed before the Pentagon can determine whether the Corporate Information Management Initiative, begun in 1989 to improve business operations in functional areas, including logistics, will affect the modernization projects.

GAO found that: (1) AFMC spent $1 billion to modernize and consolidate its logistics management systems; (2) 7 of 14 systems were completed, at a cost of $261 million, 6 systems are still under development, and one system was terminated; (3) the Air Force has not measured the savings or extent of improvements attributable to the new systems; (4) it had previously found that the Air Force Automated Technical Order System was costly and ineffective, and should be discontinued; and (5) CIM has had little impact on AFMC modernization projects.