Air Force Logistics

The Air Force has not effectively managed bench stocks--supply inventories that military base activities, such as repair shops, purchase from base supply for their own use. Despite the belief that bench stocks should contain frequent-use low-cost items, about 26 percent of the items in bench stocks at the five bases GAO reviewed were rarely used during the past year and about 30 percent of the remaining bench stocks were expensive items. Inventory managers have no idea how many of these items are in bench stocks at a given moment, which may be causing the Air Force to buy new items when the same items are in oversupply in bench stocks. Base supply inventories can be economical alternatives to bench stocks for providing low-usage and high-cost items to maintenance activities. Using base supply inventories instead of bench stocks for these items would reduce overall inventory levels and improve asset visibility without sacrificing the timeliness of the maintenance activities.

GAO found that: (1) Department of Defense (DOD) material management regulations require that inventory managers have timely and accurate information on the location, quantity, and status of supplies, but the regulations do not set stockage policies for maintenance activities' inventories, known as bench stocks, and the services' material management policies vary; (2) the Air Force has not effectively managed its low- and high-cost bench stocks; (3) 26 percent of the low-cost bench stock items at the five bases it reviewed were used infrequently, and about 30 percent of the remaining bench stocks were high-cost items; (4) the Air Force may be purchasing unneeded inventory items because inventory managers do not have sufficient bench stock information; (5) Air Force bases and activities have not implemented Air Force policies regarding the storage of obsolete operation-critical items, identified and eliminated unneeded bench stock items, and turned in unneeded items; and (6) using base supply inventories could reduce overall inventory levels, improve asset visibility without sacrificing maintenance timeliness, and be an economical alternative to bench stocks.

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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