Organizational Culture

Use of Training to Help Change DOD Inventory Management Culture Gao ID: NSIAD-94-193 August 30, 1994

The Pentagon's excess inventories of unneeded items have long resulted from a culture that reflects the belief that it is better to overbuy items and have more than enough on hand than to try to manage with just the amount of stock needed. Training has been shown to be a key vehicle for helping organizations change their cultures. GAO reviewed the inventory management and Total Quality Management training that the Defense Department (DOD) provides to its 150,000 civilian and military personnel managing its inventory. This report discusses (1) how DOD plans to use training to change its inventory management culture, (2) the extent to which training courses encourage or reflect cultural change, and (3) the amount of training that inventory managers receive to help effect cultural change.

GAO found that: (1) because of budget constraints, DOD has to decrease the size and cost of its inventories and change its inventory management culture; (2) DOD needs to ensure that its top management is committed to and supports desired inventory values and beliefs and that employee training conveys those desired values and beliefs and the means to implement them; (3) although DOD recognizes training as a key tool to changing its inventory management culture, it has not yet developed plans for and guidance on effective training, its training courses lack the necessary content and emphasis to foster a new inventory management culture, and most inventory management personnel are not receiving the training needed to effect cultural change; (4) training courses still emphasize the traditional values of economy and efficiency rather than modern logistics practices and TQM; (5) DOD does not require most of its inventory management personnel to have TQM training; and (6) the availability of inventory management and TQM training varies widely among DOD activities.

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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