Defense Depot Maintenance

DOD's Policy Report Leaves Future Role of Depot System Uncertain Gao ID: NSIAD-96-165 May 21, 1996

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 requires GAO to analyze the Defense Department's (DOD) report entitled Policy Regarding Performance of Depot-Level Maintenance and Repair, which was submitted to Congress in April 1996. GAO focuses on (1) the likely future role of the defense depots, (2) the adequacy of the depot maintenance policy's content, and (3) the inconsistency of DOD's policy with current statutes and congressional direction on the use of public-private competitions.

GAO found that: (1) the DOD depot maintenance policy calls for a greater mix of public and private-sector maintenance capabilities; (2) DOD will likely rely more on private-sector depots given the uncertainty of future workload assignments; (3) the policy is vague and offers no guidance as to how DOD should downsize its depot maintenance capacity; (4) the policy ignores congressional directives calling for competition between public and private-sector entities for non-core maintenance work; (5) under this policy, DOD depots would not be allowed to compete for non-core workloads even if they offer the most cost-effective source of repair; and (6) DOD needs to develop a system that allows excess capacity reduction and vigorous public-private competition between DOD depots and commercial firms.

Recommendations

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