Defense Computers

The Navy relies on computer systems for virtually all of its operations, from strategic airlift and fleet mobilizations to such routine business functions as personnel and contract management. Failure to address the Year 2000 problem in time could severely degrade or disrupt the Navy's day-to-day and, more importantly, mission-critical operations. Although the Navy has tried to increase awareness, promote information sharing, and encourage its components to make Year 2000 remediation efforts a high priority, it is behind schedule in remediating systems. Moreover, the Navy lacks key management and oversight controls to enforce good management practices, direct resources, and establish a complete picture of its progress in remediating systems. The upshot is that the Navy lacks complete and reliable information on its systems and on the status and the cost of its remediation efforts. It has also increased the risk that (1) Year 2000 errors will be propagated from one organization's systems to another's; (2) all systems, interfaces, and equipment important to Navy operations will not be thoroughly and carefully tested; and (3) the Navy will be unprepared if systems are not corrected or replaced by the Year 2000 deadline.

GAO noted that: (1) the Navy relies on computer systems for some aspect of virtually every operation, including strategic and tactical operations; sophisticated weaponry; intelligence, surveillance, and security efforts; strategic sealift and fleet mobilization and readiness; and routine business functions such as financial, personnel, logistics, and contract management; (2) failure to address the year 2000 problem in time could severely degrade or disrupt the Navy's day-to-day and, more importantly, mission-critical operations; (3) the Navy has taken many positive actions to increase awareness, promote sharing of information, and encourage its components to make year 2000 remediation efforts a high priority; (4) however, it is behind schedule in remediating systems; (5) for example, the Navy did not finish assessing its mission-critical systems until December 1997 even though it anticipated that this would be done in June 1997; (6) in addition, it is still in the initial stages of assessing whether year 2000 fixes are required for computer hardware, communications equipment, security and building systems, and other infrastructure equipment; (7) furthermore, the Navy lacks key management and oversight controls to enforce good management practices, direct resources, and establish a complete picture of its progress in remediating systems; (8) for example, the Navy: (a) currently lacks a comprehensive departmentwide inventory of systems requiring remediation; (b) has not been tracking component progress in developing written agreements with their interface partners; (c) has not developed a test strategy for the department; and (d) is not developing contingency plans that focus on ensuring the continuity of all of its critical military operations and business processes; (9) as a result, the Navy lacks complete and reliable information on its systems, and on the status and cost of its remediation efforts; and (10) it has also increased the risk that: (a) year 2000 errors will be propagated from one organization's systems to another's; (b) all systems, interfaces, and equipment important to Navy operations will not be thoroughly and carefully tested; and (c) the department will not be prepared if systems are not corrected or replaced by the year 2000 deadline.

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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