Inventory Management

The Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA) strategy for applying best commercial practices to the acquisition and distribution of consumable items, such as food, clothing, and medical supplies, lacks basic information on how the agency plans to implement these initiatives. As a result, it is unclear whether the Defense Department will meet the law's November 2000 deadline for implementation. Specifically, DLA's schedule for implementing best commercial practices does not contain information on the percentage of a supply category that will be affected by the initiatives. Consequently, users of the schedule are unable to determine the magnitude of impact that the initiatives are intended to have. Also, the schedule does not present metrics or indicators that will be used to determine whether the initiatives are achieving the desired results. This information is critical to determine whether readiness and sustainability goals are being met and cost goals achieved. The schedule also does not provide the milestones necessary to measure progress toward covering an entire supply category by the implementation date.

GAO noted that: (1) DLA's schedule provides information on 73 initiatives it identified as best practices for improving the acquisition and distribution of certain categories of consumable supplies; (2) although GAO is encouraged that DLA has established these initiatives, the schedule does not provide adequate information to assess whether it effectively provides for the implementation of these practices to be completed by November 2000, as required by the fiscal year 1998 Defense Authorization Act; (3) specifically, the schedule does not contain information on the percentage of a supply category that will be affected by the initiatives; (4) consequently, users of the schedule are unable to determine the magnitude of impact the initiatives are intended to have; (5) also, the schedule does not present metrics or indicators that will be used to determine whether the initiatives are achieving the desired results; (6) this information is critical to determine whether readiness and sustainability goals are being met and cost goals are being achieved; and (7) in addition, the schedule does not provide milestones necessary to measure progress toward covering the entire supply category by the implementation date.

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.

Director: Team: Phone: