Coast Guard
New Communication System to Support Search and Rescue Faces Challenges Gao ID: GAO-03-1111 September 30, 2003Search and rescue--one of the Coast Guard's oldest missions--involves minimizing the loss of life, injury, and property damage by aiding people and boats in distress. The Coast Guard has previously reported that its 30-year-old search and rescue communication system, called the National Distress and Response System, has several deficiencies and is difficult to maintain. Thus, the Coast Guard contracted to replace and modernize it with a new system, called Rescue 21. GAO was asked to identify the status and plans of the Coast Guard's acquisition of Rescue 21 and the technical and program risks associated with Rescue 21.
Rescue 21's original schedule, which called for it to achieve initial operating capability by September 2003, has been postponed, and the Coast Guard has not yet finalized a new schedule. This postponement was due in part to the development of the system taking longer than planned. GAO reviewed the Coast Guard's management of three risk areas associated with Rescue 21. (1) Test management: scheduled completion dates for key tests are still being determined. These key tests (formal qualification testing, system integration testing, and operational testing and evaluation) are incremental tests that the Coast Guard is planning to perform before reaching initial operating capability. Completion dates are not yet set because the Coast Guard decided to postpone initial operating capability due to delays in the original test schedule, which resulted in increased risks associated with compressing and overlapping key tests. In addition, key deliverables, including test plans, are still outstanding, and no scheduled completion dates exist. (2) Requirements management: the Coast Guard has a process in place for managing system requirements. (3) Risk management: the Coast Guard has a program in place for identifying, prioritizing, and minimizing risks. Two high risks identified by the Coast Guard are software development and environmental concerns related to the construction of new antenna sites, which may delay the implementation of Rescue 21.
RecommendationsOur 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:GAO-03-1111, Coast Guard: New Communication System to Support Search and Rescue Faces Challenges
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Rescue Faces Challenges' which was released on October 30, 2003.
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Report to the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of
Representatives:
September 2003:
COAST GUARD:
New Communication System to Support Search and Rescue Faces Challenges:
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-1111] GAO-03-
1111:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-1111, a report to the Subcommittee on Coast Guard
and Maritime Transportation, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, House of Representatives
Why GAO Did This Study:
Search and rescue”one of the Coast Guard‘s oldest missions”involves
minimizing the loss of life, injury, and property damage by aiding
people and boats in distress. The Coast Guard has previously reported
that its 30-year-old search and rescue communication system, called
the National Distress and Response System, has several deficiencies
and is difficult to maintain. Thus, the Coast Guard contracted to
replace and modernize it with a new system, called Rescue 21.
GAO was asked to identify the status and plans of the Coast Guard‘s
acquisition of Rescue 21 and the technical and program risks
associated with Rescue 21.
What GAO Found:
Rescue 21‘s original schedule, which called for it to achieve initial
operating capability by September 2003, has been postponed, and the
Coast Guard has not yet finalized a new schedule. This postponement
was due in part to the development of the system taking longer than
planned.
GAO reviewed the Coast Guard‘s management of three risk areas
associated with Rescue 21:
* Test management. Scheduled completion dates for key tests are still
being determined. These key tests (formal qualification testing,
system integration testing, and operational testing and evaluation)
are incremental tests that the Coast Guard is planning to perform
before reaching initial operating capability. Completion dates are
not yet set because the Coast Guard decided to postpone initial
operating capability due to delays in the original test schedule,
which resulted in increased risks associated with compressing and
overlapping key tests (see figure). In addition, key deliverables,
including test plans, are still outstanding, and no scheduled
completion dates exist.
* Requirements management. The Coast Guard has a process in place for
managing system requirements.
* Risk management. The Coast Guard has a program in place for
identifying, prioritizing, and minimizing risks. Two high risks
identified by the Coast Guard are software development and
environmental concerns related to the construction of new antenna
sites, which may delay the implementation of Rescue 21.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends, in part, that the Secretary of Homeland Security
direct the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard to establish a new
schedule for critical testing phases and initial operating capability
and ensure that milestones are established for completing test plans
for formal qualification testing, system integration testing, and
operational testing and evaluation.
In commenting on a draft of our report, Coast Guard officials
generally agreed with GAO‘s findings and recommendations and provided
technical corrections, which were incorporated as appropriate.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-1111.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click
on the link above. For more information, contact David A. Powner at
(202) 512-9286 or pownerd@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Recommendations:
Agency Comments:
Appendix:
Appendix I: The Coast Guard's Rescue 21 Acquisition: An Update:
Letter September 30, 2003:
The Honorable Frank A. LoBiondo
Chairman
The Honorable Bob Filner
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
House of Representatives:
The National Distress and Response System is a significant component of
the United States Coast Guard's search and rescue program. However,
Coast Guard officials have reported that the 30-year-old system has
several deficiencies and is difficult to maintain. In September 2002,
the Coast Guard contracted with General Dynamics Decision Systems
(General Dynamics) to modernize and replace the National Distress and
Response System with a system called Rescue 21. As you requested, our
objectives were to identify the (1) status and plans of the Coast
Guard's acquisition of Rescue 21 and (2) technical and programmatic
risks associated with Rescue 21.
To identify the status and plans for acquiring Rescue 21, we analyzed
Rescue 21's acquisition strategy and cost and schedule estimates. We
also compared original Rescue 21 plans with current strategies. To
identify the technical and programmatic risks associated with Rescue
21, we reviewed key Coast Guard acquisition documents, including test
plans, requirements documents, the risk watch list, and risk mitigation
plans. We performed our work at the Coast Guard headquarters in
Washington, D.C.; the Coast Guard group site in Chincoteague, Va.; and
General Dynamics in Scottsdale, Ariz. We conducted our work from
November 2002 through June 2003 in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards.
On August 13, 2003, we provided your offices with a status briefing on
the results of this review, which is included as appendix I. The
purpose of this letter is to provide the published briefing slides to
you and to officially transmit our recommendations to the Secretary of
Homeland Security.
In brief, we reported that the Coast Guard's original schedule for
reaching initial operating capability by September 2003 had been
postponed and that the Coast Guard had not yet finalized a new
schedule. The postponement of the schedule for reaching initial
operating capability was due in part to the system's development taking
longer than planned. In reviewing the Coast Guard's test management
practices, we found that the Coast Guard postponed key tests in part
because prior schedules showed delay, overlap, and compression of
tests, which increased the risk that all requirements would not be
tested. In addition, schedules for key tests and deliverables,
including test plans, were still outstanding. These key tests (formal
qualification testing, system integration testing, and operational
testing and evaluation) are incremental tests that the Coast Guard is
planning to perform before reaching initial operating capability. We
also determined that the Coast Guard has developed key documentation
used for managing system requirements and that the Coast Guard has a
program in place for identifying, prioritizing, and minimizing risks.
Recommendations:
To mitigate Rescue 21 risks and ensure that adequate testing occurs and
all requirements are fulfilled so that the deployed system will work as
specified, we are recommending that the Secretary of Homeland Security
direct the Commandant of the United States Coast Guard to:
* establish a new schedule for critical testing phases and initial
operating capability and:
* ensure that milestones are established for completing test plans for
formal qualification testing, system integration testing, and
operational testing and evaluation and that test plans address all
requirements of the system.
Agency Comments:
In providing oral comments on a draft of this report, Coast Guard
officials, including the Coast Guard's Rescue 21 Project Manager,
stated that they generally agreed with our findings and
recommendations. Coast Guard officials also stated that the Coast Guard
is actively working with General Dynamics to jointly develop a new
schedule that considers all the risk factors identified in this report.
In addition, Coast Guard officials provided technical corrections that
we incorporated in this report, where appropriate.
:
As we agreed with your staff, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30
days from the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies to
the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Commandant of the United States
Coast Guard, and other interested parties. Copies will be made
available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at [Hyperlink, http://
www.gao.gov.] http://www.gao.gov.
If you have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202)
512-9286 or by e-mail at [Hyperlink, pownerd@gao.gov] p [Hyperlink,
pownerd@gao.gov] ownerd@gao.gov. Sophia Harrison, Richard Hung, David
Noone, Colleen Phillips, Karl Seifert, and Eric Winter were major
contributors to this report.
David A. Powner
Director (Acting), Information Technology Management Issues:
Signed by David A. Powner:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
[End of section]
Appendix I: The Coast Guard's Rescue 21 Acquisition: An Update:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
[End of section]
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