Need for Better Monitoring and Analysis of Foundry Data by the Department of Commerce

In a prior report, GAO discussed foundry closures and their effect on defense production capacity and Federal data collection problems. GAO reviewed the deficiencies in the organization and the foundry data analysis within the Department of Commerce over and above the data collection problems stressed in the first report.

The Department of Commerce's Office of Basic Industries (OBI) monitors and analyzes basic industries, the third largest of which is the foundry industry. However, the OBI organizational structure appears to hinder comprehensive analysis of foundry problems. OBI has placed a very low priority, in terms of staffing, on monitoring and analyzing the foundry industry; less than 1 staff year was devoted to foundries in 1980 by OBI and assigned staff had undergone frequent turnover. The OBI data files do not appear consonant with the quantitative importance of the foundry sector; they provide at best an incomplete knowledge of industry trends and their effect on the national industrial base. Further impediments to the analyses of the foundry industry by OBI and others are the classification problem and contradictory information published by the Bureau of Census on the number of active foundries and shipment tonnage. OBI has no formal channels of communication within Commerce and with other Government agencies which could help alert OBI to new foundry data. For example, the OBI ferrous castings specialist was unaware of pertinent Census Bureau data on the industry as well as special foundry studies published by other Government agencies.

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: John W. Sprague Team: General Accounting Office: Energy and Minerals Division Phone: (202) 512-7783