Administrative Systems

NASA Should Reassess Its AIM Program and Rescind Its IBM-Compatible Policy Gao ID: IMTEC-90-41 May 1, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) automatic data processing (ADP) procurement practices.

GAO found that NASA: (1) relied on headquarters and each of its nine centers to individually process automated administrative data; (2) did not provide adequate documentation justifying its decision to decentralize the operation of Automated Information Management (AIM) program systems; (3) did not perform comparative cost analyses to determine the number of sites needed to operate AIM systems; and (4) did not consider alternative approaches for implementing new or redesigned systems or ensure that the operation of AIM systems at each decentralized location was the most cost-effective and efficient approach. GAO also found that: (1) NASA did not adequately justify its policy requiring compatible hardware for all administrative computer systems; and (2) negative aspects of the policy that excluded non-compatible equipment outweighed the benefits of the policy.

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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