Property Management
NASA's Goal of Increasing Equipment Reutilization May Fall Short without Further Efforts Gao ID: GAO-09-187 January 30, 2009In 2010, the planned retirement of the space shuttle will require the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to make disposal and reutilization decisions regarding over 1.2 million types of equipment. To facilitate these and other equipment management decisions, NASA recently invested $29 million in a new program: the Plant, Property, and Equipment (PP&E) Module--a component of NASA's Integrated Enterprise Management Program. GAO was asked to assess the effectiveness of NASA's processes, systems, and controls for managing its PP&E. This report addresses whether NASA (1) effectively designed controls over steps NASA identified as key to its controlled equipment reutilization process, including sending equipment to disposal, and (2) implemented policies, controls, and processes to enhance equipment reutilization. To answer these questions, GAO reviewed NASA equipment reutilization policy and conducted on-site visits at five NASA centers.
Inconsistent descriptions and inaccurate information on the condition of equipment hamper the PP&E Module's ability to produce equipment matches and enhance reutilization. Although descriptions of equipment items are crucial for the new module to succeed in identifying equipment for reutilization, NASA has not provided detailed guidance on what should be included in the description field, leading to widely varying descriptions. For example, the same type of computer server equipment was described as a "disk array," "disk drive unit," and "storage array unit." GAO's physical inspections at two centers found that 83 of the 84 equipment items inspected were incorrectly coded as new and unused in the PP&E Module. These problems may lead to reutilization opportunities being overlooked. Further hampering equipment reutilization is the PP&E Module's lack of detailed equipment availability information. The module does not identify the extent to which each piece of equipment is in use, necessitating a potentially lengthy search process. For example, an end user searching for an oscilloscope could currently have to contact up to 1,700 other end users to determine the availability status of these equipment items. These conditions contribute to inadequate end user utilization of the NASA Property Web interface (N-PROP), the PP&E Module's automated component. N-PROP allows end users to perform online equipment management functions, which NASA anticipated would generate cost savings by facilitating equipment reutilization and eliminating manual processes. However, 98 of the 121 end users who were responsible for equipment selected from a NASA-wide statistical sample stated that they had never used either N-PROP or the prior systems, limiting the potential savings from implementing the new PP&E Module. NASA's existing policies and procedures regarding equipment screenings and annual walk-through inspections--both key controls in the equipment reutilization process--were carried out inconsistently, if at all, at the five centers GAO visited. Without specific guidance on how to implement NASA's equipment screening policy, centers failed to ensure that screenings occurred prior to purchasing new equipment, undermining the purpose of the screenings. Further, NASA does not require users to justify the need to purchase new equipment when a screening has identified equipment available for reutilization. In addition, required walk-through inspections intended to identify idle equipment were not conducted at one center and were ineffective at the other four. Equipment managers did not always follow up to ensure that the PP&E Module was updated and GAO's testing estimated that about 16 percent of NASA's controlled equipment (with a value of at least $230 million) was improperly listed as being actively in use and had been overlooked during annual walk-through inspections.
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-09-187, Property Management: NASA's Goal of Increasing Equipment Reutilization May Fall Short without Further Efforts
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Report to the Chairman, Committee on Science and Technology, House of
Representatives:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
January 2009:
Property Management:
NASA's Goal of Increasing Equipment Reutilization May Fall Short
without Further Efforts:
NASA Equipment Management:
GAO-09-187:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-09-187, a report to the Chairman, Committee on
Science and Technology, House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
In 2010, the planned retirement of the space shuttle will require the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to make disposal
and reutilization decisions regarding over 1.2 million types of
equipment. To facilitate these and other equipment management
decisions, NASA recently invested $29 million in a new program: the
Plant, Property, and Equipment (PP&E) Module”a component of NASA‘s
Integrated Enterprise Management Program. GAO was asked to assess the
effectiveness of NASA‘s processes, systems, and controls for managing
its PP&E. This report addresses whether NASA (1) effectively designed
controls over steps NASA identified as key to its controlled equipment
reutilization process, including sending equipment to disposal, and (2)
implemented policies, controls, and processes to enhance equipment
reutilization. To answer these questions, GAO reviewed NASA equipment
reutilization policy and conducted on-site visits at five NASA centers.
What GAO Found:
Inconsistent descriptions and inaccurate information on the condition
of equipment hamper the PP&E Module‘s ability to produce equipment
matches and enhance reutilization. Although descriptions of equipment
items are crucial for the new module to succeed in identifying
equipment for reutilization, NASA has not provided detailed guidance on
what should be included in the description field, leading to widely
varying descriptions. For example, the same type of computer server
equipment was described as a ’disk array,“ ’disk drive unit,“ and
’storage array unit.“ GAO‘s physical inspections at two centers found
that 83 of the 84 equipment items inspected were incorrectly coded as
new and unused in the PP&E Module. These problems may lead to
reutilization opportunities being overlooked.
Further hampering equipment reutilization is the PP&E Module‘s lack of
detailed equipment availability information. The module does not
identify the extent to which each piece of equipment is in use,
necessitating a potentially lengthy search process. For example, an end
user searching for an oscilloscope could currently have to contact up
to 1,700 other end users to determine the availability status of these
equipment items.
These conditions contribute to inadequate end user utilization of the
NASA Property Web interface (N-PROP), the PP&E Module‘s automated
component. N-PROP allows end users to perform online equipment
management functions, which NASA anticipated would generate cost
savings by facilitating equipment reutilization and eliminating manual
processes. However, 98 of the 121 end users who were responsible for
equipment selected from a NASA-wide statistical sample stated that they
had never used either N-PROP or the prior systems, limiting the
potential savings from implementing the new PP&E Module.
NASA‘s existing policies and procedures regarding equipment screenings
and annual walk-through inspections”both key controls in the equipment
reutilization process”were carried out inconsistently, if at all, at
the five centers GAO visited. Without specific guidance on how to
implement NASA‘s equipment screening policy, centers failed to ensure
that screenings occurred prior to purchasing new equipment, undermining
the purpose of the screenings. Further, NASA does not require users to
justify the need to purchase new equipment when a screening has
identified equipment available for reutilization. In addition, required
walk-through inspections intended to identify idle equipment were not
conducted at one center and were ineffective at the other four.
Equipment managers did not always follow up to ensure that the PP&E
Module was updated and GAO‘s testing estimated that about 16 percent of
NASA‘s controlled equipment (with a value of at least $230 million) was
improperly listed as being actively in use and had been overlooked
during annual walk-through inspections.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is recommending five actions for improving the effectiveness of
NASA‘s equipment reutilization efforts, including actions directed at
obtaining accurate information on equipment descriptions, condition,
and availability. NASA agreed with four recommendations, but disagreed
with GAO‘s recommendation to improve equipment availability data. GAO
continues to believe additional actions are warranted in this area.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-187]. For more
information, contact Susan Ragland at (202) 512-9095 or
raglands@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Ineffective Controls Hindered Equipment Reutilization:
NASA Has Not Implemented Effective Policies and Detailed Procedures to
Enhance Equipment Reutilization:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Comments from the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration:
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Examples of NASA Equipment That Walk-Through Inspections Did
Not Identify as Excess or Underutilized (as of September 30, 2007):
Table 2: Description of the Populations and Sample Transactions:
Figures:
Figure 1: NASA Equipment Reutilization Process:
Figure 2: NASA's Equipment Screening Process:
Figure 3: Equipment End User Screening Process in PP&E Module:
Abbreviations:
ARC: Ames Research Center:
DFRC: Dryden Flight Research Center:
DLIS: Department of Defense Logistics Information System:
EMR: Equipment Master Record:
GRC: John Glenn Research Center:
GSA: General Services Administration:
GSFC: Goddard Space Flight Center:
HQ: Headquarters:
IEMP: Integrated Enterprise Management Program:
JFMIP: Joint Financial Management Improvement Program:
JSC: Johnson Space Center:
KSC: Kennedy Space Center:
LARC: Langley Research Center:
MSFC: Marshall Space Flight Center:
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration:
NEMS: NASA Equipment Management System:
NPD: NASA Policy Directive:
NPDMS: NASA Property Disposal Management System:
NPR: NASA Procedural Requirements:
OIG: Office of Inspector General:
PP&E: Property, Plant, and Equipment:
SSC: Stennis Space Center:
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
January 30, 2009:
The Honorable Bart Gordon:
Chairman:
Committee on Science and Technology:
House of Representatives:
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) stands at one
of the most important crossroads it has faced since its inception in
1958. The implementation of its new space exploration policy--A Renewed
Spirit of Discovery: The President's Vision for U.S. Space
Exploration[Footnote 1]--and the planned retirement of the space
shuttle in 2010 will require NASA to move into a period of major
transition. The planned retirement of the shuttle will require the
agency to make disposal and reutilization decisions regarding over 1.2
million types of equipment, including "controlled equipment," which is
the focus of this report.[Footnote 2] During this transition period, it
will be crucial that NASA have the processes, systems, and controls in
place to ensure maximum reutilization and effective management and
control of its equipment.
In response to your request, this report addresses whether NASA has
effectively (1) designed controls over steps NASA identified as key to
its controlled equipment reutilization process, including equipment
sent to disposal, and (2) implemented policies, controls, and processes
to enhance equipment reutilization. During our review, NASA implemented
its new Integrated Asset Management Property, Plant, and Equipment
(PP&E) Module on May 19, 2008, and we examined the initial
implementation of this module. However, we did not review or assess
whether NASA followed best practices in customizing and implementing
the PP&E Module, which NASA designed to enhance visibility,
accountability, and management of PP&E.
In conducting this review, we:
* evaluated the design of key steps in NASA's reutilization process by
reviewing and comparing NASA's equipment management policies and
procedural guidance for equipment management and reutilization with
federal property management regulations and other property management
standards, including GAO's standards for internal control, and assessed
key aspects of PP&E Module controls;[Footnote 3]
* reviewed information regarding the equipment reutilization process at
five centers,[Footnote 4] interviewed relevant NASA personnel to obtain
their views on the equipment reutilization process and the design and
implementation of the PP&E Module in facilitating equipment
reutilization, and observed NASA employees as they demonstrated the
PP&E Module's equipment management, search, and disposal
capabilities;[Footnote 5] and:
* selected a statistical random sample of equipment recorded in NASA's
legacy NASA Equipment Management System (NEMS) and visited five centers
to determine whether equipment recorded as actively being used was
accurately recorded and transferred to the PP&E Module for reuse or
disposal.[Footnote 6]
We conducted this performance audit from December 2007 through January
2009 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Additional
details of our scope and methodology are provided in appendix I.
We requested comments on a draft of this report from the NASA
Administrator or his designee. Written comments from the Deputy
Administrator are presented and evaluated in the Agency Comments and
Our Evaluation section of this report and are reprinted in their
entirety in appendix II.
Results in Brief:
Inconsistent descriptions and inaccurate information on the condition
of equipment hamper the PP&E Module's ability to produce equipment
matches. Descriptions should focus on equipment features and
capabilities that accurately reflect users' needs based upon
performance criteria. Although descriptions of equipment items are
crucial for the new module to succeed in identifying equipment for
reutilization, NASA has not provided adequate oversight and detailed
guidance on what type of information should be included in the
description field, leading to widely varying equipment descriptions
among the five centers we visited. For example, the same type of
computer server equipment was described as a "disk array," "disk drive
unit," and "storage array unit." These differences in descriptions may
lead to reutilization opportunities being overlooked. Inaccurate
information regarding the physical condition--or usability--of
equipment in the PP&E Module creates another barrier to reutilization.
At two centers, we determined that 83 of 84 equipment items we
physically inspected that had been transferred to disposal were
incorrectly coded as new and unused in the PP&E Module. These problems
discourage use of the PP&E Module, and several end users told us that
they do not have confidence in the equipment's condition as reported in
the PP&E Module.
Another potential barrier to equipment reutilization is the limited
amount of information in the PP&E Module on the availability of
equipment. According to NASA officials, the PP&E Module was intended to
facilitate temporary transfers of equipment among end users so they
could share, and more fully utilize, equipment. Although the module
provides visibility to these types of equipment in use at NASA, it does
not identify the extent to which each piece of equipment is being used.
Without more specific information on the availability status of
equipment, end users must perform a potentially lengthy search by
contacting other equipment end users individually to determine if their
equipment is available for utilization. An end user searching for an
oscilloscope, for example, could currently have to contact up to 1,700
other end users to determine the availability status of their
oscilloscopes.
These conditions contribute to inadequate end user utilization of the
NASA Property Web interface (N-PROP), the PP&E Module's automated
component, limiting potential cost savings. N-PROP allows end users to
perform online equipment management functions, such as screening NASA's
existing inventory for equipment to reutilize. NASA anticipated that
this would generate operational cost savings by facilitating equipment
reutilization and eliminating manual processes. However, 98 of the 121
end users we interviewed stated that they had never used N-PROP (or the
prior systems) to identify equipment they could reutilize. So, although
this lack of use of N-PROP may be due in part to the timing of our
review, which coincided with initial implementation of the PP&E Module,
these responses also reflect a lack of end user familiarity with and
use of equipment management functions in the prior systems. Among the
reasons that some end users gave for not using N-PROP were that they
preferred new equipment, viewed existing equipment as undesirable, did
not consider the PP&E Module equipment information to be reliable, or
were unfamiliar with the module. Because most end users we spoke with
had not used the PP&E Module at the time of our visits, property
custodians had assumed many equipment management responsibilities,
lessening the impact of automating this process through N-PROP.
NASA's existing policies and procedures related to equipment
reutilization--required equipment screenings and annual walk-through
inspections--were carried out inconsistently at the five centers we
visited, if at all. Although 92 percent of equipment in the PP&E Module
consisted of items costing less than $25,000, NASA's policy does not
require end users to screen for such equipment. Because NASA has not
provided specific guidance on how to implement its screening policy,
the centers have failed to implement effective controls to ensure that
required screenings occur before new equipment is purchased. One
problem was that the five centers we visited were not following up to
see if end users were purchasing new equipment in lieu of reutilizing
equipment items identified during screening. For example, when one
screener notified a requester of a potential equipment match, the
screener was told that new equipment had already been purchased,
undermining the purpose of the screening. Further, NASA policy does not
require that requesters utilize such equipment or justify their need
for new equipment. NASA also lacked the oversight to ensure that
required screenings occurred.
Required annual walk-through inspections--intended to identify idle
equipment and ensure that it is fully utilized--were not conducted at
one center and were conducted to varying degrees at the other four
centers. In addition, the four center equipment managers told us that
they did not follow up to ensure that the equipment management system-
-neither the legacy system nor the PP&E Module--was updated to reflect
the changes identified by the inspections. Because of these
inconsistencies, NASA was unable to demonstrate whether the annual walk-
through inspections met their objectives. Since many end users we
interviewed were not using the PP&E Module to update information on
their equipment, it is even more critical to perform walk-through
inspections correctly and use them as a mitigating control. Our testing
of equipment in NASA's legacy NEMS (as of September 30, 2007) estimated
that about 16 percent of NASA's controlled equipment (with a value of
at least $230 million) was improperly listed as being actively in use
in an ongoing program, and had been overlooked during annual walk-
through inspections.
We are recommending five actions for improving the effectiveness of
NASA's equipment reutilization efforts. These recommendations relate to
actions needed to ensure that the PP&E Module contains accurate
information on equipment descriptions, condition, and availability; the
importance of providing incentives to end users to reutilize equipment;
enhancing NASA policy for screening for available equipment; and
improving procedures for and oversight of walk-through equipment
inspections. NASA concurred with four of our five recommendations. NASA
did not concur with our recommendation to modify the PP&E Module to
capture information on the anticipated and actual usage (availability)
of equipment assigned to end users. NASA stated that because NASA's
equipment listed as "active" is now visible NASA-wide, there is no need
to design and implement a separate additional status category in the
PP&E Module. NASA further commented that the current visibility of
"active" equipment provides the opportunity for programmatic,
technical, and scientific experts to discuss possible reuse through
loans or borrowing, coordinating through their property custodians or
equipment managers.
We continue to believe that not including information in the PP&E
Module on the availability of equipment (the extent to which "active"
equipment is actually or anticipated to be used) presents a barrier to
equipment reutilization. Specifically, because the module does not
provide status information on the extent to which each piece of
"active" equipment is being (or is likely to be) used, such as on a
weekly or monthly basis, potential end users must perform a potentially
lengthy labor-intensive search by contacting other equipment end users,
and discussing actual and intended use, to determine the extent to
which the equipment listed as "active" is actually available for
utilization. In addition, the Financial Systems Integration Office's
property management systems requirements initially published by the
Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) directs that
property management systems capture an equipment item's current use
status, which includes identifying whether an equipment item is
currently in use.
Background:
NASA's mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration,
scientific discovery, and aeronautics research. To accomplish its
mission, NASA procures, fabricates, and maintains significant amounts
of equipment. For example, as of September 30, 2008, NASA reported that
it had approximately 307,000 controlled equipment items, costing $11.5
billion.[Footnote 7]
In April 2000, NASA launched the Integrated Enterprise Management
Program (IEMP), which is expected to improve the efficiency of many of
its financial and management functions. The IEMP system is intended to
promote standardization and integration of business processes and
systems across the agency, and various components have been designed
and implemented since its launch in 2000. On May 19, 2008, NASA
implemented the PP&E Module agencywide, which cost about $29 million,
and is designed to improve its management of and provide accountability
over the entire life cycle of controlled equipment.
The PP&E Module replaced NASA's legacy equipment management systems--
NEMS and the NASA Property Disposal Management System (NPDMS). The
module was intended to allow end users to perform such tasks as
equipment searches--to identify equipment that may be available for
reutilization--acceptance, rejection, and transfer. The module was
designed, among other things, to allow equipment end users to compare
their equipment needs with equipment located anywhere within NASA
through two critical reutilization subcomponents, N-PROP and DSPL. N-
PROP is a Web-based interface that allows end users to directly access
the module and view equipment located at all NASA centers, while DSPL
is the new disposal interface, which allows users to view equipment
located in disposal warehouses agencywide. Prior to the implementation
of the PP&E Module, NASA employees and contractors were limited to
viewing underutilized or excess equipment physically located at their
local centers.[Footnote 8]
NASA anticipates annual operational cost savings as a result of
implementing the PP&E Module. As part of the President's fiscal year
2009 budget submission, NASA reported that the implementation of the
PP&E Module would result in annual operational cost savings of
approximately $19.6 million by eliminating manual processes and
increasing the reutilization of equipment.
NASA's Property Management Organizational Responsibilities:
According to NASA's equipment management policy and procedural
guidance, property management and equipment reutilization at NASA
involves several key players:[Footnote 9]
* The Logistics Management Division, located at NASA headquarters in
Washington, D.C., is part of NASA's Office of Infrastructure and
Administration and is responsible for establishing policies and
procedures that govern the agency's equipment management activities.
The Logistics Management Division is also responsible for (1) assisting
NASA centers in the development and operation of internal processes,
procedures, and systems to ensure their compatibility with agency
programs; (2) establishing necessary agency performance measures and
reports on the overall implementation of equipment management programs;
(3) conducting reviews and overseeing the implementation of equipment
management activities; and (4) defining training requirements to ensure
properly trained property personnel across the agency.
* Individual end users, such as scientists or engineers, have a duty to
protect and conserve government property assigned to them and should
not use such property, or allow its use, for other than authorized
purposes. Each piece of equipment is assigned to an end user, who is
responsible for ensuring that the equipment is used only in approved
NASA programs and projects and notifying the property custodian when
the equipment is no longer being actively used.
* Property custodians are designated by the director or chief for each
property management area or program. Their responsibilities include
maintaining records for all controlled equipment assigned to them,
identifying controlled equipment no longer needed for NASA programs or
projects, and coordinating its disposition with the end users.
* NASA division directors (or equivalent organization heads) are the
primary officials responsible for equipment assigned to their
organizations. This responsibility includes performing annual walk-
through inspections to identify inactive equipment and ensuring that
equipment no longer required for the performance of a specific NASA
program or project is made available to others or properly disposed of.
* Supply equipment management officers are responsible for managing
each centers' equipment program, including implementing the necessary
equipment control procedures to ensure proper accountability for center
equipment; establishing a process to ensure that all personnel
associated with the utilization of government equipment receive
documented, up-to-date property end user training; ensuring that end
users are aware of the requirement to identify inactive equipment and
ensure its reuse or disposal; and designating property disposal
officers and center equipment managers to perform screenings for
equipment estimated to cost $25,000 or more.
* Property disposal officers are responsible for managing and screening
NASA's excess equipment inventory--equipment recorded in DSPL--prior to
a NASA or contractor employee initiating a purchase request for new
equipment costing $25,000 or more.
* The center equipment managers are responsible for ensuring each
center's compliance with the federal property management regulations to
maximize equipment reutilization and to minimize procurement of new
equipment. New purchase requests costing more than $25,000 are to be
routed through the center equipment manager, or designee, to perform a
second screening of excess equipment recorded in the PP&E Module. In
addition, the center equipment manager is responsible for ensuring that
equipment records are adjusted to reflect the results of all equipment
inspections.
Overview of Reutilization Process at NASA Centers:
To reduce the unnecessary procurement of new equipment, federal
property management regulations require each executive agency to make
underutilized and excess equipment available for reutilization within
the agency and, if not needed, to other agencies.[Footnote 10] NASA
equipment management policy and procedural guidance require centers to
continuously inspect equipment under their control to ensure maximum
utilization.[Footnote 11] Excess and underutilized equipment that is
available for reutilization should be identified in the PP&E Module
through ongoing review by equipment end users, annual walk-through
inspections, and each center's periodic physical inventories.[Footnote
12]
Once a piece of equipment is determined to be excess or underutilized,
NASA end users have the option to decide whether to transfer it to
disposal--through the property disposal officer--or make it available
to others through a transfer. If the end user elects to send the
equipment to disposal, the equipment is physically transferred to the
center's disposal warehouse and made available--through DSPL--to all
NASA centers for 21 days. If the equipment is not claimed by any NASA
projects or programs within this time period, it is transferred to the
General Services Administration (GSA) and made available to other
federal and state agencies for 21 days and is donated or sold to other
institutions thereafter.
The PP&E Module was designed to facilitate the process of transferring
excess and underutilized equipment among end users by providing
transparency on all NASA-wide equipment and allowing end users to
directly make excess equipment available to other end users. End users,
who are not currently using a certain equipment item, may decide not to
transfer it to disposal because it is still in good working condition,
continues to have technological relevance, or has potential for future
use within the user's project or program area. Upon using the module to
find existing equipment that may suit their needs, end users are to
contact other end users to whom that equipment is assigned to determine
if it is available for reutilization. If available, a direct end user
to end user transfer can take place. Figure 1 shows the key steps
involved in NASA's equipment reutilization process.
Figure 1: NASA Equipment Reutilization Process:
[Refer to PDF for image]
This figure is a flowchart showing the NASA equipment reutilization
process.
Source: GAO analysis based on NASA data.
[End of figure]
Overview of NASA's Equipment Screening Process:
Equipment screening is a key part of NASA's reutilization process and
is critical to identifying controlled equipment that can be reutilized.
Prior to purchasing new equipment, NASA equipment management policy and
procedural guidance require NASA employees and contractors to evaluate
alternative methods for meeting their equipment needs, such as
utilizing existing equipment and leasing or borrowing equipment from
other NASA projects or programs on a temporary basis. As such,
equipment screening is a control that should prevent unnecessary new
equipment purchases when equipment is on hand and available to meet the
purchaser's needs. However, users are not required to reutilize
equipment identified through the screening process or to provide any
justification for purchasing new equipment instead.
Prior to initiating a procurement request for controlled equipment that
is expected to cost $25,000 or more, NASA equipment policy and
procedural guidance require the requesting office to contact the
center's property disposal officer, or designee, and request a
screening of NASA's equipment that has been transferred to disposal to
determine the availability of equipment that could satisfy the
requirement. If a match is not identified, a purchase request can be
prepared. All such purchase requests ($25,000 or more) are to be routed
through the center equipment manager, or designee, who is required to
conduct a second screening of NASA's existing equipment recorded in the
PP&E Module before processing the purchase requests. The center
equipment manager, property disposal officer, or their designees are
required to search based on the manufacturer model and, if no items are
found, optionally on the item description. As an optional screening
step, NASA guidance also permits the screening of non-NASA excess
equipment sites--such as GSA's XCESS (excess equipment depository)
database. For controlled equipment purchases of less than $25,000,
NASA's policy and procedural guidance encourage, but do not require,
end users to use the PP&E Module to search NASA-wide for excess
equipment. Figure 2 illustrates NASA's equipment screening process.
Figure 2: NASA's Equipment Screening Process:
[Refer to PDF for image]
This figure is a flowchart showing NASA's equipment screening process.
Source: GAO analysis based on NASA data.
[End of figure]
Ineffective Controls Hindered Equipment Reutilization:
Improvements in the design of key controls associated with the PP&E
Module could help NASA increase equipment reutilization and better
enable it to realize cost savings. Inconsistent and unreliable
descriptive information and limited information about equipments'
availability hinder NASA's ability to effectively identify and
reutilize equipment. If end users lack confidence in the reliability of
the PP&E Module's information they will be less likely to use it,
thereby limiting opportunities to identify equipment available for
reutilization.
Unclear Guidance on Equipment Descriptions and Usability Prevent
Matches That Could Identify Equipment for Reuse:
Inconsistent descriptions, inaccurate information on physical
condition, and limited information about the equipment's availability
hamper the PP&E Module's ability to produce equipment matches. Though
NASA equipment management policy and procedural guidance only require
screeners to search by manufacturer model, screeners told us that they
seldom used manufacturer model numbers, but immediately searched the
description field and that the model numbers were not always available.
When users ask for a new piece of equipment, such as a digital camera,
they do not need to provide a preferred manufacturer or model number.
The descriptions should focus on equipment features and capabilities
that accurately reflect users' needs based upon performance criteria, a
basic component of the federal procurement process. The descriptions of
equipment items, therefore, are crucial to the success of the new
module in identifying equipment for reutilization.
NASA has not provided adequate oversight and detailed guidance on what
type of information should be included in the description field. We
found that without detailed guidance, equipment descriptions varied
widely among NASA centers. According to NASA officials, along with
entering model number information, property management officials are
responsible for entering the descriptions in the PP&E Module using the
Department of Defense Logistics Information System (DLIS) cataloging
system.[Footnote 13] For example, a digital phosphor oscilloscope, a
color digital oscilloscope, an analog oscilloscope, and an infinium
oscilloscope can all be described as an oscilloscope. Unfortunately, we
found that this system does not ensure that equipment descriptions are
consistently and accurately entered into the PP&E Module. For example,
items that should have been listed as video frequency equipment racks
were described as "disciplined frequency standard" and a camera lens
cover as a "rear cover multicontrol." In addition, the same type of
computer server equipment was described as a "disk array," "disk drive
unit," and "storage array unit." Similarly, a generator was variously
described as a "signal plug in generator," "modulator," "plug in unit,"
and "tuning unit." These differences in descriptions may lead to
reutilization opportunities being overlooked.
Inaccurate information regarding the physical condition--or usability-
-of equipment in the PP&E Module creates another barrier to
reutilization. The PP&E Module has a field where users can indicate the
physical condition of equipment items. At two centers, our physical
inspection of 84 equipment items that were transferred to disposal
determined that 83 of the items were incorrectly coded as new and
unused in the PP&E Module. Based on our physical inspections of these
items, none of the 83 equipment items were in original packaging and
all appeared used. Three of the 83 equipment items were computers with
their hard drives removed, in accordance with NASA policy, and thus not
in usable condition. Further, several end users we interviewed reported
that they had retrieved excess computers described as new and unused
(in the NASA legacy property disposal system NPDMS) only to find that
the hard drives had been removed. As a result, these end users told us
that they do not have confidence in the equipment's condition as
reported in the PP&E Module.
Limited Information on Equipment Availability Impedes Reutilization:
Another potential barrier to equipment reutilization is the limited
amount of information in the PP&E Module on the availability of
equipment. All equipment listed in the PP&E Module is categorized as
actively in use until a determination is made that it will no longer be
needed and the applicable record is transferred to the DSPL submodule
and classified as inactive. According to NASA officials, this "active"
equipment includes equipment that is used daily as well as idle
equipment that is still in working condition--and still technologically
relevant--that may be needed at some future date by the end user to
whom it is assigned. For example, equipment that is used on a daily
basis; on a regular basis, such as 2 days a week or monthly; or
episodically--2 months and then not again for 2 months--or even
equipment that is used once a year is all classified as "active" in the
module. According to NASA officials, the PP&E Module was partially
designed to facilitate temporary transfers of this idle equipment among
end users. Although the PP&E Module provides visibility to these types
of idle equipment, it does not identify the extent to which the
individual equipment items are being used. Lacking more specific
information on the availability status of equipment, end users must
perform a potentially lengthy search process of calling or e-mailing
other equipment end users individually to determine if the equipment
identified through the PP&E Module is available for utilization, as
shown in figure 3. As of September 30, 2008, NASA's PP&E Module
reported approximately 60,000 computers, 38,000 display units, 10,000
printers, 10,000 computer servers, 2,700 digital cameras, and 1,700
oscilloscopes. An end user searching for an oscilloscope, for example,
would currently have to choose which of 1,700 other end users to
contact to determine the availability status of their "active"
oscilloscopes. Several equipment end users and property custodians we
interviewed told us that information relating to the availability
status of the equipment would be critical in deciding whether to search
for existing equipment to reutilize.
Figure 3: Equipment End User Screening Process in PP&E Module:
[Refer to PDF for image]
This figure is a flowchart showing equipment end user screening process
in PP&E module.
Source: GAO analysis based on NASA data.
[End of figure]
According to IEMP program managers, a field indicating the availability
status of equipment was not included in the PP&E Module because the
information in NASA's legacy NEMS, which included an equipment
availability status field, was not accurate. Rather than taking the
necessary steps to improve the accuracy of the information in NEMS,
NASA elected to exclude this field from the PP&E Module. However, the
Financial Systems Integration Office's property management systems
requirements (initially published by JFMIP) directs property management
systems to capture an equipment item's current use status, which
includes identifying whether an equipment item is currently in
use.[Footnote 14]
Because of unreliable equipment descriptions and limited information on
availability, NASA did not require the PP&E Module to consistently
identify available equipment that could satisfy the needs of equipment
requesters. At the time of our visits to the five centers--occurring
from May through July 2008--the equipment screeners told us that the
searches that they performed up to that point in fiscal year 2008 had
failed to identify any equipment matches that would satisfy the needs
of equipment requesters.[Footnote 15] Because the NASA center screeners
we interviewed did not maintain detailed documentation on the number of
equipment searches performed during the fiscal year, we were unable to
determine the number of screenings that had been made up to the time of
our visit.
Inadequate End User Participation May Limit Potential Cost Savings:
Unreliable equipment descriptions and limited information on
availability contribute to inadequate end user utilization of N-PROP
and limit potential cost savings that could be achieved through process
automation and increased equipment reutilization. N-PROP is the window
to the PP&E Module and the only automated component that provides
direct access to the equipment database. It allows end users to perform
online equipment management and accountability functions, such as
accepting or rejecting new equipment from vendors, declaring equipment
as excess, and screening for equipment to reutilize throughout the
agency. According to a September 2008 NASA Office of Inspector General
(OIG) report, it was anticipated that these features would generate
operational cost savings and reduce unnecessary procurements by
facilitating equipment reutilization, promoting intercenter equipment
transfers and loans, and eliminating manual processes.[Footnote 16]
The majority of end users we interviewed--98 of 121--stated that they
had never used N-PROP (or the prior systems) to screen equipment for
reutilization. Although this lack of use of N-PROP may be due in part
to the timing of our review, which coincided with initial
implementation of the PP&E Module, these responses also reflect a lack
of end user familiarity with and use of equipment management functions
in the prior systems. In addition, as the NASA OIG reported in
September 2008, NASA took steps to incorporate stakeholders in the
requirements development process of the PP&E Module to ensure that
their needs were met. Stakeholders identified and reviewed project
requirements and, during system development, helped determine whether
each portion of the system would meet their requirements. However,
during our site visits we observed that few end users appeared to be
interested in learning about the new module or taking a greater role in
equipment reutilization. The reasons end users said that they had not
used the PP&E Module included that they (1) had not taken the training
NASA has made available on the new module, (2) were not familiar with
the equipment management and screening features, or (3) had not
obtained a password needed to use the module. Considering the key role
that end users need to play in achieving cost savings through equipment
management responsibilities, these facts indicate that steps taken by
NASA to encourage end user participation may have been insufficient to
change end users' perceptions and expectations.
Our interviews further disclosed that a substantial number of end users
did not view equipment management as necessary or important, another
factor that could limit the likelihood that they would use the new
module. Among the reasons that some end users gave for not screening
through N-PROP before initiating a new procurement was that they
preferred new equipment; others told us that they viewed existing
equipment as undesirable and unlikely to meet their projects needs and
they did not consider the equipment description and physical condition
reported in the PP&E Module to be reliable, or that they were
unfamiliar with the module. Furthermore, in addition to responding to
our interview questions, 29 of the 121 end users we spoke with
volunteered that they had more important tasks to perform than managing
equipment, did not view property management as a key responsibility in
their day-to-day duties, did not want to learn how to use the module
for equipment management, or were not familiar with or had never heard
of the new module.[Footnote 17]
End users were not required to use the PP&E Module and most end users
we spoke with had not used the PP&E Module at the time of our visits.
Therefore, property custodians had assumed many equipment management
responsibilities, perpetuating manual procedures that the new module
sought to automate. Because property custodians cannot accept, receive,
or transfer equipment for the end users, they must obtain the end
users' signatures and submit the documentation to the centers'
logistics property management officials. As we previously reported, the
number of equipment items and end users assigned to each property
custodian can vary widely--with some property custodians responsible
for as many as 4,000 equipment items.[Footnote 18] According to NASA
officials, one use envisioned for the PP&E Module includes end users
negotiating with each other to work out when to share equipment. This
is one of NASA's approaches to enhance equipment reutilization, but if
many end users are not using the system this is unlikely to occur. It
is unrealistic to expect property custodians to keep up on the nuances
of equipment usage, such as whether equipment that is used on an
episodic basis is currently in use or not, and therefore they are not
in a position to determine whether other uses could be negotiated.
Continuing to rely upon property custodians rather than focusing
efforts to encourage direct end user involvement will likely reduce the
potential savings that NASA intended to achieve through the PP&E Module
by automating manual processes. Therefore, it will be important that
NASA take steps to enhance or provide additional incentives so that end
users recognize the benefits of reutilizing equipment and encourage
them to use the PP&E Module to identify potential matches and negotiate
with other users to help NASA increase equipment reutilization. Steps
to enhance end user participation could include setting performance
expectations for end users, setting equipment reutilization goals by
program or project, tracking agency performance measures on equipment
reutilization, providing awards and recognition to highlight effective
reutilization practices, emphasizing available N-PROP training, and
including goals for equipment reutilization in Senior Executive Service
contracts.
NASA Has Not Implemented Effective Policies and Detailed Procedures to
Enhance Equipment Reutilization:
NASA's existing policies and procedures related to equipment
reutilization were either not being carried out or were being carried
out inconsistently at the five centers we visited. In addition, NASA's
equipment screening policy is not sufficiently detailed. Before
purchasing equipment costing $25,000 or more, NASA equipment management
policy requires centers to screen the agency's property records to
determine whether existing equipment could satisfy the request, but
does not require that requesters utilize such equipment or justify
their need for new equipment.[Footnote 19] NASA further requires that
annual walk-through inspections be conducted to identify excess or
underutilized equipment that may be reutilized elsewhere in the agency.
These walk-through inspections provide a key control to help ensure
that equipment is fully utilized. During our visits we found that not
every center complies with these requirements and those that were doing
the walk-through inspections had different processes and effectiveness,
sometimes undermining NASA's goal of equipment reutilization. As noted
earlier, end users' perception of the new module may limit the extent
to which they use it for managing property, including equipment
reutilization.
Equipment Screening Policies and Procedures Are Not Sufficient to
Ensure Comprehensive and Consistent Implementation of NASA's Equipment
Reutilization Policy:
Although NASA provides general screening policy for centers, it has not
provided centers with specific guidance on how to implement this policy
to conduct effective and consistent screenings. NASA encourages centers
to customize their equipment management procedures to meet local
requirements; however, none of the five centers we visited had
developed local screening procedures despite the lack of reliable
information in the PP&E Module that would help identify potential
matches. The centers have failed to implement effective screening
controls to ensure that existing equipment is screened before they
purchase new equipment. NASA's screening policies state that all center
procurement requests for items of equipment with an estimated cost of
$25,000 or more must be routed through the center equipment manager for
screening. However, as of September 30, 2008, 92 percent of NASA's
controlled equipment consisted of items costing less than $25,000.
In addition, the policy does not require reuse nor does it ask for a
justification for decisions not to reutilize available equipment.
Further, the policy does not require users to provide support that they
have a valid program need to purchase new equipment instead of
reutilizing available equipment. Interviews with equipment screeners at
the five centers we visited disclosed that the screening processes
varied among the centers and none of the processes provided assurance
that existing equipment was thoroughly screened on a consistent basis
before new equipment was purchased. One problem was that NASA has not
required uniform implementation of a PP&E Module feature that officials
from two of the five centers we visited were unaware of, and thus were
not using. This feature was designed to suspend new procurements until
the screening process has been completed. Another problem was that the
five centers we visited were not following up to see if end users were
purchasing new equipment in lieu of reutilizing equipment items
identified during screening. One center did not have a designated
center equipment screener to conduct searches. Another center made
equipment procurements regardless of the outcome of the screening
process. For example, an equipment screener at one of the centers
identified a digital oscilloscope--an instrument commonly used at NASA
for testing--that was available at another center. However, upon
notifying the purchaser that a potential equivalent oscilloscope was
available, the screener was told that the requester preferred to
purchase a new oscilloscope. In another case, upon notifying a
purchaser who had requested a spectrometer--test equipment--that six
equivalent spectrometers were located, the screener was told that new
equipment had already been purchased. As a result, the screening
process failed to prevent the procurement of new equipment when
equivalent equipment was available.
Although the other three centers were using the procurement suspension
control function to ensure screening, the equipment screener for one
center told us that only NASA contractor equipment requests were
screened, rather than all new procurements. Furthermore, we found that
NASA's Logistics Management Division lacked the oversight to ensure
that this required screening occurs. At the time of our visits, 124 of
220 equipment end users and property custodians stated that they had
never requested a screening through the property disposal officer or
center equipment manager or used the PP&E Module or its predecessor--
NEMS--to screen existing equipment before initiating and processing a
request to purchase equipment.[Footnote 20]
NASA-Wide Implementing Procedures for Walk-Through Inspections Are Not
Sufficient to Ensure Consistent Performance:
At the time of our visits the five NASA centers were not conducting
required annual walk-through inspections consistently, and sometimes
not at all. According to NASA equipment management policy, the annual
walk-through inspections are intended to identify equipment that is not
being used or is no longer needed for ongoing NASA programs or
projects, and can be made available for utilization in another program
or NASA center or transferred to disposal. At each NASA center, the
division director or equivalent organization head is responsible for
ensuring that his or her staff conduct annual walk-through inspections.
After staff complete an annual walk-through inspection, the division
director is required to prepare and send a written memorandum,
documenting the results of the inspection, to the center's supply
equipment management officer. In addition, the center equipment manager
is required to ensure that the PP&E Module is updated to reflect the
results of the inspection.
One of the five centers we visited did not conduct these required
inspections and the other four did so in varying manners and to varying
degrees. For example, none of the centers maintain sufficient
documentation to determine whether the PP&E Module was updated to
reflect the results of the walk-through inspections, thus offering no
assurance that this control was effective. At two of these four
centers, directors prepared memorandums to document the results of the
annual walk-through inspections that outlined the equipment items'
names and equipment control numbers and what specific actions were
needed. At the remaining two centers, directors documented that walk-
through inspections were performed, but not the detailed results of the
inspections. All four center equipment managers told us that they did
not follow up to ensure that the equipment management system--either
NEMS or the PP&E Module--was updated to reflect the changes identified
by the inspections. And none of the centers maintained any evidence to
show when the property system was updated, if it was updated at all.
Because of these inconsistencies, NASA was unable to demonstrate
whether the annual walk-through inspections met their objectives. Our
testing of equipment in NASA's legacy NEMS (as of September 30, 2007)
estimated that about 16 percent of NASA's controlled equipment (with a
value of at least $230 million[Footnote 21]) was improperly listed as
being actively in use in an ongoing program, and had been overlooked
during annual walk-through inspections. In accordance with NASA
equipment management policy, this equipment should have been identified
as excess or underutilized and made available for reutilization or
disposal. We selected our sample in April 2008, before the PP&E
Module's implementation. All equipment in our sample was transferred
from NEMS to the PP&E Module, including the sample items that were
inaccurately described as actively in use. Table 1 contains examples of
equipment that we identified during our visits to the five centers
during the months of May through July 2008 that was inaccurately
reported in NASA's NEMS as actively used by a NASA program or project.
Table 1: Examples of NASA Equipment That Walk-Through Inspections Did
Not Identify as Excess or Underutilized (as of September 30, 2007):
Equipment: Micro computer;
Initial cost: $2,509;
Time elapsed since last use: About 10 years;
Comments: Annual walk-through inspections failed to identify the
computer, along with other equipment, that remained unused after the
project closed.
Equipment: Computer display unit;
Initial cost: 633;
Time elapsed since last use: Over 3 years;
Comments: The unit was stored with other unused equipment. Another
display unit costing $934 in storage had not been used in over 2 years.
Equipment: Oscilloscope;
Initial cost: 8,783;
Time elapsed since last use: Over 2 years;
Comments: The end user had not used this oscilloscope, commonly used
for testing at NASA, for over 2 years. The end user has no plans to use
it in the near future.
Equipment: Controller vacuum pump;
Initial cost: 30,200;
Time elapsed since last use: About 1 year;
Comments: The pump was assigned to an end user who passed away, and
although the equipment was transferred to a new end user, it had never
been used.
Equipment: Transmitter;
Initial cost: 13,137;
Time elapsed since last use: About 6-8 months;
Comments: The transmitter had not been used for a year, and the end
user did not anticipate using it on future projects.
Equipment: Video camera;
Initial cost: 3,523;
Time elapsed since last use: Over 1 year;
Comments: The end user had not used the camera and did not anticipate
using it on future projects.
Equipment: Printer;
Initial cost: 1,780;
Time elapsed since last use: Over 18 months;
Comments: At the time of our visit, the printer was not connected and
was stored in an empty cubicle.
Equipment: Power module;
Initial cost: 1,250;
Time elapsed since last use: Over 18 months;
Comments: The end user did not anticipate using the module as part of
any ongoing projects.
Source: GAO analysis of NASA data.
[End of figure]
We did not assess whether any of the above equipment could have been
reutilized to avoid the purchase of new equipment because NASA could
not provide this information. However, these items should have been
identified during prior annual walk-through inspections and the
property management systems should have been updated to reflect that
this equipment was not being used. Correctly following NASA policy in
this area would have increased the chance that the equipment could have
been reutilized by other end users. In addition, NASA officials
reported that in fiscal year 2008, the agency reinstituted performing
compensating controls reviews, which are designed to evaluate the
adequacy and consistency of NASA policy execution and procedural
compliance with NASA guidance. NASA reported that it conducted four
reviews in the third and fourth quarters of fiscal year 2008.
Conclusions:
NASA has attempted to more efficiently manage its controlled equipment.
Given NASA's current and projected budget constraints, cutting costs
through equipment reutilization and improved equipment management
efficiencies will be critical if it is to free up vital resources for
other mission-related objectives. Unfortunately, ineffective controls
over equipment reutilization and limited utilization of the new system
may prevent the PP&E Module from fully delivering on its potential cost
savings. These shortcomings may prevent the PP&E Module from providing
NASA employees and contractors with the tools needed to make informed
decisions regarding the disposal or reutilization of equipment,
including over 1.2 million types of equipment if the space shuttle is
retired in 2010 and NASA transitions to its new space exploration
policy as planned.
Strong leadership will be critical to promoting and enforcing existing
equipment reutilization requirements, emphasizing the need for better
equipment accountability, and stressing the importance of reutilizing
equipment. Strengthening NASA-wide oversight and monitoring controls
and processes could help NASA managers more effectively oversee NASA's
compliance with its policies and procedures. Effectively managing the
new PP&E Module could help NASA achieve increased savings from
equipment reutilization and provide Congress and other stakeholders
with more accurate and up-to-date information needed to make sound
management decisions.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
We recommend that the NASA Administrator direct the Assistant
Administrator for the Office of Infrastructure and Administration to
take the following five actions to enhance comprehensive and consistent
equipment reutilization:
* Develop and implement specific guidance, establish a mechanism to
oversee implementation, and provide the necessary training to assist
NASA employees and contractors in providing clear, consistent, and
accurate equipment descriptions and key information in the PP&E Module,
including the physical condition (usability). NASA management should
determine the extent to which it is cost effective to apply this new
guidance retroactively.
* Modify the PP&E Module to capture information on the anticipated and
actual usage (availability) of equipment assigned to end users at the
time the equipment is accepted and provide a mechanism to ensure that
this information is updated as appropriate.
* Provide incentives so that end users recognize the benefits of
reutilizing equipment and encourage them to fully use the PP&E Module
to identify potential matches and negotiate with other users to help
NASA increase equipment reutilization.
* Revise NASA equipment management policy to require end users to
justify any valid program needs to purchase new equipment instead of
reutilizing available equipment and consider whether the $25,000
screening threshold adequately maximizes reutilization. Establish NASA-
wide screening procedures across the centers and a process for
monitoring implementation to maximize reutilization of controlled
equipment.
* Establish NASA-wide procedures for conducting and reporting the
results of annual walk-through inspections to update the data in the
PP&E Module to facilitate equipment reutilization and disposal, along
with an oversight mechanism to ensure implementation.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In written comments on a draft of this report, which are reprinted in
appendix II, NASA's Deputy Administrator agreed with four of our five
recommendations. NASA did not concur with our recommendation to modify
the PP&E Module to capture information on the anticipated and actual
usage (availability) of equipment assigned to end users at the time the
equipment is accepted and provide a mechanism to ensure that this
information is updated as appropriate. NASA stated that records for
equipment in the PP&E Module reside within the Equipment Master Record
(EMR) module and are listed as "active." NASA's further stated that
because NASA's "active" equipment is now visible NASA-wide, there is no
need to design and implement a separate status category for equipment
listed in the EMR. Further, it stated that this current level of
"active" equipment visibility provides the opportunity for
programmatic, technical, and scientific experts to discuss possible
reuse through loans or borrowing, coordinating through their property
custodians or equipment managers.
We continue to believe that not also including information in the PP&E
Module on the availability of equipment (the extent to which "active"
equipment is used, or is likely to be used) will present a barrier to
effective and efficient equipment reutilization. Specifically, because
the module does not identify the extent to which each piece of
equipment is being, or is likely to be, used, such as on a weekly or
monthly basis, potential end users must perform a potentially lengthy
search by contacting other equipment end users to determine the extent
to which their "active" equipment is available for utilization. For
some types of equipment commonly used in NASA, the potential users one
would need to contact to research actual availability of equipment
listed as "active" could number in the hundreds. This potentially labor-
intensive research may serve as a disincentive for users to try to
identify when they could share equipment rather than purchase new
equipment.
Moreover, as discussed in our draft, our review identified some
equipment in storage that NASA listed as actively in use. In addition,
the Financial Systems Integration Office's property management systems
requirements direct property management systems to capture an equipment
item's current use status.
As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to interested
congressional committees, the NASA Administrator, and the Director of
the Office of Management and Budget. The report also will be available
at no charge on the GAO Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-9095 or raglands@gao.gov. Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions
to this report are listed in appendix III.
Sincerely yours,
Signed by:
Susan Ragland:
Acting Director, Financial Management and Assurance:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To address whether the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) has effectively (1) designed controls over steps NASA identified
as key to its controlled equipment reutilization process, including
equipment sent to disposal, and (2) implemented policies, controls, and
processes to enhance equipment reutilization, we reviewed prior NASA's
Office of Inspector General reports and independent public accountants'
reports as well as our own prior reports and related recommendations.
We also evaluated NASA management's responsiveness to observations and
recommendations made in prior audit reports related to NASA's property
management and utilization of equipment.
We evaluated the design of NASA's internal controls by reviewing and
analyzing NASA equipment policy and procedural guidance[Footnote 22]
for equipment management, reutilization, and disposal[Footnote 23] and
comparing NASA's equipment management policy and procedural guidance to
federal property management regulations and other standards, including
GAO's standards for internal control.[Footnote 24] We also obtained and
reviewed NASA equipment management policy and procedural guidance for
screening existing equipment inventory; performing annual walk-through
inspections; and managing, reutilizing, and disposing of equipment. To
enhance our understanding of NASA's process for ensuring maximum
utilization of equipment, we conducted walk-throughs at five NASA
centers where our sample equipment items were assigned: Goddard Space
Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, Langley
Research Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center. We interviewed NASA
officials responsible for equipment management and reutilization,
including the Director of the Logistics Management Division, Logistics
Management Division management analysts, asset managers, agency
equipment program managers, and supply equipment management officers at
headquarters and at each of the five NASA centers we visited and
warehouse officials, property disposal officers, center equipment
managers, center equipment screeners, property managers, property
custodians, procurement officials, equipment end users, and officials
from the Office of the Chief Financial Officer.
To determine the accuracy of the equipment recorded as
"active"[Footnote 25] in the NASA Equipment Management System (NEMS)
database at the time we started our review, we selected a random
probability sample of all equipment in NEMS, with an availability
status code of "active." We obtained data from NEMS as of September 30,
2007, and identified 299,386 equipment items with availability status
code "A" or "active," representing the sample universe. Based on
previous audit work regarding the reliability assessment of NASA's
accounting and property data,[Footnote 26] we determined if inactive
equipment was erroneously coded as active in NEMS. We tested the random
probability sample of 160 transactions, from five NASA centers, from
the population of transactions with the availability status code "A" to
determine the accuracy of the recorded availability status code. NASA
implemented its new Property, Plant, and Equipment (PP&E) Module on May
19, 2008. To ensure that the sample transactions we extracted from the
legacy system were transferred and recorded in the PP&E Module, we
traced each sample item to the PP&E Module, and verified that the
sample transactions were transferred and recorded in the module.
However, we did not determine whether all legacy system transactions
were recorded in the PP&E Module, nor did we review or assess whether
NASA followed best practices in designing and implementing the PP&E
Module.
We selected a two-stage cluster sample with probability proportional to
size with replacement at the first stage of selection. At the first
stage, we selected eight NASA centers (clusters) with the probabilities
of selection being proportional to the number of pieces of equipment
each center had in the database (i.e., the larger centers had a better
chance of being selected in the sample). Each time a center was
selected, it was returned to the sample universe and given an
additional chance of being selected. Therefore, it was possible for a
center to be selected more than one time in the sample. We sampled
eight clusters that yielded five distinct NASA centers.
At the second stage, we selected a simple random sample of 20 pieces of
equipment, independently for each time a center was selected at the
first stage. The total sample size of items is 160 (8 clusters of 20
items per cluster). Table 2 shows the description of the sample
population and total number of sample of transactions.
Table 2: Description of the Populations and Sample Transactions:
NASA center: KSC;
Number of equipment items: 80,428;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 2;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 40.
NASA center: JSC;
Number of equipment items: 43,145;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 1;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 20.
NASA center: MSFC;
Number of equipment items: 40,619;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 1;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 20.
NASA center: GSFC;
Number of equipment items: 40,088;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 3;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 60.
NASA center: LARC;
Number of equipment items: 30,112;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 1;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 20.
NASA center: ARC;
Number of equipment items: 22,760;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 0;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 0.
NASA center: GRC;
Number of equipment items: 17,544;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 0;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 0.
NASA center: SSC;
Number of equipment items: 13,266;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 0;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 0.
NASA center: DFRC;
Number of equipment items: 8,193;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 0;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 0.
NASA center: HQ;
Number of equipment items: 3,231;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 0;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 0.
NASA center: Total;
Number of equipment items: 299,386;
Number of times center was selected in stage 1: 8;
Number of equipment items selected in stage 2: 160.
Source GAO.
Note: Kennedy Space Center (KSC); Johnson Space Center (JSC); Marshall
Space Flight Center (MSFC); Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC); Langley
Research Center (LARC); Ames Research Center (ARC); John Glenn Research
Center (GRC); Stennis Space Center (SSC); Dryden Flight Research Center
(DFRC); and Headquarters (HQ).
[End of table]
Because we selected a sample of equipment, our results are estimates of
the population and thus are subject to sample errors that are
associated with samples of this size and type. Our confidence in the
precision of the results from this sample is expressed in 95 percent
confidence intervals, which are expected to include the actual results
in 95 percent of the samples of this type. We used a ratio estimator to
generate estimates of the proportion and the total dollar amounts
associated with equipment that were inaccurate and calculated a one-
sided 95 percent confidence lower bound. Based on our sample results we
estimate that about 16 percent (the 95 percent confidence interval
ranges from 10 to 26 percent) of the equipment with availability status
code "A" in the NEMS database as of September 30, 2007, was miscoded.
Further, we are 95 percent confident that this miscoded equipment
represents at least 2 percent of the total dollar amount of the
equipment in NEMS with availability status code "A," or at least $230
million. We also traced each sample item to the PP&E Module to verify
that the sample transactions were transferred and recorded in the
module. However, we did not determine whether all legacy NEMS
transactions were recorded in the PP&E Module.
Incomplete and inaccurate data precluded us from examining the extent
to which waste and inefficiencies exist in NASA's reutilization of
equipment. Lack of common data fields, missing information such as
equipment's model and manufacturer, and the lack of clear and
consistent descriptions prevented us from comparing fiscal year 2007
equipment purchase transactions to NASA's disposal activity; this
prevented us from identifying instances and dollar values where NASA
purchased new equipment rather than reutilizing available equipment.
To determine the extent to which NASA's planning and initial
implementation of the new PP&E Module addressed problems and control
weaknesses we identified in NASA's reutilization of equipment, we
reviewed and analyzed NASA equipment management policy and procedural
guidance for the PP&E Module and module implementation and planning
documents, including briefings and overviews of PP&E Module
requirements. We reviewed and analyzed NASA equipment management policy
and procedural guidance for equipment reutilization at the five centers
we visited. We also interviewed the five visited centers' PP&E Module
project managers to obtain their views on the PP&E Module and its
impact on equipment reutilization.
We administered a data collection instrument to obtain end users' and
property custodians' views on the PP&E Module and its impact on
equipment reutilization. We interviewed a total of 220 end users and
property custodians who are accountable for all government-owned
equipment assigned to them. We interviewed 121 end users and 99
property custodians who were responsible for the items selected in our
statistical sample. We also observed equipment screeners and property
disposal officials as they demonstrated the PP&E Module's equipment
search, disposal, and management capabilities. In addition, we
conducted physical inspections of equipment at two of the five centers
visited that reported new and unused equipment in the disposal system-
-DSPL--at the time of our visit.
We conducted this performance audit from December 2007 through January
2009 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration:
See the Agency Comments and Our Evaluation section of this report.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration:
Office of the Administrator:
Washington, DC 20546-0001:
January 16, 2009:
Ms. Susan Ragland:
Acting Director:
Financial Management and Assurance:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Ragland:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) welcomes the
opportunity to comment on your draft report entitled, "NASA's Goal of
Increasing Equipment Reutilization May Fall Short Without Further
Efforts."
On May 19, 2008, NASA took a significant, positive step in managing its
controlled personal property by implementing the NASA Property, Plant,
and Equipment (PP&E) Module to improve the accountability and
visibility of assets utilized by all NASA installations, programs, and
projects. One note of success was referenced in a NASA Inspector
General report dated September 25, 2008. The report "determined that
the Integrated Asset Management (IAM)/PP&E module, as designed, and the
corresponding changes in NASA's business processes and controls should
help mitigate deficiencies reported as material weaknesses."
In the January 2009 draft report, the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) makes five recommendations to the NASA Administrator to enhance
comprehensive and consistent equipment reutilization: (It should be
noted that the supporting surveys and sampling done by GAO during this
review were conducted during the initial deployment of the NASA PP&E
System implementation and stabilization phases. Therefore, definitive
conclusions and findings within the report may be premature.)
Recommendation 1: Develop and implement specific guidance, establish a
mechanism to oversee implementation, and provide the necessary training
to assist NASA employees and contractors in how to provide clear,
consistent, and accurate equipment descriptions and key information in
the PP&E Module, including the physical condition (usability). NASA
management should determine the extent to which it is cost effective to
apply this new guidance retroactively.
Response: Concur. NASA currently utilizes the Federal Cataloging
standard for item naming for all controlled property. NASA is in full
compliance with current Federal regulations and applies the same naming
conventions as other Federal Agencies. Within NASA, the Center
Equipment Managers are responsible for interpreting the Federal Catalog
H2 Series when creating new equipment records and maintaining
consistency with naming conventions. The NASA PP&E System allows for a
complete name search or partial "wild-card" search of available active
equipment to enhance potential reuse. NASA's current policy, as
provided in the interim NASA Procedural Requirements (NPR) 4200.1F
entitled "NASA Equipment Management Procedural Requirements," was
issued in May 2008 to assist NASA users with this search capability.
NASA acknowledges that further improvements may be realized through the
consolidation of current decentralized Center processes into a single
Agency cataloging operation. To further enhance data quality assurance
and standardization, NASA will determine the feasibility of
consolidating asset cataloging at one central location for new
equipment and separately consider retroactive data cleansing for
existing NASA- controlled property. NASA anticipates that completion of
this task may be heavily impacted by resource availability.
Recommendation 2: Modify the PP&E Modules to capture information on the
anticipated and actual usage (availability) of equipment assigned to
end users at the time the equipment is accepted and provide a mechanism
to ensure this information is updated as appropriate.
Response: Non-Concur. The PP&E Module was designed and developed by
evaluating the total business process for property management and
equipment accountability. As a result, two modules of the NASA PP&E
system were designed to accurately manage property.
All active records reside in the Equipment Master Record (EMR) module.
At no time should equipment in the EMR depict any status other than
ACTIVE. Thus, there is no need to design a separate status category for
the EMR. Active equipment is visible Agency wide. This visibility
provides the opportunity for programmatic, technical, and scientific
experts to discuss possible reuse through loans or borrowing,
coordinating through their property custodians or equipment managers.
After property is declared excess, it becomes eligible for
reutilization. All excess property is processed through NASA's
disposition module. Equipment no longer required for performance of a
specific NASA requirement will be reported for reutilization screening
throughout NASA. This is accomplished when an item is declared EXCESS.
Declaration of excess can be made at any time or as the result of an
annual walk-through.
The culmination of years of process reengineering and best practice
assessments from both commercial and private sector entities resulted
in a property system that achieved the goal of increasing property
accountability and the accurate valuation of controlled property across
the Agency. A resultant benefit is the heightened potential for
property reutilization through Agency-wide visibility and accessibility
to all NASA users. This was not previously available through the legacy
system.
NASA plans to utilize its Performance Measurement Plan to monitor the
Module's performance with regard to asset reutilization and other key
processes and will make the necessary continuous process improvement
changes to policy, processes, and/or systems, as warranted.
Recommendation 3: Provide incentives so that end users recognize the
benefits of reutilizing equipment and encourage them to fully use the
PP&E Module to identify potential matches and negotiate with the other
users to help NASA increase equipment reutilization.
Response: Concur. Under a cost-constrained budget, NASA remains
dedicated to cutting costs for the American taxpayer. NASA programs and
projects are focused on cost savings Agency wide as the greatest
incentive to leverage equipment reutilization. In fact, to date, the
Constellation program is actively reviewing property reutilization
opportunities from the Shuttle program. Early estimates are that nearly
500,000 line items of property will be directly transferred and
reutilized by the Constellation program to offset acquisition costs.
As part of this property awareness campaign, NASA has reinforced
efforts to achieve equipment reutilization. NASA has just revised a
property management video to align with the IAM/PP&E May 2008 launch
date. This video stresses the importance of property accountability and
the day-to-day management of NASA property. The video also introduces
the Module's ability to provide visibility of total property assets and
directs the end user to contact the appropriate property official
(property custodian, property disposal officer, and supply and
equipment manager [SEMO]) for all actions pertaining to property
accountability. The video is part of the official Agency training
educational system.
In accordance with NASA policy, during the annual walk-through, all
property identified as inactive or no longer needed becomes available
for reuse or is identified as excess property to the program and enters
NASA's equipment reutilization process. The new PP&E system separates
utilizations into two categories. The first captures property
reutilizations (as a borrow within NASA or inter-Center transfer) prior
to the property being declared excess. The second category occurs after
the property is declared excess to the user's need. Within the Business
Warehouse module of the PP&E System, NASA can track real-time data for
transfers for NASA internal programmatic reuse, transfers to other
Federal agencies, and donations to eligible non-Federal recipients.
Previous to the deployment of the PP&E system, this data was tracked
manually which was time consuming and lent itself to potentially
inaccurate reporting.
Recommendation 4: Revise NASA equipment management policy to require
end users to justify any valid program needs to purchase new equipment
instead of reutilizing available equipment and consider whether the
$25,000 screening threshold adequately maximizes reutilization.
Establish NASA-wide screening procedures across the Centers and a
process for monitoring implementation to maximize reutilization of
controlled equipment.
Response: Concur. Interim NASA NPR 4200.1, Chapter 1, Section 1.1.3.2,
states that "Prior to acquisition of equipment valued at $25,000 or
more, existing equipment resources will be screened in accordance with
NPR 4300.1, NASA Personal Property Disposal Procedural Requirements.
Equipment valued at less than $25,000 may be screened at the option of
the purchaser or the equipment management organization, on a case-by-
case basis." Appendix F, Section F.4 of that policy also states that
"before new items of equipment are procured, purchase requests which
have a unit cost of $25,000 or more must be screened to determine if
the desired item, or an acceptable substitute, is available, active or
excess in the Business Warehouse (BW) module in the NASA PP&E System.
All Center procurement requests for items of equipment with an
estimated unit cost of $25,000 or more will be routed through the
Center Equipment Manager for screening, or the SEMO will coordinate
with their Center procurement office where the Procurement Specialist
has access to BW to accomplish the screening."
NASA agrees to review existing Agency policies on the screening
threshold for property acquisition to ensure that integration between
procurement, logistics, and financial functions is in place and
current.
Recommendation 5: Establish NASA-wide procedures for conducting and
reporting the results of annual walk-through inspections to update the
data in the PP&E Module to facilitate equipment reutilization and
disposal, along with an oversight mechanism to ensure implementation.
Response: Concur. NASA already has an established policy (interim NPR
4200 1, Chapter 1, Section 1.6.1) for conducting annual walk-through
inspections at both the Agency and Installation levels. The policy
states that NASA Division Directors or equivalent "shall perform annual
walk through inspections to ensure that equipment assigned to the
organization is classified in the appropriate use status. Equipment no
longer required for the performance of a specific NASA requirement
shall be declared excess by using proper documentation and forwarded to
the property Disposal Officer."
Further, interim NPR 4200 1, Chapter 3, Section 3.6.5 states "walk-
through inspections are required by the Federal Property Management
Regulation, Section 101-43.101 and 40 U.S.C., Section 524(a) (2) and
shall be performed by each Division Director or designee, accompanied
by the property custodian." The walk-through inspection includes all
locations both onsite and offsite for each property management area,
identifying inactive or underused equipment that is no longer required
or that is expected to become inactive in the near future. NASA policy
also states that the SEMO shall prepare a report annually for the
Center Director describing the walk-through program and results.
As the policy above validates, property declared excess will be updated
in the PP&E DSPL system by the property disposal officer or the
property custodian for disposition and reutilization within NASA or the
Federal Government.
Additionally, in 2002, NASA reinstated management reviews to evaluate
the performance of NASA Center Logistics Operations. The goals of the
Compensating Control Group in the Logistics Management Division are to
ensure that:
* Programs are efficiently and effectively carried out in accordance
with legislative requirements and Agency policy to achieve their
strategic goals.
* Obligations and costs comply with applicable laws.
* Assets are safeguarded against fraud, waste, loss, and unauthorized
use.
NASA will ensure that the annual property inspection is a priority
review area in all future logistics functional management reviews.
Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on this draft
report. If you have any questions, please contact Ms. Susan Kinney,
Director for Logistics, on (202) 358-0721 or at susan.kinney-
1@nasa.gov.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Shana Dale:
Deputy Administrator:
[End of section]
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Susan Ragland, (202) 512-9095 or raglands@gao.gov:
Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, the following staff members
made key contributions to this report: Donald Neff, Assistant Director;
James Ashley; Fannie Bivins; Yvonne Dorcas; Patrick Frey; Inna Livits;
and Jean Mathew.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] The new space exploration policy includes returning humans to the
moon by 2020, which is intended ultimately to enable future exploration
of Mars and other destinations. To accomplish this, NASA initially
plans to (1) complete its work on the International Space Station by
2010; (2) begin developing a new manned exploration vehicle to replace
the space shuttle; and (3) return to the moon in preparation for
future, more ambitious missions. NASA estimates that it will spend
nearly $230 billion implementing this new exploration policy.
[2] NASA defines controlled equipment as (1) equipment costing $5,000
or more that has a service life of 2 years or more, which will not be
consumed or expended as part of an experiment, and (2) items that are
pilferable or possibly hazardous with acquisition cost of $500 or more-
-such as laptop computers, cameras, and cell phones--and weapons and
hazardous devices, regardless of acquisition cost. In this report, we
refer to controlled equipment as equipment.
[3] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]
(Washington, D.C.: November 1999).
[4] NASA's space exploration, discovery, and research programs are
performed largely at its nine centers. Based on our sample selection,
we visited the following five centers: Goddard Space Flight Center,
Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, Langley Research Center,
and Marshall Space Flight Center. These five centers accounted for 78
percent of the total number of equipment items recorded in the NASA
Equipment Management System--NASA's legacy equipment management system--
as of September 30, 2007.
[5] We interviewed a total of 220 end users and property custodians to
obtain their views on the equipment reutilization process and the
impact of the PP&E Module on facilitating and increasing equipment
reutilization. We interviewed 121 end users and 99 property custodians
who were responsible for the items selected in our statistical sample.
[6] The sample was randomly selected prior to the NASA-wide rollout of
the new PP&E Module. We traced our sample items to the PP&E Module to
confirm that the items were transferred and recorded in the new system.
We did not verify whether records related to all items from NEMS were
transferred to the new PP&E Module.
[7] Of this amount, $10.5 billion was controlled equipment costing
$25,000 or more.
[8] NASA defines excess and underutilized equipment as equipment that
is no longer required for the performance of specific NASA
requirements.
[9] National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Equipment
Management, NASA Policy Directive (NPD) 4200.1B (rev. Jan. 23, 2006);
Equipment Management Procedural Requirements, NASA Procedural
Requirements (NPR) 4200.1F (rev. May 19, 2008); NASA Personal Property
Disposal Policy, NPD 4300.1B (rev. Jan. 31, 2006); and NASA Personal
Property Disposal Procedural Requirements, NPR 4300.1A (rev. Feb. 17,
2006).
[10] Federal Property Management Regulations, codified at 41 C.F.R. pt.
102-36, Disposition of Excess Personal Property.
[11] National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Equipment
Management Procedural Requirements.
[12] NASA's equipment management policy and procedural guidance require
NASA to perform physical inventories at least on a triennial basis, but
they can be conducted more often. Physical inventories are one method
used by NASA to identify excess, unused, or underutilized equipment for
reutilization. However, we did not assess the impact of the physical
inventory process on equipment reutilization or the effectiveness of
physical inventories in identifying equipment for reutilization as part
our review.
[13] The DLIS cataloging system is a centralized and consolidated
cataloging activity for all Department of Defense cataloging, which
provides a centralized federal item name directory that provides
approved names for equipment.
[14] Property Management Systems Requirements, Federal Financial
Management System Requirements 4, Joint Financial Management
Improvement Program, October 2000. See Financial Systems Integration
Office Web site for system requirements documents at [hyperlink,
http://www.fsio.gov/fsio/fsiodata/docs_systemrequirements.shtml] to
find a copy of these requirements.
[15] After our visit to one center, one equipment screener informed us
that she had found equipment matches for three purchase requests from
July through September 2008. However, for various reasons, none of the
matches were used to satisfy the needs of the requester. One requester
preferred to purchase new equipment, the second purchased new equipment
prior to the screening process, and the third was unable to obtain the
equipment because the end user was still actively using the equipment.
[16] National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Inspector
General, Final Memorandum on NASA's Development of the Integrated Asset
Management--Property, Plant, and Equipment Module to Provide Identified
Benefits, IG-08-032 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 25, 2008).
[17] We interviewed 220 equipment end users and property custodians--
121 end users and 99 property custodians--during our visits to the five
centers.
[18] GAO, Property Management: Lack of Accountability and Weak Internal
Controls Leave NASA Equipment Vulnerable to Loss, Theft, and Misuse,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-432] (Washington, D.C.:
June 25, 2007).
[19] NASA's equipment purchases costing $25,000 or more for fiscal year
2008 make up about $748 million, or 90 percent, of the $831 million in
equipment purchases recorded in NASA's PP&E Module as of September 30,
2008.
[20] We asked 220 equipment end users and property custodians--121
equipment end users and 99 property custodians--questions relating to
their experience with screening existing equipment before purchasing
new equipment.
[21] This estimated value represents the 95 percent confidence lower
bound of our random statistical sample projection. See app. I for more
details.
[22] National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Equipment
Management, NASA Policy Directive (NPD) 4200.1B (rev. Jan. 23, 2006),
and Equipment Management Procedural Requirements, NASA Procedural
Requirements (NPR) 4200.1F (rev. May 19, 2008).
[23] National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA Personal
Property Disposal Policy, NPD 4300.1B (rev. Jan. 31, 2006), and
Personal Property Disposal Procedural Requirements, NPR 4300.1A (rev.
Feb. 17, 2006).
[24] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]
(Washington, D.C.: November 1999).
[25] Active equipment is defined as equipment used in the performance
of and support of a specific requirement as part of an ongoing NASA
program or project.
[26] GAO, Property Management: Lack of Accountability and Weak Internal
Controls Leave NASA Equipment Vulnerable to Loss, Theft, and Misuse,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-432] (Washington, D.C.:
June 25, 2007).
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