Agencies Should Encourage Greater Computer Use on Federal Design Projects

Gao ID: LCD-81-7 October 15, 1980

Federal agencies are not actively seeking or encouraging the use of computers on Federal design projects. As a result, they are missing opportunities to achieve significant savings and to improve the quality of Federal building designs.

GAO found that Federal officials and agency procedures and practices often limit and hamper the use of computers on Federal projects. Agencies generally have not created an environment wherein the efficient use of computers is possible. Fee proposal forms used by most engineering services do not recognize the possible use of computers or provide a place for computer service costs to be included as direct costs in proposals. During contract negotiations, agency personnel rarely discuss the planned use of computers on a project. Even during the architect-engineer selection process, most agencies ignore computer capability.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: James G. Mitchell Team: General Accounting Office: Logistics and Communications Division Phone: (202) 275-8676


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