In 2001, NARA hired a contractor to  develop policies and plans to guide the overall acquisition of an  electronic records system. Through fiscal year 2008, NARA had spent about $237  million on ERA, including about $112 million in payments to  Lockheed Martin. ●  According to NARA’s 2010 ERA expenditure plan, Increment 3 is to  include new Congressional and Public Access systems. NARA plans to complete this  increment by June 2010. ●  Increments 4 and 5 are to provide additional ERA functionality, such  as backup and restore functions and wider search capabilities, and  provide full system functionality by 2012. NARA Has Completed Two of Five ERA Increments, but Also Experienced Schedule Delays and Cost Overruns While Deferring Functionality

NARA’s progress in developing ERA includes achieving initial  operating capability for the first two of its five planned increments. In response, NARA and Lockheed Martin agreed to a revised  schedule and strategy that called for the concurrent development of  two separate systems, which could later be reintegrated into a single  system:  ●  First, they agreed to continue development of the original system  but focused the first increment on the transfer of electronic records  into the system. Other initially planned capabilities were deferred to  later increments, including deleting records from storage, searching  item descriptions, and ingesting records redacted outside of the  system. NARA now refers to this as the “base” ERA system. ●  Second, NARA conducted parallel development of a separate  increment dedicated initially to receiving electronic records from  the outgoing Bush Administration in January 2009. This system,  referred to as the Executive Office of the President (EOP) system,  uses a different architecture from that of the ERA base: it was built  on a commercial product that was to provide the basic requirements  for processing presidential electronic records, such as rapid  ingestion of records and the ability to search content. NARA also reported that it completed Increment 2 on time in  December 2008 at a cost of $10.4 million (compared to a planned  cost of $11.1 million). In fiscal 2010, NARA plans to complete Increment 3 and begin work  on Increment 4. It is to provide new systems for congressional  records and public access, as well as improvements to the existing  base system and the incorporation of several deferred functions,  such as the ability to delete records and search and view their  descriptions. These risks  include the lack of specific plans describing the functions to be  delivered in future increments, inconsistent application of earned  value management (a key management technique), and the lack of a  tested contingency plan for the ERA system. However, several of our reviews  have found that NARA’s plans lacked sufficient detail. Most  recently, we reported in July that NARA’s 2009 plan did not clearly  show what functions had been delivered to date or what functions  were to be included in future increments and at what cost. For example, the fiscal year 2009 plan did not specifically identify  the functions provided in the two completed increments. EVM, if implemented appropriately, can provide  objective reports of project status, produce early warning signs of  impending schedule delays and cost overruns, and provide unbiased  estimates of a program’s total costs. We recently published a set of  best practices on cost estimation that addresses the use of EVM. Another significant risk is the lack of a contingency plan for ERA. Implementation of GAO’s Recommendations Could Reduce Risks

To help mitigate the risks facing the ERA program, we previously  recommended that NARA, among other things:  include more details in future ERA expenditure plans on the  functions and costs of completed and planned increments;  ●  strengthen its earned value management process following best  ●  develop and implement a system contingency plan for ERA. In its 2010 expenditure plan, NARA reported that it had taken action  to address our recommendations.
Why GAO Did This Study

Since 2001, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has been working to develop a modern Electronic Records Archive (ERA) system, a major information system that is intended to preserve and provide access to massive volumes of all types and formats of electronic records. The system is being developed incrementally over several years, with the first two pieces providing an initial set of functions and additional capabilities to be added in future increments. NARA plans to deploy full system functionality by 2012 at an estimated life-cycle cost of about $550 million. NARA originally planned to complete the first segment of ERA in September 2007. However, software and contracting problems led the agency and its contractor Lockheed Martin to revise the development approach. The revised plan called for parallel development of two different increments: a "base" ERA system with limited functionality and an Executive Office of the President (EOP) system to support the ingestion and search of records from the outgoing Bush Administration. GAO was asked to summarize NARA's progress in developing the ERA system and the ongoing risks the agency faces in completing it. In preparing this testimony, GAO relied on its prior work and conducted a preliminary review of NARA's fiscal year 2010 ERA expenditure plan.

What GAO Found

NARA has completed two of five planned increments of ERA, but has experienced schedule delays and cost overruns, and several functions planned for the system's initial release were deferred. Although NARA initially planned for the system to be capable of ingesting federal and presidential records in September 2007, the two system increments to support those records did not achieve initial operating capability until June 2008 and December 2008, respectively. In addition, NARA reportedly spent about $80 million on the base increment, compared to its planned cost of about $60 million. Finally, a number of functions originally planned for the base increment were deferred to later increments, including the ability to delete records and to ingest redacted records. In fiscal year 2010, NARA plans to complete the third increment, which is to include new systems for Congressional records and public access, and begin work on the fourth. GAO's previous work on ERA identified significant risks to the program and recommended actions to mitigate them. Specifically, GAO reported that NARA's plans for ERA lacked sufficient detail to, for example, clearly show what functions had been delivered to date or were to be included in future increments and at what cost. Second, NARA had been inconsistent in its use of earned value management (EVM), a project management approach that can provide objective reports of project status and early warning signs of cost and schedule overruns. Specifically, GAO found that NARA fully employed only 5 of 13 best practices for cost estimation that address EVM. Further, NARA lacked a contingency plan for ERA to ensure system continuity in the event that normal operations were disrupted. For example, NARA did not have a fully functional backup and restore process for the ERA system, a key component of contingency planning for system availability. To help mitigate these risks, GAO recommended that NARA: (1) include details in future ERA expenditure plans on the functions and costs of completed and planned increments; (2) strengthen its earned value management process following best practices; and (3) develop and implement a system contingency plan for ERA. NARA reported in its most recent expenditure plan that it had taken actions to address these recommendations.