Army Industrial Base Assessments Do Not Use Current Industry Data

The Army’s approach for assessing wartime spare parts industrial base capability still does not use current data from industry. It stopped this practice primarily because of the poor response rates. We were told that command officials themselves do not believe that collecting current data from industry is cost-effective. Partly in response to the recommendation in our prior report, the Army has several initiatives underway to improve its industrial base capability assessments, but these initiatives continue to focus on historical, rather than current industry data. Benefits of DLA’s Assessment Program

Although DLA’s industrial base assessment program is relatively new, it provides a number of examples that illustrate the effectiveness of collecting current data directly from the industrial base.
What GAO Found

The Army's approach to assessing wartime spare parts industrial base capability does not use current data from industry. Instead, the Army uses historical parts procurement data because its prior efforts to collect current data from industry were not successful due to poor response rates. GAO identified a program in the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) that has several attributes reflecting sound management practices for reliable industrial base capability assessments. Although DLA's program is in its early stages of implementation, DLA has been able to successfully collect current data directly from private industry on thousands of parts. Further, DLA is analyzing that data to identify actual or potential parts availability problems.