Identify and secure the necessary resources. To assess Air Force headquarters efforts to manage and oversee the Year 2000 computer problem, we (1) met with the Air Force Communications and Information Center officials and Year 2000 focal points, (2) obtained and analyzed documents issued by these offices that describe organizational structure and responsibilities for carrying out the Air Force Year 2000 program, and (3) reviewed the Air Force’s Year 2000 Guidance Package to assess the level of guidance, roles, and responsibilities, and target milestone dates for the Year 2000 effort. Further, we obtained and analyzed the Air Force Year 2000 inventory data to determine (1) the number of systems owned and operated by Air Force organizations and (2) the status of Air Force systems in their Year 2000 efforts, proposed strategy, and the number of systems reporting to be compliant. This group has focused on such matters as sharing lessons learned, eliminating duplicative efforts, sharing resources, and tracking component progress. Prioritizing systems for conversion or replacement according to their mission impact. These devices rely on either microprocessors or microcontroller chips that may be vulnerable to Year 2000 problems. As a result, it has revised reporting requirements to facilitate better reporting on the part of its components. Key Issues Need Prompt Attention for the Air Force to Solve Its Year 2000 Problem

Even though the Air Force is entering the next phases of its Year 2000 correction effort, it has yet to complete several critical assessment steps, which are designed to ensure that it is well-positioned to deal with the later, and more difficult, phases of Year 2000 correction. The Air Force Audit Agency audit should help the Air Force complete these steps; however, this work will be carried out only at selected sites and it will not provide the comprehensive and continued oversight that is needed to ensure that the Air Force can handle unforeseen problems and delays. Moreover, others have not yet addressed the interface issue. For example, none of the five weapon system program offices we surveyed had fully determined the actual impact or program status of their system interfaces. If implemented, these agreements could ensure that information can be transferred even when components take conflicting approaches to their interfaces. For these reasons, it is critical that Air Force headquarters ensure that components are taking time now to assess their testing needs and that the Air Force is well-positioned to provide components with additional testing facilities and tools. Contingency plans also establish a series of checkpoints that allow the agency to identify performance problems early enough to correct them. The Air Force pointed out that it is working with components to develop Year 2000 contingency plans as part of the renovation and validation phases.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Air Force's program for solving its year 2000 computer systems problem, focusing on the: (1) status of the Air Force's efforts to oversee its Year 2000 program; and (2) appropriateness of the Air Force's strategy and actions for ensuring that the problem will be successfully addressed.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) as with other military services, the Air Force is taking a decentralized approach to year 2000 correction--that is, it is relying heavily on its components to identify and correct year 2000 problems affecting their own systems; (2) however, in providing oversight for this effort, the Air Force must ensure that all of its systems have been accounted for and that component actions are successful; (3) it must also be well-positioned to make the resource tradeoff decisions that are inevitable in any year 2000 effort and to address conflicts between component approaches toward identifying and correcting interfaces; (4) further, it must be able to provide additional resources, such as testing facilities, that may be necessary to correct and validate systems; (5) the Air Force has taken a number of positive actions toward fulfilling its year 2000 oversight responsibilities; (6) for example, it is taking inventory of its systems and prioritizing them for conversion or replacement, and it has issued extensive guidance on dealing with the year 2000 problem; (7) it has also established a year 2000 working group comprised of focal points from the components which aims to eliminate duplicative efforts, share resources, and track component progress; (8) at the same time, the Air Force has not yet adequately addressed several critical issues that would ensure that it is well-positioned to deal with the later, and more difficult, phases of year 2000 correction; (9) GAO's review revealed that some components are failing to plan for the testing phase of their year 2000 effort and develop contingency plans; (10) GAO also found that some components are taking conflicting approaches toward determining the actual impact or the program status of their system interfaces; (11) if components and the Air Force do not promptly address and take consistent action on these issues, they may well negate any success they may have in making systems within their control year 2000 compliant; and (12) while the Air Force has enlisted the services of the Air Force Audit Agency to help address some of these concerns, this work needs to be backed by comprehensive and continued Air Force oversight in order to ensure that it can address unforeseen problems and delays in the next, more difficult phases.