Summary: GAO examined ways the Department of Defense (DOD) could improve the quality, timeliness, and presentation of its selected acquisition reports (SAR) to Congress.
GAO found that: (1) DOD developed the Defense Acquisition Executive Summary (DAES) to maintain and report more timely, consistent, and reliable data on weapon system costs, schedules, performance, and funding status; (2) DOD used a standard microcomputer-based model to generate DAES reports that reflected data current to within 60 days; (3) some of the information in DAES included planned costs to date, contractor and noncontractor costs, variances between actual and planned costs, and actual and planned delivery schedules; (4) DAES provided more complete contract cost data than SAR, had less detail, and presented information in concise and readable formats; (5) administration of both SAR and DAES within one office would provide an opportunity for DOD to draw information from a single automated data system to consolidate reporting requirements; and (6) DOD could further enhance the presentation and usefulness of SAR data through automation and graphs.
