Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information about the Army's retention of inventory in excess of its current operating and war reserve needs.
GAO found that: (1) the Army Aviation Systems Command, one of six national inventory control points (ICP), had retention-level inventory valued at about $1 billion, and retained many times the amount of inventory that was reasonably required to support end items; (2) 50 percent of the retention-level inventory was at least twice as large as needed; (3) item managers did not document the reasons for retaining contingency and numeric inventories, but instead accepted the retention levels determined by a computer program; (4) the large retention-level inventories were costly to store and manage, and reduced supply efficiency; (5) the Army has taken actions to reduce its retention-level inventory; (6) the lack of system documentation contributes to difficulty in fixing systemic problems; and (7) the database that item managers relied upon to make retention decisions included inaccurate data and lacked some necessary data.
