Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the military services requisitioned supplies from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), to determine whether DLA customers appropriately used: (1) economical methods to order supplies; and (2) supply requisition priorities.
GAO found that: (1) customers routinely placed numerous low-value requisitions that cost DLA more to fill than the value of the supplies provided; (2) in fiscal year 1989, DLA spent $62.9 million more than the $22.6 million it charged its customers to fill 5.7 million low-value requisitions; (3) on about 755,000 occasions, customers submitted more than one requisition for the same supply item on the same day; (4) DLA customers failed to meet the Department of Defense (DOD) requisition submission time standard on about 61 percent of their high-priority requisitions; and (5) the Army's Total Package Fielding Program, which mandated that units request high-priority service on repair parts requisitions, regardless of actual urgency, was inconsistent with DOD supply policy which required a case-by-case determination of priority.
