Summary: The Defense Department (DOD) spends $15 billion annually to maintain aircraft, ships, tracked and wheeled vehicles, and other equipment. However, it believes that it can reduce maintenance costs by better matching its depots' workload capacity with current maintenance requirements. Accordingly, as part of the ongoing base closures and realignments, DOD is closing 15 of its major maintenance depots and is transferring their workloads to other depots or the private sector. This report (1) assesses the reliability of DOD's depot closure cost and savings estimates, (2) provides information on the policies and the programs used to provide employment and training to employees at depots being closed, (3) determines if the military can increase savings by using competitions between DOD depots or between depots and the private sector when redistributing the workloads of closed depots, and (4) determines if the military services adequately consider other services' depots when they use methods other than competition to redistribute the workloads.
