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Defense Acquisitions: Results of Annual Assessment of DOD Weapon Programs

GAO-08-674T Published: Apr 29, 2008. Publicly Released: Apr 29, 2008.
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Highlights

DOD's investment in weapon systems represents one of the largest discretionary items in the budget. The department expects to invest about $900 billion (fiscal year 2008 dollars) over the next 5 years on development and procurement with more than $335 billion invested specifically in major defense acquisition programs. Every dollar spent inefficiently in acquiring weapon systems is less money available for other budget priorities--such as the global war on terror and growing entitlement programs. This testimony focuses on (1) the overall performance of DOD's weapon system investment portfolio; (2) our assessment of 72 weapon programs against best practices standards for successful product developments; and (3) potential solutions and recent DOD actions to improve weapon program outcomes. It is based on GAO-08-467SP, which included our analysis of broad trends in the performance of the programs in DOD's weapon acquisition portfolio and our assessment of 72 defense programs, and recommendations made in past GAO reports. DOD was provided a draft of GAO-08-467SP and had no comments on the overall report, but did provide technical comments on individual assessments. The comments, along with the agency comments received on the individual assessments, were included as appropriate.

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Best practicesBest practices methodologyCost analysisDefense capabilitiesDefense cost controlDefense procurementFinancial analysisMilitary research and developmentMilitary technologyMissilesPerformance measuresProgram evaluationProgram managementRisk managementSchedule slippagesStrategic planningTechnologyWeaponsWeapons research and developmentWeapons systemsCost estimates