The Army and Marine Corps maintenance depots provide critical support to ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and are heavily involved in efforts to reset the force. The Department of Defense (DOD) has an interest in ensuring that the depots remain operationally effective, efficient, and capable of meeting future maintenance requirements. In 2008, in response to direction by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Army and the Marine Corps each submitted a depot maintenance strategic plan. Our objective was to evaluate the extent to which these plans provide comprehensive strategies for meeting future depot maintenance requirements. GAO determined whether the plans were consistent with the criteria for developing a results-oriented management framework and fully addressed OSD's criteria.

The depot maintenance strategic plans developed by the Army and Marine Corps identify key issues affecting the depots, but do not provide assurance that the depots will be postured and resourced to meet future maintenance requirements because they do not fully address all of the elements required for a comprehensive, results-oriented management framework. Nor are they fully responsive to OSD's direction for developing the plans. While the services' strategic plans contain mission statements, along with long-term goals and objectives, they do not fully address all the elements needed for sound strategic planning, such as external factors that may affect how goals and objectives will be accomplished, performance indicators or metrics that measure outcomes and gauge progress, and resources required to meet the goals and objectives. Also, the plans partially address four issues that OSD directed the services, at a minimum, to include in their plans, such as logistics transformation, core logistics capability assurance, workforce revitalization, and capital investment. Army and Marine Corps officials involved with the development of the service strategic plans acknowledged that their plans do not fully address the OSD criteria, but they stated that the plans nevertheless address issues they believe are critical to maintaining effective, long-term depot maintenance capabilities. The Army's and Marine Corps' plans also are not comprehensive because they do not provide strategies for mitigating and reducing uncertainties in future workloads that affect the depots' ability to plan for meeting future maintenance requirements. Such uncertainties stem primarily from a lack of information on (1) workload that will replace current work on existing systems, which is expected to decline, and (2) workload associated with new systems that are in the acquisition pipeline. According to depot officials, to effectively plan for future maintenance requirements, the depots need timely and reliable information from their major commands on both the amounts and types of workloads they should expect to receive in future years. Depot officials told us that the information they receive from their major commands on their future workloads are uncertain beyond the current fiscal year. Officials cited various factors that contribute to these uncertainties, such as volatility in workload requirements, changing wartime environment, budget instability, and unanticipated changes in customer orders. In addition, depot officials said that they are not involved in the sustainment portion of the life cycle management planning process for new and modified systems. No clear process exists that would enable them to have input into weapon system program managers' decisions on how and where new and modified systems will be supported and maintained in the future. Unless they are integrated in this planning process, these officials said, the depots will continue to have uncertainties about what capabilities they will need to plan for future workloads and what other resources they will need to support new and modified weapon systems.

Status Legend:

Review Pending-GAO has not yet assessed implementation status.

Open-Actions to satisfy the intent of the recommendation have not been taken or are being planned, or actions that partially satisfy the intent of the recommendation have been taken.

Closed-implemented-Actions that satisfy the intent of the recommendation have been taken.

Closed-not implemented-While the intent of the recommendation has not been satisfied, time or circumstances have rendered the recommendation invalid.

• Review Pending
• Open
• Closed - implemented
• Closed - not implemented

Recommendations for Executive Action

Recommendation: To provide greater assurance that the military depots will be postured and resourced to meet future maintenance requirements, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army and the Commandant of the Marine Corps to fully address all elements needed for a comprehensive results-oriented management framework, including those elements partially addressed in the current plans---such as the approaches for accomplishing goals and objectives, stakeholder involvement, external factors that may affect how goals and objectives will be accomplished, performance goals that are objective, quantifiable, and measurable, resources needed to meet performance goals, performance indicators used to measure outcomes and gauge progress, and an evaluation plan that monitors goals and objectives.

Agency Affected: Department of Defense

Status: Open

Comments: DOD stated that they will reiterate and incorporate the recommendation to direct the Army and the Marine Corps to update their depot maintenance strategic plans to fully address all elements needed for a comprehensive results-oriented management framework into the next update of the strategic plan.

Recommendation: To provide greater assurance that the military depots will be postured and resourced to meet future maintenance requirements, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army and the Commandant of the Marine Corps to fully address the four specific issues of logistics transformation, core capability assurance, workforce revitalization, and capitalization, consistent with OSD criteria provided to the services.

Agency Affected: Department of Defense

Status: Open

Comments: DOD stated that they will reiterate and incorporate the recommendation to fully address the four specific issues of logistics transformation, core capability assurance, workforce revitalization, and capitalization, consistent with OSD criteria provided to the services into the next update of the strategic plan.

Recommendation: To provide greater assurance that the military depots will be postured and resourced to meet future maintenance requirements, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretary of the Army and the Commandant of the Marine Corps to develop goals and objectives, as well as related strategic planning elements, aimed at mitigating and reducing future workload uncertainties. As part of this last effort, the Army and Marine Corps should develop a clear process for integrating the depots' input into the sustainment portion of the life cycle management planning process for systems in the acquisition pipeline.

Agency Affected: Department of Defense

Status: Open

Comments: DOD stated that the Army has initiated several actions to mitigate and reduce uncertainties in projecting future depot workload and to ensure viability of the depot workforce. DOD said that the Army has established integrated product teams to address core workload shortfalls and developed an action plan and the resources and timeline required to transfer sufficient workload from the original equipment manufacturers to the applicable Army depot to meet core requirements. In addition, DOD said that the Army has begun to develop policy that would require review of Core Logistic Assessments/Core Depot Assessments and Source of Repair Analyses during the milestone decision review process, and to develop a comprehensive training package for export to program executive officers and program managers, Life Cycle Management Commands, and depots.