F-35 Sustainment: DOD Needs a Plan to Address Risks Related to Its Central Logistics System
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Department of Defense (DOD) is aware of risks that could affect the F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), but does not have a plan to ensure that ALIS is fully functional as key program milestones approach. ALIS users, including pilots and maintainers, in GAO's focus groups identified benefits of the system, such as the incorporation of multiple functions into a single system. However, users also identified several issues that could result in operational and schedule risks. These include the following:
- ALIS may not be deployable: ALIS requires server connectivity and the necessary infrastructure to provide power to the system. The Marine Corps, which often deploys to austere locations, declared in July 2015 its ability to operate and deploy the F-35 without conducting deployability tests of ALIS. A newer version of ALIS was put into operation in the summer of 2015, but DOD has not yet completed comprehensive deployability tests.
- ALIS does not have redundant infrastructure: ALIS's current design results in all F-35 data produced across the U.S. fleet to be routed to a Central Point of Entry and then to ALIS's main operating unit with no backup system or redundancy. If either of these fail, it could take the entire F-35 fleet offline.
DOD is taking some steps to address these and other risks such as resolving smaller ALIS functionality issues between major software upgrades and considering the procurement of additional ALIS infrastructure but the department is attending to issues on a case-by-case basis. DOD does not have a plan that prioritizes ALIS risks to ensure that the most important are expediently addressed and that DOD has a fully functional ALIS as program milestones draw close. By continuing to respond to issues on a case-by-case basis rather than in a holistic manner, there is no guarantee that DOD will address the highest risks by the start of full-rate production in 2019, and as a result, DOD may encounter further schedule and development delays, which could affect operations and potentially lead to cost increases.
DOD has estimated total ALIS costs to be about $16.7 billion over the F-35's 56-year life cycle, but performing additional analyses and including historical cost data would increase the credibility and accuracy of DOD's estimate. GAO's cost estimating best practices state that cost estimates should include uncertainty analyses to determine the level of uncertainty associated with the estimate in order to be credible. In addition, credible cost estimates should include sensitivity analyses to examine how changes to individual assumptions and inputs affect the estimate as a whole. DOD's guidance does not require the department to perform these analyses for ALIS, and DOD officials stated that they have not done so in part because ALIS constitutes less than 2 percent of the F-35's estimated total sustainment costs. Program officials said that if ALIS is not fully functional, the F-35 could not be operated as frequently as intended, but a DOD-commissioned plan found that schedule slippage and functionality problems with ALIS could lead to $20-100 billion in additional costs. Without uncertainty and sensitivity analyses, it is unclear how ALIS can affect costs. GAO also found that using historical cost data would make DOD's cost estimate more accurate.
Why GAO Did This Study
The F-35 is the most ambitious and expensive weapon system in DOD's history, with sustainment costs comprising the vast majority of DOD's $1.3 trillion cost estimate. Central to F-35 sustainment is ALIS—a complex system supporting operations, mission planning, supply-chain management, maintenance, and other processes. The F-35 program is approaching several key milestones: the Air Force and Navy are to declare the ability to operate and deploy the F-35 in 2016 and 2018 respectively, and full-rate production of the aircraft is to begin in 2019. However, ALIS has experienced developmental issues and schedule delays that have put aircraft availability and flying missions at risk. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 included a provision that GAO review the F-35's ALIS. This report assesses, among other things, the extent to which DOD has (1) a plan to ensure that ALIS is fully functional as key program milestones approach and (2) credibly and accurately estimated ALIS costs. GAO reviewed F-35 program documentation, interviewed officials, and conducted focus groups with ALIS users.
Recommendations
GAO is making four recommendations including that DOD develop a plan to address ALIS risks, and conduct certain analyses and include historical data to improve its ALIS cost estimate. DOD concurred with developing a plan and partially concurred with the cost estimating recommendations, stating that it follows its own guidance. GAO continues to believe the recommendations are valid, as discussed in the report.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | To ensure that risks associated with ALIS are addressed expediently and holistically, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer to develop a plan that would prioritize and address ALIS issues, prior to the start of full-rate production for the program. |
The Joint Program Office created an ALIS Technical Roadmap that was completed in 2016, identifying 5 key areas for ALIS modernization and sustainment. Those five areas, Cyber Security, Resiliency, Regional Support, Operational Capabilities, and Architecture/Tech Refresh contain priority issues (or risks to ALIS) that need to be both funded and addressed by the program office. The roadmap currently goes through 2023. This roadmap shows a plan to both prioritize and address issues related to ALIS, and lists funding status, which is consist with our recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | To ensure that risks associated with ALIS are addressed expediently and holistically, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer to improve the reliability of its cost estimates, conduct uncertainty and sensitivity analyses consistent with cost-estimating best practices identified in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide. |
DOD partially concurred with this recommendation. According to F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) officials, as of July 2021, cost estimators within the JPO have begun using uncertainty and sensitivity analyses in their ALIS-related cost estimates. However, the first cost estimates that demonstrate this new practice will not be available until fall of 2021. We continue to believe that in order for any risks associated with ALIS to be addressed expediently and holistically, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis must be used on the F-35s cost estimates to improve its overall reliability. We are pleased to hear that the JPO has adopted this practice for its cost estimates, and we look forward to reviewing the estimates later this year. Until we review the estimates, this recommendation will remain open.
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| Department of Defense | To ensure that risks associated with ALIS are addressed expediently and holistically, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer to improve the reliability of its cost estimates, ensure that future estimates of ALIS costs use historical data as available and reflect significant program changes consistent with cost-estimating best practices identified in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide. |
DOD partially concurred with this recommendation. According to F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) officials, starting with its June 2017 cost estimate, JPO began incorporating actual ALIS costs in its sustainment cost estimates. Actual ALIS costs are now incorporated into each of the JPO's twice a year sustainment estimate updates. For example, starting in its 2018 version 1.0 estimate, JPO officials used actual ALIS hardware prices from the contract which contained the latest available pricing. Furthermore, in its 2021 version 1.1 estimate, JPO officials incorporate new, recently available pricing for the Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN) hardware, which will eventually replace legacy ALIS hardware. JPO also confirmed that it intends to continue reflecting the latest pricing information in its cost estimates moving forward. The use of ALIS and ODIN actual costs in cost estimates will, based on our 2016 findings, provide DOD with a more reliable cost estimate. As of April 2022, we have closed this recommendation as implemented.
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| Department of Defense | To ensure that risks associated with ALIS are addressed expediently and holistically, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer to ensure that ALIS training issues are fully addressed, develop a standardized, program-wide plan for ALIS training through the life cycle of the program. |
An ALIS Training Evaluation (ATE) Summary of Findings report was completed in 2016. This evaluation identified 23 areas for improvement across the ALIS Training curricula. The improvement areas were then grouped into 15 ATE projects. Of the 15, 10 were identified as immediate action (IA) opportunities achievable within current Program resources. The top 8 improvement areas are on track to be completed by the end of calendar year 2017 to align with the fielding of ALIS version 3.0. The remaining ALIS Training requirements will inform the POM 20 process in the Fall of 2017. As a result of the ATE, DOD has developed a plan to address ALIS training, which is consistent with our recommendation.
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