Army Maintenance: General Support Maintenance Units Not Prepared to Perform Wartime Missions
NSIAD-89-183
Published: Jul 17, 1989. Publicly Released: Jul 17, 1989.
Skip to Highlights
Highlights
GAO evaluated the Army's general support maintenance activities to determine how well the Army was preparing general support units for their wartime missions.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should provide adequate wartime mission guidance to general support maintenance unit commanders indicating the units and types of equipment they will be expected to support in wartime. |
The Army took partial action on the recommendation. That is, the U.S. Army, Europe, provided necessary guidance to its wartime units, but other theater commands have not. GAO has made a similar recommendation in a report on reserve general support maintenance units, NSIAD-91-219, July 19, 1991. GAO will conduct follow-up assessments under that report and code.
|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should direct installation maintenance managers to create opportunities for training general support maintenance units by assigning them general support tasks. As these units become proficient, assign them more of the higher-priority force modernization equipment they will be expected to repair in wartime. |
A message was issued to installation maintenance managers emphasizing Army policy to create general support-level training for maintenance units. No further Army action is planned to monitor compliance.
|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should reevaluate, as appropriate, the work loads assigned to civilian maintenance activities to ensure that general support maintenance units are not denied the opportunity to work on high-priority equipment that they will be required to repair in wartime. |
The Army has no action planned to develop a mechanism to monitor the work loads assigned to its general support maintenance units. Work load assignments are the role of the installation commanders.
|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should evaluate the practice of assigning extensive amounts of direct-support-level repairs to general support maintenance units, particularly units whose wartime missions require high levels of proficiency in general-support-level repairs. |
A message was issued to installation managers stating that increased emphasis should be placed on ensuring that general support-level training work loads would be accomplished. The Army has no further specific action planned to monitor compliance.
|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should curtail non-maintenance activities that result in general support maintenance personnel spending less-than-acceptable amounts of time performing hands-on general support maintenance repairs. |
A message was issued to installation managers emphasizing the importance of having units spend more time on general support-level repairs. The Army has no further specific action planned to monitor compliance.
|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should develop methods for evaluating general support maintenance proficiency, including the: (1) testing of individual soldiers performing actual general-support-level repairs; and (2) addition of general-support-level maintenance tasks to soldier job books and soldier manuals. |
Army actions to comply with the recommendations are essentially complete. The Army is in the process of incorporating general-support-level maintenance tasks in its job books, soldier manuals, and self-development tests. Soldier evaluations are expected to begin in June 1993.
|
| Department of the Army | The Secretary of the Army should ensure that commanders, when developing unit status report ratings, consider the: (1) results of individual soldiers' proficiency testing; and (2) compatibility of equipment that units work on in peacetime with equipment they will be expected to work on in wartime. |
AR-220-1, Unit Status Report (USR), has been revised to instruct commanders to degrade ratings if their units were repairing equipment other than that required of wartime missions. According to the Army, USR will reflect the individual soldier testing and resultant proficiency in the development of the training portion of the USR.
|
Full Report
Public Inquiries
Topics
Armed forces reservesCombat readinessDefense contingency planningEquipment maintenanceEquipment repairsStaff utilizationMaintenance standardsMilitary land vehiclesMilitary trainingMilitary forces