United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to the Acting Secretary of the

Air Force

January 1998 DEFENSE

COMPUTERS

Air Force Needs to

Strengthen Year 2000

Oversight

GAO/AIMD-98-35

GAO United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

Accounting and Information

Management Division

B-278232 

January 16, 1998

The Honorable F. Whitten Peters

The Acting Secretary of the Air Force

Dear Mr. Secretary:

This report presents the results of our review to date of the Air Force’s

program for solving its Year 2000 computer systems problem. If this

problem is not corrected in time, Air Force computer systems could

malfunction or produce incorrect information. The impact of these failures

could be widespread, costly, and debilitating to important Air Force

warfighting and military support missions.

We performed this work as part of our review of the Department of

Defense’s (DOD) Year 2000 computer systems efforts for the Chairman,

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs; the Chairman and Ranking

Minority Member of the Subcommittee on Government Management,

Information and Technology, House Committee on Government Reform

and Oversight; and the Honorable Thomas M. Davis, III, House of

Representatives. Our objectives were to evaluate (1) the status of the Air

Force’s efforts to oversee its Year 2000 program and (2) the

appropriateness of the Air Force’s strategy and actions for ensuring that

the problem will be successfully addressed. This letter summarizes the

concerns we raised and provides recommendations for addressing these

issues.

Results in Brief As with the other military services, the Air Force is taking a decentralized

approach to Year 2000 correction—that is, it is relying heavily on its

components to identify and correct Year 2000 problems affecting their

own systems. However, in providing oversight for this effort, the Air Force

must ensure that all of its systems have been accounted for and that

component actions are successful. It must also be well-positioned to make

the resource trade-off decisions that are inevitable in any Year 2000 effort

and to address conflicts between component approaches toward

identifying and correcting interfaces. Further, it must be able to provide

additional resources, such as testing facilities, that may be necessary to

correct and validate systems.

The Air Force has taken a number of positive actions toward fulfilling its

Year 2000 oversight responsibilities. For example, it is taking inventory of

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its systems and prioritizing them for conversion or replacement, and it has

issued extensive guidance on dealing with the Year 2000 problem. It has

also established a Year 2000 working group comprised of focal points from

the components which aims to eliminate duplicative efforts, share

resources, and track component progress.

At the same time, the Air Force has not yet adequately addressed several

critical issues that would ensure that the Service is well-positioned to deal

with the later, and more difficult, phases of Year 2000 correction. For

example, it has not refined its cost estimate, using actual assessment data,

so that it can make informed resource trade-off decisions. In addition, it

has not ensured that interfaces are properly accounted for or ensured that

components are developing contingency plans. Finally, it has not ensured

that components have anticipated the need for testing resources or sought

to acquire such resources itself.

Our review revealed that some components are failing to plan for the

testing phase of their Year 2000 effort and develop contingency plans. We

also found that some components are taking conflicting approaches

toward determining the actual impact or program status of their system

interfaces. If components and the Air Force do not promptly address and

take consistent action on these issues, they may well negate any success

they may have in making systems within their control Year 2000 compliant.

While the Air Force has enlisted the services of the Air Force Audit Agency

to help address some of these concerns, this work needs to be backed by

comprehensive and continued Air Force oversight in order to ensure that

the Service can address unforeseen problems and delays in the next, more

difficult phases.

Scope and

Methodology

In conducting our review, we assessed the Air Force’s Year 2000 efforts

against our own Year 2000 Assessment Guide.

1

 This guide addresses

common issues affecting most federal agencies and presents a structured

approach and a checklist to aid in planning, managing, and evaluating Year

2000 programs. The guidance, which is consistent with DOD’s Year 2000

Management Plan2 and the Air Force’s own Year 2000 management

approach, describes five phases—supported by program and project

management activities—with each phase representing a major Year 2000

program activity or segment. The phases and a description of each follows.

1

Year 2000 Computing Crisis: An Assessment Guide (GAO/AIMD-10.1.14, September 1997).

2

Version 1.0, April 1997.

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• Awareness - Define the Year 2000 problem and gain executive-level

support and sponsorship. Establish a Year 2000 program team and develop

an overall strategy. Ensure that everyone in the organization is fully aware

of the issue.

• Assessment - Assess the Year 2000 impact on the enterprise. Identify core

business areas and processes, inventory and analyze systems supporting

the core business areas, and prioritize their conversion or replacement.

Develop contingency plans to handle data exchange issues, lack of data,

and bad data. Identify and secure the necessary resources.

• Renovation - Convert, replace, or eliminate selected platforms,

applications, databases, and utilities. Modify interfaces.

• Validation - Test, verify, and validate converted or replaced platforms,

applications, databases, and utilities. Test the performance, functionality,

and integration of converted or replaced platforms, applications,

databases, utilities, and interfaces in an operational environment.

• Implementation - Implement converted or replaced platforms,

applications, databases, utilities, and interfaces. Implement data exchange

contingency plans, if necessary.

During our review, we concentrated primarily on the Air Force’s efforts to

oversee its Year 2000 program during the awareness and assessment

phases. We focused our review on Year 2000 work being carried out by

(1) DOD’s Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command,

Control, Communications, and Intelligence (OASD/C3I)—which is

responsible for promulgating DOD guidance on Year 2000 and providing

assistance to Defense components, (2) Air Force headquarters, including

the Air Force Communications and Information Center (AFCIC)—which is

responsible for day-to-day management and supervision and for issuing Air

Force Year 2000 policy and guidance, (3) Air Force Communication

Agency, the designated Air Force Year 2000 program office, and

(4) selected program offices managed by the Air Force Materiel

Command’s Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force

Base, Ohio.

To assess OASD/C3I efforts in providing Year 2000 support to the Air Force,

we met with the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command,

Control, Communications and Intelligence, the Principal Director for

Information Management, the Director for Information Technology, and

other senior staff responsible for Year 2000 issues. We reviewed the

office’s Year 2000 guidance and other documentation on Year 2000

funding, reporting, and date format requirements.

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To assess Air Force headquarters efforts to manage and oversee the Year

2000 computer problem, we (1) met with the Air Force Communications

and Information Center officials and Year 2000 focal points, (2) obtained

and analyzed documents issued by these offices that describe

organizational structure and responsibilities for carrying out the Air Force

Year 2000 program, and (3) reviewed the Air Force’s Year 2000 Guidance

Package to assess the level of guidance, roles, and responsibilities, and

target milestone dates for the Year 2000 effort.

Further, we obtained and analyzed the Air Force Year 2000 inventory data

to determine (1) the number of systems owned and operated by Air Force

organizations and (2) the status of Air Force systems in their Year 2000

efforts, proposed strategy, and the number of systems reporting to be

compliant. We reviewed pertinent Year 2000 program documentation such

as Defense and Air Force guidance and management directives, working

group minutes, status reports, and cost and schedule data.

We performed our work primarily at the Air Force Materiel Command,

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; Headquarters Air Force at the

Pentagon, Washington, D.C.; and the Office of Assistant Secretary of

Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence at

Arlington, Virginia. We conducted our work from July 1996 through

August 1997 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing

standards. We received written comments on a draft of this report from

the Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Air Force. His

comments are discussed in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation”

section and are reprinted in appendix II.

Background Most of the Air Force’s automated information systems and embedded

weapon systems are vulnerable to the Year 2000 problem, which is rooted

in the way dates are recorded and computed in automated information

systems. For the past several decades, systems have typically used two

digits to represent the year, such as “97” representing 1997, in order to

conserve on electronic data storage and reduce operating costs. With this

two-digit format, however, the Year 2000 is indistinguishable from 1900, or

2001 from 1901, etc. As a result of this ambiguity, system or application

programs that use dates to perform calculations, comparisons, or sorting

may generate incorrect results when working with years after 1999.

Should Air Force computer systems fail on the morning of the Year 2000,

Air Force operations at all levels could be affected by the incorrect

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processing of data, as well as corrupted databases, or even massive system

failures. In turn, this could result in such problems as delays in supply

shipments, faulty inventory forecasts, unreliable budget estimates, and

erroneous personnel-related information. Moreover, the problem could

adversely affect critical warfighting functions such as combat,

communications, command and control, intelligence, surveillance,

reconnaissance, and air traffic control.

Like the other military services, the Air Force has adopted DOD’s Year 2000

management strategy, which calls for centralized oversight with

decentralized execution of Year 2000 correction. In February 1995, the Air

Force designated the Air Force Communication Agency (AFCA)3

 as the

focal point for Year 2000 efforts, with responsibility for (1) coordinating

Year 2000 efforts being carried out by its 9 major commands, 36 field

operating agencies, and 3 direct reporting units, (2) ensuring that

components completed Year 2000-related tasks on time, (3) developing

Year 2000 guidance, (4) collecting and reporting progress and

inventory-related data, and (5) chairing the Air Force Year 2000 working

group which is comprised of representatives from components.

In April 1997, the Air Force established a Year 2000 program office at AFCA.

The program office is currently staffed with 24 full-time personnel and it

reports to the Air Force Communications and Information Center (AFCIC).

AFCIC, which was established in April 1997 due to a Headquarters Air Force

reorganization, was tasked with responsibility for implementing Year 2000

policy and programmatic changes across the Service.4 AFCIC also reports to

the Office of the Chief Information Officer and it has assigned three

full-time staff members to oversee the Air Force’s Year 2000 Program.

Appendix I illustrates the Air Force’s Year 2000 organizational structure

and describes the complexity involved in carrying out Year 2000 efforts at

the command level.

Early in its Year 2000 effort, the Air Force introduced a five-phased

management approach for addressing the Year 2000 problem, which was

later adopted by DOD and the Federal Government CIO Council’s Year 2000

Subcommittee. According to Air Force officials, if properly implemented,

this phased approach will enable the Air Force to achieve its goal of

having every mission-critical system compliant by December 1998. The

3

Formerly known as the Air Force Command and Control, Communications, and Computer Agency.

AFCA is located at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

4

Previously, the Air Force/SC (Command, Control, Communications, and Computers) had this

responsibility.

Page 5 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
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five phases and their supporting program and project management

activities are consistent with those identified in our Year 2000 Assessment

Guide, which draws heavily on the best practices work of the CIO Council’s

Year 2000 Subcommittee.

In addition to following the five-phase approach, our guidance addresses

common issues affecting most federal agencies and provides a checklist to

aid them in planning, managing, and evaluating their year 2000 programs.

Also, because the Year 2000 is a massive and complex management

challenge, our guidance recommends that agencies plan and manage a

Year 2000 program as a single large information system development effort

and promulgate and enforce good management practices on the program

and project levels.

To comply with DOD’s current Year 2000 funding mandate, the Air Force

does not plan to provide system/program managers with any additional

funds to manage and fix the Year 2000 problem. Rather, system/program

managers have been directed to reprioritize or reprogram previously

budgeted funds (primarily operational & maintenance (O&M) funds) to fix

Year 2000 problems.

Current Status of Air

Force Year 2000

Efforts

The Air Force estimates there are 2,944 automated information systems

and weapons embedded systems in its inventory and that the majority of

these systems will have to be either renovated, replaced, or retired before

January 1, 2000. Of the 2,944 systems, 550 (about 19 percent) are

considered to be mission-critical systems, that is, they directly support

wartime operations. As of September 4, 1997, the Air Force reported that

all of its 2,944 systems completed the awareness phase, 33 percent were in

the assessment phase, 32 percent in renovation, 17 percent in validation,

12 percent were in implementation, and 6 percent will be decommissioned

by December 1999. As of September 1997, the Air Force estimated that it

will cost about $405 million to successfully complete its Year 2000

program. Table 1 details the status of Air Force systems according to their

mission impact.

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Table 1: Status of Air Force Inventoried Systems by Criticality

Status

Group I—

Mission Critical

Group II—

Mission Essential

Group III—

Mission Impaired

Group IV—

Non-Mission

Essential

Other—

Unassessable Total

Awareness 0 0 0 0 0 0

Assessment 250 234 233 241 1 959

Renovation 156 163 432 201 3 955

Validation 81 145 173 87 6 492

Implementation 59 71 125 98 0 353

Decommissioned 4 31 46 102 2 185

Total 550 644 1,009 729 12 2,944

Note: According to Air Force Manual 10-410, criticality is defined as follows.

(1) Mission Critical: The loss of critical functions that would cause immediate stoppage of direct

support of wartime operations.

(2) Mission Essential: The loss or reduced capability due to loss of equipment or parts. If not

corrected, degradation eventually causes loss of mission capability.

(3) Mission Impaired: The loss of functions that would not have an immediate effect on direct

mission support of wartime operations.

(4) Non-mission Essential: The loss of functions that would not effect mission operations.

(5) Unassessable: The effect on the mission cannot be judged and falls into other groups when

additional information becomes available.

Source: AFCIC data as of September 4, 1997. We did not independently verify this information.

The Air Force has taken a number of positive steps to ensure that its

personnel are fully aware of the impact should Air Force systems not be

compliant at the turn of the century. For example, in November 1995, the

Air Force established a Year 2000 working group comprised of focal points

from each major command, field operating agency, and direct reporting

unit. This group has focused on such matters as sharing lessons learned,

eliminating duplicative efforts, sharing resources, and tracking component

progress. In the same month, the Air Force released an Air Force-wide

impact assessment survey to all major commands, field operating

agencies, and direct reporting units for the purpose of obtaining a rough

order-of-magnitude of the Year 2000 problem throughout the Air Force.

The results of this survey indicated that the Air Force Year 2000 problem

would be significant and that it required immediate and sustained

management attention.

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The Air Force has also addressed a number of steps associated with the

assessment phase of Year 2000 correction, including the following.

• Developing a comprehensive Air Force-wide system inventory, which will

include information on information systems, weapons systems, and

infrastructure-related devices that could be affected by the Year 2000

problem.

• Prioritizing systems for conversion or replacement according to their

mission impact.

• Tasking the Air Force Software Technology Support Center at Hill Air

Force Base, Utah, to evaluate in-house and vendor tools and services that

could be used to identify and fix Year 2000 problems.

• Creating a dedicated Year 2000 database, which contains system

inventory-related information as well as information on component

progress.

• Issuing a Year 2000 Guidance Package for senior managers and Year 2000

points-of-contact, which (1) explains how to prepare individual project

management plans and develop Year 2000 strategies, (2) includes

milestones and exit criteria for Year 2000 tasks, (3) provides a flowchart

illustrating the five-phase resolution process, and (4) provides cost

estimating formulas. This package is continually updated to reflect new

managerial, technical, legal and other Year 2000-related developments.

• Developing a checklist to assist system managers in ensuring that their

systems are compliant for the Year 2000, which covers (1) the

identification of systems and interfaces, (2) assessment of date usage by

the systems, and (3) compliance testing, among other subjects.

• Directing each major command and field operating agency to appoint Year

2000 certifiers to ensure that all systems belonging to the components

have completed the necessary steps to become Year 2000 compliant.

The Assessment Phase Is

Running Behind Schedule

The Air Force originally anticipated that it would complete the assessment

phase of its Year 2000 effort in May 1997. It acknowledged that

approximately 66 percent of its systems did not meet this deadline and it

subsequently revised the deadline to October 1997. However, as of

September 4, 1997, about 33 percent of its systems had still not been

assessed. With less than 26 months remaining before the Year 2000

deadline, this will add pressure on the Air Force to renovate, validate, and

implement systems as quickly as possible. According to an industry expert,

June 1997 is apt to be the latest point in time to start fixing systems and to

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have a reasonable probability of finishing before year 2000.5 The Air

Force’s Year 2000 guidance, as well as GAO and OMB’s Year 2000 guidance,

call for a similar completion date. In addition, according to the Gartner

Group—an independent contractor hired by Defense to provide Year 2000

technical support primarily in the areas of scheduling and cost

estimating—no more than 26 percent of an organization’s total Year 2000

effort should be spent in the awareness and assessment phases. Our

analysis shows that the Air Force has used nearly 46 percent of its

available time to complete these two phases. While Air Force officials

acknowledge that the assessment phase is taking longer than expected,

they do not believe it will significantly affect their Year 2000 program

because system and program managers have already begun to fix systems

identified with Year 2000 problems.

One reason for the delay in completing the assessment phase is that it has

taken longer than anticipated to develop a complete systems inventory.

Before its Year 2000 effort, the Air Force did not have a comprehensive

servicewide system inventory. As such, it could not readily determine the

magnitude (much less the cost to fix) of the Year 2000 problem

servicewide when it began the assessment phase. While its inventory now

contains 2,944 systems, the Air Force is still expanding it to include

information on infrastructure-related devices, such as elevators, traffic

control and security devices, telephone switching systems, and medical

equipment. These devices rely on either microprocessors or

microcontroller chips that may be vulnerable to Year 2000 problems. In

addition, the Air Force is contending with slow and incomplete reporting

by system and program managers. As a result, it has revised reporting

requirements to facilitate better reporting on the part of its components.

Furthermore, the Air Force must still resolve discrepancies between its

inventory and recent findings by the Air Force Audit Agency. In June 1997,

the Audit Agency identified over 6,000 information systems that were not

included in the Air Force inventory (which contained 2,543 systems at the

time this audit was conducted). These additional systems included 1,600

mission-critical systems. The Air Force is currently reconciling its

database to the audit findings.

The Air Force has recently enlisted the Air Force Audit Agency to help

evaluate component progress in completing the assessment phase. The

agency will determine whether selected components have (1) completed

5

Caper Jones, The Global Economic Impact of the Year 2000 Software Problem, Version 4,

September 23, 1996, Software Productivity Research, Inc. Caper Jones is widely recognized as a

leading Year 2000 expert.

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timely assessments, (2) addressed all system interfaces, (3) accomplished

mandatory system certifications, (4) prioritized and scheduled required

renovations, and (5) developed contingency plans.

Key Issues Need

Prompt Attention for

the Air Force to Solve

Its Year 2000 Problem

Even though the Air Force is entering the next phases of its Year 2000

correction effort, it has yet to complete several critical assessment steps,

which are designed to ensure that it is well-positioned to deal with the

later, and more difficult, phases of Year 2000 correction. These include

(1) recalculating its $405 million cost estimate, based on actual assessment

data, so that it can make informed choices about information technology

priorities, (2) ensuring that interfaces are properly accounted for,

(3) ensuring that components are developing contingency plans, and

(4) ensuring that components are adequately prepared for the testing

phase. The Air Force Audit Agency audit should help the Air Force

complete these steps; however, this work will be carried out only at

selected sites and it will not provide the comprehensive and continued

oversight that is needed to ensure that the Air Force can handle

unforeseen problems and delays.

Full Cost of Year 2000

Problem Needs to Be

Determined

As DOD’s Year 2000 Management Plan and our Year 2000 Assessment Guide

state, the primary purpose of the assessment phase is to gather and

analyze the information in order to determine the size and scope of the

problem. Among other things, this enables an agency to estimate the cost

of its Year 2000 effort in terms of dollars and work years, and, in turn, to

make informed choices about information technology priorities and

whether other system development efforts should be deferred or canceled

so that resources can be freed up to solve the Year 2000 problem. The Air

Force, however, has not yet fully defined the scope of its Year 2000

problem or refined cost estimates, using actual assessment data, in order

to gauge what resources are needed for correction. The need to take

immediate action in this regard is critical, given that some organizations

are already discovering that they do not have sufficient funding to correct

their systems.

Currently, the Air Force expects to spend about $405 million from fiscal

year 1997 through 1999 to fix its Year 2000 problem. Table 2 breaks down

the estimated cost by fiscal year.

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Table 2: Estimated Cost by Fiscal Year

Dollars in millions

Fiscal Year Cost

1997 $105.3

1998 283.5

1999 16.2

Total $405.0

Source: Air Force Communications and Information Center (as of September 1997). We did not

independently verify this information.

According to AFCIC officials, the cost estimate was calculated using the

Gartner cost formula, which recommends multiplying $1.10 by the lines of

code contained in the agency’s automated information systems and $8.00

by the lines of code for weapon systems. The Gartner method is helpful in

developing a rough estimate of what it will cost to resolve the problem

early in the Year 2000 effort. However, according to a directive6

 from

Defense’s Chief Information Officer as well as Year 2000 consultants,

agencies should refine their cost estimates as they progress through the

assessment phase and into the later Year 2000 phases to factor in the

actual resources they believe are needed to renovate and implement their

systems. According to DOD’s Year 2000 Management Plan, these can

include:

• The age of the systems being corrected. Age can have a significant impact

on the cost of correction since older code tends to be less structured and

thus harder to understand and correct than newer code.

• The Year 2000 strategy that the program is pursuing. Strategies that

involve keeping the two-digit code, for example, are much less expensive

than those that involve changing the two-digit code to a four-digit code.7

• The degree of documentation that is available on the system and its

understandability and the availability of source code.

• The skill and expertise of in-house programmers.

• Projected engineering costs.

6

Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and

Intelligence, who is also Defense’s Chief Information Officer, dated January 14, 1997, on cost

estimating metrics for Year 2000.

7

DOD has identified three strategies—field expansion, procedural code, and sliding windows—for

purposes of renovating noncompliant systems. Field expansion increases the size of the date field

generally from a two-digit year to a four-digit year. Procedural code is code which derives the correct

century based on the two-digit year (e.g., any year smaller than year 50 is a 2000 date, and any year 50

or larger is a 1900 date). Sliding windows are similar to procedural code in that they derive the correct

century based on the two-digit year, but the numeric constant used to determine the century changes

each year.

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• Labor hours required to fix systems.

• Testing requirements.

The September estimate still used the Gartner formula and did not take

into account other factors that can have a significant impact on the cost of

correction including those identified in DOD’s Year 2000 Management Plan.

Air Force officials acknowledged that the $405 million estimate is a rough

figure. They planned to re-estimate costs at some point after the

assessment phase is completed. Costs should be continuously reestimated

through the assessment and subsequent Year 2000 phases. By waiting to

refine its cost estimates, the Air Force will be delaying the availability of

information needed to make informed resource trade-off decisions.

In fact, trade-off issues and other funding disputes, which call for the need

to develop more accurate cost estimates, have already surfaced in some

Air Force programs. For example, one aircraft weapon system program

found that correcting the Year 2000 problem in ground software

equipment that is used to program the aircraft’s operational avionics

software for navigation and weapons delivery would cost $42 million more

than what was budgeted for routine maintenance of the aircraft. In

August 1997, the program office reported that it fixed the problem for

about $300,000 using a temporary workaround.8

 However, according to a

program office official, because the existing equipment consists of old IBM

mainframes and outdated Jovial code9

 it will have to be replaced

eventually—and likely at a higher cost—in order to support future planned

aircraft enhancements such as Joint Direct Attack Munition and Joint

Standoff Weapon.

In addition, the Air Force estimates that it will cost between $70 million

and $90 million to fix telephone switches throughout the Service. This

estimate is not included in the $405 million total Air Force Year 2000 cost

estimate. The Air Force is currently in a dispute with the contractor that

supplied the switches over who is responsible for Year 2000 correction. At

the same time, Air Force components have not budgeted funds to fix their

telephone switches. Since then, and according to AFCIC officials, the Air

Force has begun to address this funding issue through its normal

corporate funding process.

8

This would involve a 28-year backdate solution whereby the computer interprets 2000 as 1972, 2001 as

1973, etc.

9

A programming language.

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System Interfaces Need

More Attention

It is critically important during the Year 2000 effort that agencies protect

against the potential for introducing and propagating errors from one

organization to another and ensure that interfacing systems have the

ability to exchange data through the transition period. According to our

Year 2000 Assessment Guide, to address the issue of interfaces, agencies

should (1) identify their internal and external interfaces, (2) determine the

need for data bridges and filters, (3) notify outside data exchange partners

of their interface plans, (4) test their interface correction strategies, and

(5) develop contingency plans that address the possibility of failing to

receive data from an external source or receiving invalid data. DOD’s Year

2000 Management Plan places responsibility on component heads or their

designated Year 2000 points of contact to document and obtain system

interface agreements in the form of memorandums of agreement or the

equivalent.

Since October 1996, the Air Force has participated in six high-level DOD

Year 2000 interface workshops, including finance, intelligence, command

and control, communications, logistics, and weapons systems. However,

to date, the Air Force has not been tracking (1) how its components are

going about identifying their interfaces, (2) how they plan to correct

interfaces, and (3) whether they are instituting memorandums of

agreement in order to communicate their interface plans to their data

exchange partners. It is important for the Air Force to immediately begin

tracking these issues since individual components are embarking on

varying—and possibly conflicting—approaches to addressing interfaces.

Moreover, others have not yet addressed the interface issue.

For example, none of the five weapon system program offices we surveyed

had fully determined the actual impact or program status of their system

interfaces. One program office told us that it did not plan to do so until the

Air Force prescribed a uniform approach to interfaces. In addition, we

found other weapon system program approaches to identifying their

interfaces to be considerably different. For example, the F-22 weapon

systems program formally requested its development contractor, in

writing, to assess the impact of the Year 2000 problem on the aircraft. This

assessment would include identification of interfaces and an evaluation on

whether they pose a Year 2000 problem. By contrast, the F-16 program

office planned to informally contact its subcontractors to identify the

status of interfaces and Year 2000 issues for on-board components of the

aircraft that the program office does not directly manage. For components

that the program office directly manages, it plans to informally request

that its contractor assess Year 2000 problems and identify the status of

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interfaces. However, that assessment will not be documented as the F-22

program office’s assessment will be. Clearly, the second approach will

provide the Air Force with less assurance that all interfaces have been

accounted for than the first approach.

Without centralized oversight over the identification and correction of

interfaces, there is a chance that some systems and interfaces, for which

ownership is unclear, may not be identified and corrected. In addition,

there is also a higher risk that conflicting interface solutions will be

implemented without the data bridges that are necessary to ensure that

information can still be transferred.10 For example, one system manager

may choose to fix a system by expanding its date and year, while another

may choose to keep the two-digit format and use procedural code or

sliding windows as a strategy for becoming Year 2000 compliant.

According to current Defense guidance, either fix is acceptable, but both

parties need to know of the potential conflict so that they can install the

data bridge.

AFCIC plans to recommend that responsible system/program managers

prepare interface memorandums of agreement, which describe the method

of interface and assign responsibility for accommodating the exchange of

data. If implemented, these agreements could ensure that information can

be transferred even when components take conflicting approaches to their

interfaces. At the time of our review, however, none of the five program

offices we visited had prepared such agreements, and the Air Force was

not tracking whether these or comparable agreements were being

instituted.

Air Force Is Not Ensuring

Components Are Planning

for Testing

Our Year 2000 Assessment Guide calls on agencies to develop validation

strategies and test plan, and to ensure that resources, such as facilities and

tools, are available to perform adequate testing. This planning should

begin in the assessment phase since agencies may need over a year to

adequately validate and test converted or replaced systems for Year 2000

compliance and since the testing and validation process may consume

over half of the Year 2000 program resources and budget.

At the time of our review, however, the Air Force was not ensuring that

components were developing test plans. It was also not assessing the need

for additional testing resources, even though it acknowledged that these

10Bridging involves receiving information in one format, modifying it, and outputting it in another

format, such as receiving the year in a two-digit format, adding century information through the use of

an algorithm, and writing the output with a four-digit year.

Page 14 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
B-278232 

resources would be in demand. Instead, AFCIC officials told us that they are

relying heavily on system/program managers to organize, plan, and

manage the necessary resources to test Year 2000 fixes. Our review

showed that more attention is needed in this area. For example, none of

the five program offices we surveyed had completed a master Year 2000

test plan.11

Due to the complexities and risks involved with testing, components that

are not currently planning their testing strategies run a high risk of not

completing the Year 2000 effort on time. This is because components must

not only test the year 2000 compliance of individual applications, but also

the complex interactions between scores of converted or replaced

computer platforms, operating systems, utilities, applications, databases,

and interfaces. Moreover, in some instances, components may not be able

to shut down their production systems for testing and thus have to operate

parallel systems implemented on a year 2000 test facility. Components

may also find that they need computer-aided software testing tools and

test scripts12 to help prepare and manage test data, automate comparisons

of test results, and schedule tests. AFCIC officials themselves believe that

there is a good chance that adequate test facilities may not be available to

conduct joint interoperability testing involving systems that interface with

one another. For these reasons, it is critical that Air Force headquarters

ensure that components are taking time now to assess their testing needs

and that the Air Force is well-positioned to provide components with

additional testing facilities and tools.

In August 1997, the Air Force working group began to address this testing

issue in part by directing its components to identify and develop an

inventory of existing testing facilities that could support Year 2000 testing

of selective platforms such as Unisys and IBM. This effort is ongoing.

Required Contingency

Plans Not Being Prepared

DOD’s Year 2000 Management Plan and our Year 2000 Assessment Guide

call on agencies to develop realistic contingency plans during the

assessment phase for critical systems and activities to ensure the

continuity of their core business processes. Contingency plans are

important because they identify the manual or other fallback procedures

11The purpose of a test plan is basically to document (1) the specific test processes to be followed,

(2) the extent and timing (schedule) of tests required for each system, (3) the testing facilities,

personnel, and financial resources needed to accomplish the required tests, and (4) reporting

requirements. According to Air Force officials, until testing is fully completed, a system cannot be

certified as Year 2000 compliant.

12A set of detailed instructions for the set-up, execution, and evaluation of results for a given test case.

Page 15 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
B-278232 

to be employed should some critical systems miss their Year 2000 deadline

or fail unexpectedly even after they are found to be compliant.

Contingency plans also establish a series of checkpoints that allow the

agency to identify performance problems early enough to correct them.

The Air Force itself has acknowledged that components need to develop

contingency plans and it has directed system/program managers to

prepare, at a minimum, contingency plans for all mission-critical systems.

It has also incorporated this requirement into its assessment phase exit

criteria.

However, the Air Force has not been tracking the extent to which

components have prepared plans for mission-critical functions/systems.

Without greater oversight over the preparation of such plans, some

components may fail to adequately plan for contingencies without the Air

Force’s knowledge. In fact, at the time of our review, none of the five

system program offices we surveyed had prepared contingency plans.

Officials from these offices told us that contingency plans are not needed

because they believed that their systems did not require extensive Year

2000 work and thus their corrections would be made before the Year 2000

deadline expired. In addition, they did not believe that contingency

planning was cost-effective.

All Air Force organizations need to be engaged in contingency planning

since there is no guarantee that the corrections they will make will be

completed on time or be free of unforeseen problems. As such, according

to DOD’s Year 2000 Management Plan, components, at a minimum, need to

(1) analyze the impact of a system failure, (2) identify alternative

activities—including manual or contract procedures—to be employed

should critical systems fail to meet their Year 2000 deadline, and

(3) identify procedures and responsibilities for implementing such

alternatives. Furthermore, given the dangers associated with not having

contingency plans, we believe the Air Force headquarters’ oversight

responsibility must involve ensuring that all components are planning for

contingencies for mission-critical systems.

Conclusions To its credit, the Air Force has recognized that virtually every computer

system it operates is vulnerable to the Year 2000 problem, it has raised the

awareness of the Year 2000 problem among system owners, and it has

begun assessing the Year 2000 impact on Air Force systems. However, the

Air Force is unnecessarily putting its Year 2000 program at risk of failure

Page 16 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
B-278232 

because it has not yet refined cost estimates based on actual assessment

data, fully examined resource trade-offs, and ensured strong and

continuous oversight for interface, testing, and contingency planning

issues. Because these steps are designed to ensure that organizations are

well-positioned to deal with the more difficult stages of Year 2000

correction, neglecting any one of them can seriously endanger the Air

Force’s ability to meet its Year 2000 deadline. Given its role in national

security, and its interdependence with other military organizations, the Air

Force cannot afford this risk.

Recommendations We recommend that the Secretary of the Air Force immediately require

that the Air Force ensure its cost estimates factor in the actual resources it

believes are needed to renovate and implement systems so that the Service

can make informed resource trade-off decisions and ensure that this

estimate is periodically refined throughout the Year 2000 program.

We also recommend that the Secretary ensure that an approach is

developed to continuously track how components are going about

identifying interfaces, how they plan to correct interfaces, and whether

they are instituting memorandums of agreement.

In addition, we recommend that the Secretary ensure that components are

developing test plans and identifying the need for additional testing

resources and design an approach to obtain any needed testing resources

that are identified by Air Force components.

Finally, we recommend that the Secretary act to ensure that components

have prepared contingency plans for their mission-critical systems.

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of this report, the Office of the Air Force

Chief Information Officer agreed with all of our recommendations to

improve the Air Force’s Year 2000 program. In response to our

recommendations, the Air Force agreed to update its cost estimates as it

progresses through the remaining Year 2000 phases and include actual

resources needed to renovate and implement systems so that it can make

informed resource trade-off decisions. The Air Force also agreed to place

greater management attention on identifying system interfaces and

improve reporting practices to ensure that interface corrections are

properly accounted for and can be readily tracked. In addition, the Air

Force agreed to have major commands and product centers outline and

Page 17 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
B-278232 

prioritize their test requirements to ensure that testing resources will be

available when needed.

The Air Force pointed out that it is working with components to develop

Year 2000 contingency plans as part of the renovation and validation

phases. In addition, the Air Force plans to open servicewide crisis

response centers around August or September 1999 to deal with critical

systems that will not be Year 2000 compliant by January 1, 2000. The Air

Force is taking steps to ensure that contingency plans will be prepared on

each noncompliant system identified and be made readily available to the

crisis response centers. The full text of Air Force’s comments is provided

in appendix II.

This report contains recommendations to you. The head of a federal

agency is required by 31 U.S.C. 720 to submit a written statement on

actions taken on these recommendations to the Senate Committee on

Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Government Reform

and Oversight not later than 60 days after the date of this report. A written

statement also must be sent to the House and Senate Committees on

Appropriations with the agency’s first request for appropriations made

more than 60 days after the date of this report.

We appreciate the courtesy and cooperation extended to our audit team by

Air Force officials and staff. We are providing copies of this letter to the

Chairman and Ranking Minority Members of the Senate Committee on

Governmental Affairs; the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government

Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia, Senate

Committee on Governmental Affairs; the Subcommittee on Defense,

Senate Committee on Appropriations; the Senate Committee on Armed

Services; the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information,

and Technology, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight;

the Subcommittee on National Security, House Committee on

Appropriations; and the House Committee on National Security. We are

also sending copies to the Honorable Thomas M. Davis, III, House of

Representatives; the Deputy Secretary of Defense; the Acting Assistant

Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and

Intelligence; the Air Force Chief Information Officer, Department of

Defense; and the Office of Management and Budget; and other interested

parties. Copies will be made available to others on request.

Page 18 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
B-278232 

If you have any questions on matters discussed in this letter, please call me

at (202) 512-6240 or John B. Stephenson, Assistant Director at

(202) 512-6225. Major contributors to this report are listed in appendix III.

Sincerely yours,

Jack L. Brock, Jr.

Director, Information Management Issues

Page 19 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Contents

Letter 1

Appendix I 

Air Force Year 2000

Organizational

Structure

22

Appendix II 

Comments From the

Department of the 

Air Force

25

Appendix III 

Major Contributors to

This Report

28

Tables Table 1: Status of Air Force Inventoried Systems by Criticality 7

Table 2: Estimated Cost by Fiscal Year 11

Figures Figure I.1: Air Force Year 2000 Organizational Structure 23

Figure I.2: The Air Force Materiel Command Organizational

Structure

24

Abbreviations

AFCA Air Force Communication Agency

AFCIC Air Force Communications and Information Center

CIO Chief Information Officer

DOD Department of Defense

O&M operational & maintenance

OASD/C3I Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command,

Control, Communications and Intelligence

Page 20 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Page 21 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Appendix I 

Air Force Year 2000 Organizational

Structure

As figure I.1 below indicates, the size and complexity of the Air Force’s

organization structure will pose a significant management challenge. Year

2000 management and oversight efforts will have to be coordinated among

9 major commands, each with complex and diverse organizational

structures of their own, 3 direct reporting units, and 36 field operating

agencies.

Figure I.2 provides an example of just one command’s organizational

structure. To understand the complexity involved in carrying out Year

2000 efforts at the command level, consider the following:

• the Air Force Materiel Command employs about 112,000 personnel;

• the command manages about 1,700 computer applications and embedded

systems;

• 175 of these systems cover 21 various types of aircraft, including the F-22

and F-16 fighters, the B-1 and the B-2 bombers, and C-17 cargo plans;

• 410 of these systems are business applications;

• 266 of these systems are applications covering command, control,

communications and intelligence activities;

• 915 of these systems are base-level owned and operated applications, such

as local area networks and medical systems; and

• the Air Force Materiel Command alone has about 50 Year 2000

points-of-contact.

Page 22 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Appendix I 

Air Force Year 2000 Organizational

Structure

Figure I.1: Air Force Year 2000 Organizational Structure

 Chief Information 

Officer

Air Force

Communications

Agency

Air Force

Communications &

 Information Center

Air Force Special 

Operations Command 11th Wing, Bolling AFB, 

Washington, D.C.

United States Air Force Academy, 

Colorado Springs, CO

Air Force Operational Test and 

Evaluation Center, Kirtland, AFB, NM

Note: See next page for an 

example of one command 

structure

36 Field operating 

agencies 9 Major commands 3 Direct reporting units

Air Mobility 

Command

Air Combat

Command

United States Air 

Forces In Europe

Air Force Space

Command

Pacific Air Forces

Air Force Materiel 

Command

Air Education and 

Training Command

Secretary of the Air 

Force

Air Force Chief of Staff

Air Force Reserve 

Command

Page 23 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Appendix I 

Air Force Year 2000 Organizational

Structure

Figure I.2: The Air Force Materiel Command Organizational Structure

Air Force Materiel 

Command

Air Logistics 

Centers

Specialized Centers Test Centers Product Centers

Sacramento ALC, 

McClellan AFB, CA

San Antonio ALC, Kelly 

AFB, TX

Warner Robins ALC, 

Robins AFB, GA

Ogden ALC, Hill AFB, UT

Oklahoma City ALC, 

Tinker AFB, OK

Arnold Engineering 

Development 

Center, Arnold AFB, 

TN

Air Force 

Development Test 

Center, Eglin AFB, 

FL

Air Force Flight 

Test Center, 

Edwards AFB, CA

Aerospace 

Maintenance and 

Regeneration Center, 

Davis-Monthan AFB, 

AZ

Air Force Office of 

Scientific Research, 

Bolling AFB, 

Washington, D.C.

Air Force Research 

Laboratory, WrightPatterson AFB, OH

Air Force Security 

Assistance Center, 

Wright-Patterson AFB, 

OH

Cataloging and 

Standardization 

Center, Battle Creek, 

MI

Joint Logistics 

Systems Center, 

Wright-Patterson AFB, 

OH

Space and Missile Systems 

Center, Los Angeles AFB, 

CA

Aeronautical Systems 

Center, Wright- Patterson 

AFB, OH

Human Systems Center, 

Brooks AFB, TX

Electronic Systems Center

Materiel 

Systems 

Group

Standard 

Systems 

Group

Example of central design activities at 

one Product Center

Electronic Systems 

Center, Hanscom 

AFB, MA

Page 24 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Appendix II 

Comments From the Department of the 

Air Force

Page 25 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Appendix II 

Comments From the Department of the 

Air Force

Page 26 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Appendix II 

Comments From the Department of the 

Air Force

Page 27 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
Appendix III 

Major Contributors to This Report

Accounting and

Information

Management Division,

Washington, D.C.

Cristina T. Chaplain, Communications Analyst

Alicia Loudis Sommers, Senior Information Systems Analyst

Chicago/Dayton Field

Office

Robert P. Kissel, Jr., Senior Evaluator

Steven M. Hunter, Senior Evaluator

Robert G. Preston, Senior Evaluator

(511637) Page 28 GAO/AIMD-98-35 Air Force Year 2000 Challenges
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