DEFENSE 

LOGISTICS

Actions Needed

to Improve 

Department-Wide 

Management of 

Conventional 

Ammunition Inventory

Report to the Chairman,

Committee on Homeland Security

and Governmental Affairs,

U.S. Senate

March 2014

GAO-14-182

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-14-182, a report to the 

Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate

March 2014

DEFENSE LOGISTICS 

Actions Needed to Improve Department-Wide 

Management of Conventional Ammunition Inventory

Why GAO Did This Study

DOD manages nearly $70 billion of 

conventional ammunition—which 

includes many types of items other 

than nuclear and special weapons—at 

eight Army depots. The military 

services use automated information 

systems to manage their inventory. 

They also compile annual reports that 

compare ammunition inventory levels 

against stated requirements. GAO was 

asked to evaluate DOD’s management 

of conventional ammunition. This 

report addresses the extent to which 

(1) the services’ information systems 

facilitate efficient management of the 

conventional ammunition inventory and 

(2) the services collect and share 

inventory data to help them meet their 

stated requirements. GAO reviewed 

DOD guidance on materiel 

management and logistics systems, 

reviewed the services’ annual 

inventory reports for fiscal years 2009 

to 2013, and discussed inventory 

management and related issues with 

service officials. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making seven 

recommendations to improve the 

efficiency of the services' systems for 

managing DOD’s conventional

ammunition inventory and to improve 

data sharing among the services,

including implementing data exchange

standards, developing a plan for 

improving the accuracy and timeliness 

of ammunition data in the Army's LMP, 

enhancing DOD's ability to provide

total asset visibility over conventional 

ammunition, and incorporating 

additional items as part of the services' 

current stratification and redistribution 

process. DOD concurred with all of 

these recommendations.

What GAO Found

The military services use automated information systems to manage and 

maintain accountability for the Department of Defense (DOD) ammunition 

inventory, but the systems have some limitations that affect their ability to 

facilitate efficient management of conventional ammunition.

• The systems cannot directly exchange ammunition data because they use 

different data exchange formats. Only the Army’s Logistics Modernization 

Program (LMP) system uses the standard DOD format. The other services 

have not adopted this format, although Air Force officials have said that they 

plan to by 2017. Without a common format for data exchange, the services

will continue to devote extra time and resources to ensure efficient data 

exchange between their systems and LMP.

• LMP has some limitations in its ammunition-related functionality that can 

affect the accuracy and completeness of data for items stored at Army 

depots and require extra time and resources to confirm data or correct errors. 

The Army acknowledges there are limitations in LMP; however, it has not yet 

developed a comprehensive plan, with time frames and costs, for addressing 

the limitations. Such a plan could provide DOD reasonable assurance that its 

efforts to upgrade ammunition-related functionality in LMP are making 

progress. 

• The Army developed the National Level Ammunition Capability (NLAC) as a 

DOD-wide repository of ammunition data, but NLAC has some limitations in 

providing ammunition visibility—that is, having complete and accurate 

information on items wherever they are in the supply system. The Army does 

not have reasonable assurance that NLAC collects complete and accurate 

data from service systems because it does not have checks and controls that 

federal internal control standards recommend to ensure source data is 

reliable. Without steps to ensure the quality of the data that flows into NLAC, 

DOD officials risk making decisions based on inaccurate and incomplete 

inventory information, or ammunition offices may have to devote extra staff 

and time to obtain accurate data of DOD-wide inventory.

To identify inventory owned by one service that may be available to meet the 

requirements of another service, the military services have a process for 

collecting and sharing ammunition data. Through a stratification and 

redistribution process, the services assess whether inventory can meet stated 

requirements and then may transfer available inventory, including inventory in 

excess of one service’s requirement, to another service. This redistribution 

offsets procurements of ammunition items. To facilitate this process, each 

service develops and shares ammunition inventory data in annual reports. The

Army's annual report, however, does not include information on certain missiles. 

Also, the Army’s report does not include information on all available, usable 

ammunition that in a prior year was unclaimed by another service and placed in 

storage for disposal; DOD guidance does not require that such inventory be 

included in the reports. Without incorporating these items in the Army's report, 

DOD may lack full transparency about all available items and may miss 

opportunities to avoid procurement costs for certain usable items that may 

already be available in the Army’s stockpile.

View GAO-14-182. For more information, 

contact Zina D.Merritt at (202) 512-5257 or 

merrittz@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Letter 1 

Background 4

Military Services’ Systems Have Some Limitations That Affect 

Their Ability to Facilitate Efficient Management of Conventional 

Ammunition 11

Services Have a Process for Collecting and Sharing Data on 

Conventional Ammunition, but the Army Does Not Report 

Information about All Available and Usable Items 26

Conclusions 31

Recommendations for Executive Action 32

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 33

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 37

Appendix II Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition Organization 41

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Defense 42

Appendix IV GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 46

Table

Table 1: Status of Ammunition-Related Upgrades That Were 

Initially Included in LMP Increment 2 20

Figures

Figure 1: Sources and Users of NLAC Data 7

Figure 2: Data Transmission from LMP to Service Ammunition 

Systems 13

Figure 3: Services’ Ammunition Requisition Processes When 

Including Specific Instructions 15

Figure 4: NLAC Users 23

Contents
Page ii GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Abbreviations

AMC Army Materiel Command 

CAS Combat Ammunition System 

DLA Defense Logistics Agency

DLMS Defense Logistics Management Standards

DOD Department of Defense

DRRS Defense Readiness Reporting System

GCCS-J Global Command and Control System–Joint

GCSS-J Global Combat Support System–Joint

JOCG Joint Ordnance Commanders’ Group

JOPES Joint Operation Planning and Execution System

LMP Logistics Modernization Program

MILS Military Standard Systems

NLAC National Level Ammunition Capability

OIS Ordnance Information System

OIS-MC Ordnance Information System–Marine Corps

PEO Program Executive Office

SMCA Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition

WARS-NT Worldwide Ammunition Reporting System– 

 New Technology

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Page 1 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

March 31, 2014

The Honorable Thomas R. Carper

Chairman

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The Department of Defense (DOD) manages a stockpile of conventional 

ammunition valued at nearly $70 billion. Conventional ammunition 

includes items ranging from small arms cartridges to rockets, mortars, 

and artillery to tactical missiles.1 DOD policy calls for the highest possible 

degree of efficiency and effectiveness in ammunition acquisition and 

logistics,2

The military services have several automated information systems for 

managing the conventional ammunition inventory. The services each 

have their own systems that provide accountability over items and that 

maintain various item-specific data such as location, condition, and 

quantity. To promote efficient transfers of data among the systems, DOD 

has directed that logistics systems migrate toward a standard data 

exchange format. For example, the service systems routinely exchange 

and managing this inventory involves extensive coordination 

among the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. For example, many 

ammunition items entering DOD’s supply system are delivered to eight 

Army-managed ammunition depots and are stored there until the items 

are requisitioned and transferred to an Army or another service’s unit, 

supply point, or other location. The depots have about 30.5 million square 

feet of storage space and, as of August 2013, housed about 1.7 million 

tons of conventional ammunition belonging to all of the military services.

 

1

DOD defines conventional ammunition as an end item, complete round, or materiel 

component charged with explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics, or initiating composition for 

use in connection with defense or offense (including demolitions), as well as ammunition 

used for training, ceremonial, or nonoperational purposes. This includes inert devices that 

replicate live ammunition, commonly referred to as dummy ammunition, which contain no 

explosive materials. Department of Defense, Single Manager for Conventional 

Ammunition (SMCA), Directive 5160.65 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 1, 2008). Conventional 

ammunition does not include nuclear and special weapons.

2

See id., para. 4.
 

Page 2 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

data with the Army’s Logistics Modernization Program (LMP), an 

information system that is used to manage operations at ammunition 

depots and other Army industrial activities.3 The military services rely on 

Army data in LMP to help them maintain accountability of items, including 

ammunition, they own that are stored and managed at the Army’s depots. 

In addition to the services’ systems, the Army has a data repository called 

the National Level Ammunition Capability (NLAC). NLAC collects 

ammunition data from across the department and provides these data to 

DOD decision-support systems, such as those used for readiness 

assessments and joint operational planning. NLAC is an outgrowth of 

prior efforts by DOD to achieve total asset visibility4

As part of their ammunition inventory management, the services also are 

required by DOD guidance to generate “stratification” reports that show 

the status of the inventory at a point in time.

of conventional 

ammunition inventory.

5

 

3

The Army refers to LMP as an enterprise resource planning system, which is an 

automated information system using commercial off-the-shelf software and consisting of 

multiple, integrated functional modules that perform a variety of business-related tasks 

such as accounting, inventory forecasting, purchasing, management, and distribution; and 

scheduling work.

The reports are to list, or 

stratify, the inventory by category, including item quantities that are 

needed to meet specific requirements, such as for training or war 

reserves, and the quantities being retained for possible future use or for 

4

In the DOD Supply Chain Materiel Management Regulation, DOD defined total asset 

visibility as the capability to provide timely and accurate information on the location, 

movement, status, and identity of units, personnel, equipment, and supplies. According to 

the definition, it also included the capability to act on that information to improve the 

overall performance of DOD logistics practices. Department of Defense, DOD Supply 

Chain Materiel Management Regulation, Regulation 4140.1-R, para. AP1.1.154 (May 23, 

2003). DOD cancelled and reissued DOD Regulation 4140.1-R as a multivolume manual 

in February 2014; the revised manual does not contain a definition of total asset visibility. 

For the purposes of this report, we refer to total asset visibility as access to complete and 

accurate information on items wherever they are in the DOD supply system.

5

See id., para. C9.3. DOD cancelled and reissued DOD Regulation 4140.1-R as a revised 

multi-volume manual, DOD Manual 4140.01, DOD Supply Chain Materiel Management 

Procedures in February 2014, while this report was in the final stages of drafting. Although 

the stratification and reporting procedures contained in two volumes of that manual are 

generally consistent with those in DOD Regulation 4140.1-R, we did not assess the 

changes resulting from the new issuance. 
 

Page 3 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

economic reasons,6

You requested that GAO evaluate DOD’s management of conventional 

ammunition. This report assesses the extent to which (1) the military 

services’ information systems facilitate efficient management of the

conventional ammunition inventory and (2) the military services collect 

and share inventory data to help them meet their stated requirements.

as well as the quantities that are not needed for 

these purposes. The services are to prepare these reports prior to an 

annual conference where service representatives may agree to transfer 

items that are excess to one service’s needs to another service having a 

requirement for those same items.

To determine the extent to which the military services’ information 

systems facilitate efficient management of the conventional ammunition 

inventory, we reviewed DOD guidance on conventional ammunition, 

supply chain, and logistics systems management. We reviewed key 

documents from the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, 

Technology, and Logistics; technical guidance from the Defense Logistics 

Agency Management Standards Office; and documentation of services’ 

responses to a common set of questions related to their systems. We 

obtained access to NLAC, and conducted tests to compare data with the 

services’ source data. We also interviewed officials in each of the 

services’ ammunition system program offices, the Army’s Joint Munitions 

Command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and other relevant 

offices.

To determine the extent to which the military services collect and share 

inventory data to help them meet their stated requirements, we reviewed 

policies, procedures, and other guidance, as well as reports responding to 

conventional ammunition reporting requirements for the services. These 

reports list items in the current inventory (as of the date of the report) and 

display how much meets or exceeds service requirements. We reviewed 

the reports (hereafter referred to as annual reports) that each service 

produced and shared with other services in fiscal years 2009 through 

2013. We selected this period of time to observe how inventory reporting 

changed from year to year.7

 

6

Ammunition that is retained as part of the economic retention munitions stock is inventory 

that is more expensive to dispose of and reacquire in the future than to retain to meet 

future requirements.

We attended an annual conference where 

7

The Marine Corps did not have a 2009 stratification report.
 

Page 4 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

service participants discussed inter-service transfers of items. We 

interviewed officials knowledgeable about the annual ammunition report 

process and determined that the information included in those reports 

was sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our report. Appendix I 

provides further information on our scope and methodology.

We conducted this performance audit from December 2012 to March 

2014 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

DOD has an extensive organizational structure for managing and 

overseeing conventional ammunition, with the Army having a prominent 

role. Since 1975, the Secretary of the Army has served as DOD’s Single 

Manager for Conventional Ammunition (hereafter referred to as the Single 

Manager). Under DOD guidance, the Single Manager’s mission 

encompasses all aspects of the life cycle of conventional ammunition, 

from research and development through acquisition, inventory 

management, and eventual disposal.8 The Single Manager, the military 

services, and U.S. Special Operations Command all have responsibilities 

pertaining to assigned conventional ammunition items,9

 

8

See generally Department of Defense, Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition 

(SMCA), Directive 5160.65 (Aug. 1, 2008). Department of Defense, Single Manager for 

Conventional Ammunition (SMCA): Responsibilities of the SMCA, the Military Services, 

and United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), Instruction 5160.68

(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 29, 2008).

including logistics 

management, stock control, and reporting on the status of inventory. In 

addition, DOD organizations involved in ammunition management have 

developed joint policies and procedures to guide certain activities.

9

The military services separately manage some types of conventional ammunition, such 

as guided rockets and missiles, naval mines, and torpedoes. Such items are often unique 

to one service.

Background

Organization for 

Management and 

Oversight of Conventional 

Ammunition
 

Page 5 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

The Secretary of the Army, in executing the Single Manager role, has 

delegated and designated related functions to a number of Army entities. 

For example, responsibility for issuing policy and providing oversight of 

the Single Manager mission is delegated to the Assistant Secretary of the 

Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology. The Deputy 

Commanding General of Army Materiel Command serves as the 

Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition, responsible for 

monitoring and assessing the overall Single Manager mission and for 

overseeing the Single Manager’s execution of its mission for joint service 

activities. Joint Munitions Command, a subordinate command of Army 

Materiel Command, is assigned as the field operating activity for the 

Single Manager, responsible for providing logistics and sustainment 

support, storing and managing wholesale ammunition for all of the military 

services, and providing information to the military services on ammunition 

stored at Army depots.10

The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics has responsibility to provide policy and guidance for the Single 

Manager’s mission and, in collaboration with other DOD component 

heads, appraise the overall performance of the Single Manager in 

accomplishing the mission objectives outlined in guidance and facilitate 

improvements.

In this role, the Joint Munitions Command 

maintains items, performs physical inventory checks, and reports on the 

status of assets that are stored at its eight depots across the United 

States. Aviation and Missile Command provides similar functions for 

tactical missiles that are stored at these sites.

11 Appendix II depicts the organizational structure of these 

offices.

All of the military services have automated information systems for 

managing and maintaining accountability for ammunition inventory. The 

Air Force has developed the Combat Ammunition System, which contains 

comprehensive information on ammunition at all levels—depot, 

ammunition supply points in theaters of operations, and individual units. 

The Navy uses its Ordnance Information System, which is divided into 

 

10Wholesale generally refers to the highest level of organized DOD supply, maintained for 

resupplying the retail levels of supply. Retail generally refers to the level of inventory 

below wholesale, either at the consumer level or at the intermediate level. 

11Department of Defense Directive 5160.65, encl., para. 1. 

Military Services’

Systems for Managing 

Ammunition Inventory
 

Page 6 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

two sub-systems for wholesale and retail stocks. The Marine Corps has 

developed the Ordnance Information System–Marine Corps, which 

shares a common system architecture with the Navy’s system.

The Army has LMP as well as other systems—such as the Worldwide 

Ammunition Reporting System–New Technology—which contain 

comprehensive information about wholesale and Army retail ammunition 

stocks. LMP, among other functions, stores information on wholesale 

inventory in all classes of supply, including ammunition. LMP contains 

information on all ammunition inventory stored at Army depots, including 

inventory that the Army manages for other services. The Army completed 

final deployment of initial LMP capabilities, referred to as Increment 1, in 

2010. In December 2011, the Army began to develop additional 

capabilities for LMP—referred to as LMP Increment 2. The Army plans to 

deploy Increment 2 in multiple stages between December 2013 and 

September 2016.

DOD has worked for decades to achieve department-wide visibility of 

ammunition stocks in a single database. Drawing upon lessons learned 

from the Gulf War in 1990-91, it sought to develop a Joint Total Asset 

Visibility system to provide logistics information on all classes of supply. 

For ammunition, it aimed to integrate multiple service databases to 

provide a department-wide ammunition capability. DOD also initiated a 

program to develop a Joint Ammunition Management Standard System. 

When that program was terminated because it did not provide a single, 

viable department-wide source of ammunition data, the Army then agreed 

to support the sustainment of the ammunition portion of the joint asset 

visibility database, known as the National Level Ammunition Capability, or 

NLAC. In fiscal year 2012, NLAC’s budget was about $2.4 million. NLAC 

receives data from a variety of sources, serving as a DOD-wide data 

repository, and in turn provides data to DOD decision support systems 

(see fig. 1).

DOD’s Efforts toward a 

Single Database for 

Ammunition Inventory
 

Page 7 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Figure 1: Sources and Users of NLAC Data

Note: Service systems may also provide information directly to the DOD-wide systems.

As shown in the figure, NLAC receives data from the services’ 

ammunition systems and other sources. It provides data to two DOD 

decision support systems—the Defense Readiness Reporting System 

and the Global Combat Support System-Joint, both of which are used by 

operational planners.12

 

12DRRS measures and reports on the readiness of military forces and their supporting 

infrastructure. GCSS-J is the capstone joint logistics mission application enabling the 

Global Combat Support System strategy of providing unimpeded access to information 

regardless of source and fusing information from disparate sources into a cohesive and 

common operational picture.

Testing is underway with interfaces between 
 

Page 8 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

NLAC and the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System and the 

Global Command and Control System-Joint.13 In its guidance, DOD has 

indicated a need for systems to provide logistics information visibility to 

support the joint warfighter.14

DOD guidance directs the military services to stratify their conventional 

munitions inventory into several categories and prepare annual 

ammunition reports.15

• requirement-related munitions stock, including items needed for war 

reserve, training, and testing;

The stratification separates the inventory into 

several categories to assess the ability of the inventory to meet stated 

requirements, ensure that inventories above requirements are kept only if 

warranted, and optimize the department’s ammunition inventory. The 

categories are

16

 

13JOPES provides data for the time-phased, force-deployment data system that guides 

movements of troops, supplies, and equipment in support of regional and functional 

operations plans. GCCS-J combines selected command and control capabilities into a 

comprehensive, interoperable system by exchanging imagery, intelligence, status of 

forces, and planning information.

14Department of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Global Combat Support 

Family of Systems Requirements Management and Governance Structure, Instruction 

6723.01B (July 31, 2009; current as of Sept. 18, 2013).

15See Department of Defense Regulation 4140.1-R, para C9.3 (May 23, 2003). As noted 

above, DOD cancelled and reissued DOD Regulation 4140.1-R as a multivolume DOD 

Manual in February 2014, while this report was in the final stages of drafting. See

Department of Defense, DOD Supply Chain Materiel Management Procedures, Manual 

4140.01 (Feb. 10, 2014). Although the stratification and reporting procedures contained in 

two volumes of that Manual are generally consistent with those in DOD Regulation 

4140.1-R, we did not assess the changes resulting from the new issuance in detail.

16The requirement-related munitions stock also accounts for procurement lead time and 

other military service inventory management considerations.

DOD’s Inventory Reports 

and Its Annual 

Redistribution Process
 

Page 9 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

• contingency retention munitions stock, which includes items that 

support requirements other than those already considered in the war 

reserve requirement and the training and testing requirements;

17

• economic retention munitions stock, a category that refers to inventory 

that is more expensive to dispose of and reacquire in the future than 

to retain to meet future requirements; and

• potential reutilization and disposal stocks, meaning inventory that 

exceeds the total of the other categories.

In fiscal year 2013, the Army listed about 3.8 billion ammunition items on 

its annual report; the Marine Corps listed about 1.5 billion, and the Air 

Force listed about 730 million.18 The services prepare their annual 

stratification reports prior to an annual conference called the Quad 

Services Cross-Leveling Review. The purpose of the conference is to 

identify ammunition that is excess to one service’s needs (i.e., stock 

identified for potential reutilization or disposal) and can be transferred to 

another service that has identified a requirement for that same item.19

 

17The contingency retention munitions stock is the inventory quantity above the 

requirement-related munitions stock, retained to support requirements other than those 

included in that stock. It includes assets set aside in special war reserve stock for allies, 

unpredictable homeland defense or counternarcotics missions, unpredictable weapon 

system tests, demonstrations, or assets being retained until suitable replacement weapon 

systems arrive. See Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para. C.9.3.2.1.1.3 

(May 23, 2003).

The 

Defense Security Cooperation Agency screens any inventory that is not 

redistributed at this annual meeting for suitability for foreign military sales. 

According to a 2010 Army Audit Agency report, the Army had significantly 

underestimated the funding requirements needed to perform its 

conventional ammunition demilitarization mission and, as a result, the 

18Specific information pertaining to the active Navy inventory is classified and is not 

included in this GAO report. Information on ammunition items that were available for 

redistribution is not classified.

19Ammunition in retention categories may be available for redistribution as well. DOD 

guidance directs the services to consider all stock in the economic retention munitions 

stock, contingency retention munitions stock, and potential reutilization and disposal stock 

categories as potentially available for redistribution if other services have shortages in 

their requirement-related munitions stock. The owning military service shall decide on the 

final availability of items in the retention categories after assessing the acceptability of risk 

associated with drawdown of the stockpile. See Department of Defense Regulation 

4140.1-R, para. C9.3.3.2.2 (May 23, 2003).
 

Page 10 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

stockpile has grown to over 557,000 tons, representing a $1 billion 

liability.20

GAO last reported on DOD’s conventional ammunition management in 

1999.21 At that time, we found that management of the Army’s 

conventional ammunition program continued to be fragmented despite 

internal recognition of the problem and efforts to identify alternative 

solutions. We recommended that the Secretary of Defense direct the 

Secretary of the Army to establish a timeframe for implementing an Armywide reorganization to integrate the management of conventional 

ammunition. DOD concurred, commenting that although the Army was 

working to resolve the inefficiencies we noted and to make the necessary 

organizational changes, the conventional ammunition program continued 

to be fragmented. DOD agreed that the three commands then dealing 

with various aspects of conventional ammunition needed to implement an 

Army-wide organizational restructuring to integrate the management of 

conventional ammunition. DOD subsequently took actions to implement 

GAO’s recommendation.

 

20U.S. Army Audit Agency, Funding Requirements for the Conventional Ammunition 

Demilitarization Program, Audit Report No. A-2010-0134-FFE (Alexandria, Va. July 16, 

2010).

21GAO, Defense Management: Army Could Achieve Efficiencies by Consolidating 

Ammunition Management, GAO/NSIAD-99-230 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 30, 1999). 

GAO’s Prior Work on 

Ammunition Inventory
 

Page 11 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

The military services’ ammunition systems cannot directly exchange data 

because they use different data exchange formats. Only the Army’s LMP 

system uses the standard DOD format; the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air 

Force systems operate with formats that are obsolete and not compatible 

with the format used by LMP.

In December 2003, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, 

Technology, and Logistics issued a memo to the military services and 

other components establishing policy for migration of logistics systems to 

the Defense Logistics Management Standards (DLMS)22 and elimination 

of the use of the Military Standard Systems (MILS).23 MILS is based on 

standards and computer technology developed more than 50 years ago. 

According to DOD, MILS is functionally constraining, technologically 

obsolete, and unable to support the tracking of an item throughout its life 

cycle and across the entire supply chain using unique identifier codes.24

 

22DLMS is a broad base of business rules including uniform policies, procedures, time 

standards, transactions, and data management designed to meet DOD’s requirements for 

total logistics support. DLMS is founded upon American National Standards Institute 

Accredited Standards Committee X12 electronic data interchange standards.

23The MILS/Defense Logistics Standard Systems was established in 1962 and 

incorporated the computer technologies available at the time to provide procedures for 

communicating requirements, moving material, and performing other tasks associated 

with DOD’s logistics system.

24Department of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics, “Migration to the Defense Logistics Management Standards (DLMS) and 

Elimination of the Military Standard Systems (MILS),” memorandum (Washington, D.C.: 

Dec. 22, 2003).

Military Services’ 

Systems Have Some 

Limitations That 

Affect Their Ability

to Facilitate Efficient 

Management of 

Conventional 

Ammunition

Military Services’ 

Ammunition Information 

Systems Use Different 

Formats and Cannot 

Directly Exchange Data
 

Page 12 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics reaffirmed this direction in 2013, calling for compliance by 

2019.25 In addition, DOD guidance indicates that DLMS, rather than 

MILS, shall be the basis for new, replacement, and major modifications to 

logistics business processes or systems.26

LMP uses DLMS for data exchange; however, the other services’ 

ammunition systems continue to exchange data using MILS. 

Consequently, LMP cannot exchange data directly with the other 

services’ ammunition systems. Rather, data must pass through a 

translation process at Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Transaction 

Services. DLA’s process translates data from one format to another 

format, enabling otherwise incompatible systems to exchange data. With 

respect to the services’ ammunition systems, the translation process 

occurs for the exchange of ammunition data between LMP and Navy’s 

and the Marine Corps’ ammunition systems; however, according to Air 

Force Combat Ammunition System officials, the translation of data 

between LMP and the Air Force’s system is not complete. Air Force 

Combat Ammunition System officials we interviewed stated that the 

ammunition data the Air Force system receives from LMP that DLA 

Transaction Services translates does not include lot and serial number 

information. Figure 2 provides a high-level overview of how data flow

between service ammunition systems using the translation process.

 

25Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Acquisition & 

Logistics Functional Business Strategy (Washington, D.C.: February 2013).

26Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para. C8.6.1.1.6 (May 23, 2003). As 

previously noted, DOD cancelled and reissued DOD Regulation 4140.1-R in February 

2014 as DOD Manual 4140.01. Because the revised guidance was issued while this report 

was in the final drafting stages, we did not assess the changes in detail. However, the 

reissued guidance carries forward the requirement to employ DLMS as the basis for new, 

replacement, and major modifications to logistics business processes and systems. See

DOD Manual 4140.01, Volume 8, DOD Supply Chain Materiel Management Procedures: 

Materiel Data Management and Exchange, encl. 3, para. 2.b(5)(c) (Feb. 10, 2014).
 

Page 13 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Figure 2: Data Transmission from LMP to Service Ammunition Systems

Notes: The figure represents data transmission from LMP to the services’ ammunition systems; it 

does not represent all data transmissions, such as direct transmissions that occur between the Navy 

and Marine Corps ammunition systems.

a

DLA Transaction Services is the central point for all DLMS transactions. All DLMS transactions are 

routed to DLA Transaction Services, which provides several services and support, including 

translation and conversion services to enable interoperability between DLMS and MILS systems.

b

LMP sends data to Worldwide Ammunition Reporting System-New Technology (WARS-NT) through 

DLA Transaction Services, which performs no changes to the data, but routes it to WARS-NT for 

processing.

c

Air Force’s CAS receives information on inventory balances from WARS-NT. 

The DLA Logistics Management Standards Office has recommended the 

services and other DOD components make DLMS implementation a top 

priority in order to achieve efficiencies consistent with the direction from 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics. According to DLA officials, any system operating under MILS is 

limiting its capabilities for being able to send and receive data from more 

advanced systems. MILS is restrictive in that it does not allow for more 

detailed information to be included when conducting specific transactions. 

As a result of the use of different data exchange formats, the services rely 

on e-mail for certain business transactions related to ammunition. For 

example, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force personnel have to type emails to submit requisitions for certain ammunition items to an Army Joint 
 

Page 14 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Munitions Command item manager for processing through LMP. These 

requisitions include items managed by the Single Manager that include 

specific instructions,27

 

27For the purposes of this report, we use the term specific instructions when referring to 

what DOD calls exception data. According to a Joint Munitions Command official, specific 

instructions can include, for example, information about what particular lot number of 

ammunition should be pulled to fill the request.

as well as items the services are transferring to a 

different account for reutilization. For items that are not managed by the 

Single Manager and include specific instructions, Navy, Marine Corps, 

and Air Force personnel have to type e-mails for such requisitions directly 

to the depots for processing. Figure 3 provides an overview of the 

requisition processes that the services currently use when requesting 

ammunition items, whether or not managed by the Single Manager, that 

include specific instructions.
 

Page 15 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Figure 3: Services’ Ammunition Requisition Processes When Including Specific Instructions

Notes: The figure does not capture all the requisition processes used by the services. The figure 

represents processes that the services use when requesting ammunition items from the Army, 

whether or not managed by the Single Manager, that include specific instructions.

a

The Air Force will also send requisitions directly through the Combat Ammunition Support (CAS) 

system and separately type an e-mail that includes the specific instructions to the depot for 

processing.

According to Air Force Global Ammunition Control Point officials, using 

the e-mail procedure for requisitioning ammunition increases processing 

time by as much as a week and lacks visibility because there is no 

confirmation either that the requisition was received or that it was 

completed. In addition, because different data exchange standards are 

used, an Army Joint Munitions Command official we interviewed stated 
 

Page 16 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

that instructions had to be issued for standardizing processes with the 

other services for requisitions that cannot be completed through the 

services’ systems and LMP.

Although an Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics Business Strategy calls for transition to DLMS by 2019, Marine 

Corps officials stated that they have no plans at present to update their 

ammunition system to DLMS, and Naval Supply Systems Command 

officials told us that the Navy’s plan to update its ammunition system to 

DLMS has not been funded. According to Air Force officials, the Air Force 

plans to update its ammunition system to the DLMS standard by 2017. 

The services have lagged in transitioning to DLMS for different reasons, 

one of them being that funding for this upgrade has not been a priority.

According to Naval Supply Systems Command officials we interviewed, 

they submitted funding requests annually from 2010 through 2013 to 

update the Navy’s ammunition system to DLMS; these requests were 

denied. Marine Corps officials stated they are waiting to update the 

Marine Corps ammunition system until after the Navy completes its DLMS 

update. However, the Navy and the Marine Corps made significant 

changes to their respective ammunition systems in 2004 and 2008 

without updating to DLMS. According to Naval Supply Systems 

Command officials, the Navy incorporated wholesale ammunition 

operations to the current system in 2004. Similarly, Marine Corps officials 

we interviewed stated that the Marine Corps replaced its legacy system 

with the current system, Ordnance Information System–Marine Corps, in 

October 2008. Without upgrades of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air 

Force systems to DLMS, the services will continue to devote extra time 

and resources to ensure the efficient transfer of ammunition data between 

these systems and LMP.

LMP was not specifically designed to track ammunition and has some 

limitations in its ammunition-related functionality that can affect the 

accuracy and completeness of data for items stored at Army depots. If 

ammunition-related functionality in LMP is not corrected, any data 

problems that exist may be replicated because LMP provides information 

to other services’ ammunition systems. To address ongoing data quality 

concerns, the Army and the other services have had to use manual 

processes to check and, when necessary, make corrections to 

ammunition data.

DOD guidance on supply chain materiel management requires 

components to implement data administration policies and procedures 

LMP Has Some 

Limitations That Can

Affect the Accuracy

and Completeness of

Data on Ammunition

Items Stored at Depots
 

Page 17 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

aggressively in ways that provide clear, concise, consistent, 

unambiguous, accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible data DODwide, thereby minimizing the cost and time required to transform, 

translate, or research different-appearing, but otherwise identical data.28

Further, guidance jointly developed by DOD components involved in 

ammunition management indicates that the Single Manager Field 

Operating Activity will provide accurate and timely information to the 

military services on ammunition stored at Single Manager sites,29

LMP, however, has some limitations in its ammunition-related 

functionality that can affect the quality of data that it maintains and 

provides to the other services. For example, we found the following: 

such as 

the Army depots where conventional ammunition is stored.

• LMP does not accurately calculate ammunition storage capacity at 

Army ammunition depots. Depot personnel need accurate information 

on the storage capacity that is available in buildings in order to plan 

for storing the ammunition that arrives at the depot. According to 

officials at Tooele Army Depot and Letterkenny Munitions Center, 

LMP overestimates the amount of space available for storage, and 

depot personnel must calculate storage capacity manually. Tooele 

officials said this process can often take up to a day and, in the end, is 

still only an approximation of available space. Joint Munitions 

Command assessments that were conducted in fiscal years 2012 or 

2013 found that all the ammunition depots had problems with 

calculating storage capacity using LMP. The assessments we 

 

28See Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para.C8.6.2.1 (May 23, 2003). As 

previously noted, DOD cancelled and reissued DOD Regulation 4140.1-R in February 

2014 as DOD Manual 4140.01. Because the revised guidance was issued while this report 

was in the final drafting stages, we did not assess the changes in detail. However, the 

revised guidance provides that DOD components are to adopt the DOD Net-Centric Data 

Strategy when implementing DLMS logistics data management policies, procedures, and 

standards. According to the guidance, these policies and procedures ensure clear, 

concise, consistent, unambiguous, accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible data 

throughout the DOD. Further, DOD components are to manage and maintain all DLMS 

logistics data assets under configuration control to minimize the cost and time required to 

transform, translate, or research data assets that appear different but are otherwise 

identical, and conversely, data assets that appear to be identical or equivalent, but are in 

fact different. See DOD Manual 4140.01, vol. 8, encl. 3, paras. 2.f(1)(c), (d) (Feb. 10, 

2014).

29See Joint Conventional Ammunition Policies and Procedures, Volume 5, para. J5.3.1 

(January 2006) (revised June 2013).
 

Page 18 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

reviewed do not quantify the extent that the depots must expend 

resources to calculate storage capacity manually. However, seven of 

the eight assessments stated that LMP’s limitation in calculating 

ammunition storage capacity could have a negative impact on mission 

performance; and six of eight assessments indicated that the issue 

could result in unnecessary costs. Army officials at the Joint Munitions 

Command told us they expect to improve this functionality in 2014.

• LMP may not fully account for ammunition items that are shipped from 

Army depots to other locations. DOD guidance requires that the 

Single Manager is accountable for inventory items until the destination 

receives them.30

• LMP does not have a capability for generating certain performance 

information used for ammunition stockpile management. According to 

the fiscal year 2012 annual report by the Executive Director for 

Conventional Ammunition,

However, as documented in an assessment of the 

ammunition process by the Army that concluded in November 2012, 

LMP lacks receipt confirmation for shipped ammunition items. LMP 

drops the item from record once the item ships from the depot, but 

there is no confirmation of receipt back to LMP from the receiving 

location. Without receipts for shipped items, there is a gap in 

accountability and visibility of ammunition items.

31 LMP was unable to provide inventory 

accuracy rates, which is a key performance metric used to measure 

the Single Manager’s ability to perform stockpile management. 32

According to a briefing slide provided by Army Joint Munitions 

Command, inventory accuracy is the comparison between the 

physical inventory and the accountable record.33

 

30Specifically, Department of Defense, Instruction 5160.68, states that the Single Manager 

is relieved of custodial accountability on receipt by the military services / U.S. Special 

Operations Command—accountable officer at the first retail point or consumer level. See

DODI 5160.68, encl. 2, para. 4.a(1)(a). 

Similarly, the Marine 

Corps noted in its response to a fiscal year 2012 Army survey that 

31Department of Defense, Office of the Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition, 

Annual Report Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition (2012).

32According to the Single Manager charter, the Executive Director for Conventional 

Ammunition is responsible for assessing the overall mission of the Single Manager. The 

Executive Director’s review is conducted on an annual basis and generally assesses the 

performance of the Single Manager for executing Acquisition Management, Production 

and Industrial Base Management, Stockpile Management, and Distribution Management.

33According to an Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems 

briefing, LMP is the accountable record for wholesale ammunition assets.
 

Page 19 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

inventory accuracy had neither been verified through physical 

inventory nor reconciled within LMP.34

Officials at the other military services also have cited various concerns 

about the reliability of LMP data. According to responses provided by 

Marine Corps officials, data that the Marine Corps receive from LMP 

sometimes fail to differentiate information about the ammunition’s 

intended purpose and ownership details.

According to a Joint Munitions 

Command official, the Command has been sending LMP-generated 

inventory accuracy data to the ammunition depots for them to confirm 

and correct if necessary. As a result, officials expect the data will be 

used as the basis for the next Executive Director for Conventional 

Ammunition annual report on the Single Manager. Because the 

Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition has not released its 

report for fiscal year 2013, we were unable to determine whether 

inventory accuracy has been adequately addressed.

35

We found in November 2010 that Increment 1 was not designed 

specifically to track ammunition and contained numerous issues that 

affected ammunition-related functionality.

In addition, Air Force officials 

we interviewed stated that LMP assigned a new lot number to an 

ammunition item that had undergone maintenance, but it still kept the old 

lot number on record—causing double counting. That problem, according 

to Air Force officials, required personnel to spend time determining which 

data were accurate. Further, ammunition officials with the Navy, Marine 

Corps, and Air Force stated that they spend time verifying the information 

sent from LMP to their respective systems. According to an Army 

planning document, there are several processes for manual review and 

corrections between LMP and the other services’ ammunition systems.

36 In our most current review of 

LMP in November 2013,37

 

34The Single Manager conducts a yearly survey of its primary military customers to help 

assess its performance, customer expectations, and lessons. 

we found that an interface between LMP and a 

35Ownership codes are numeric codes used to identify which military service owns the 

item. Purpose codes are alphabetic codes used to identify the purpose for which the item 

is being held. 

36GAO, Defense Logistics: Additional Oversight and Reporting for the Army Logistics 

Modernization Program Are Needed, GAO-11-139 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 18, 2010).

37GAO, Defense Logistics: Army Should Track Financial Benefits Realized from its 

Logistics Modernization Program GAO-14-51 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 13, 2013). 
 

Page 20 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

system commonly referred to as SmartChain38

Although the Army had planned several upgrades to LMP’s ammunitionrelated functionality in Increment 2, the Army has decided not to include a 

number of these upgrades. Increment 2 is a major enhancement to LMP 

and is scheduled for deployment in phases through fiscal year 2016. Of 

five ammunition-related upgrades that had been planned for Increment 2, 

only one is now included (see table 1). LMP Product Management Office 

officials said that the cost and schedule for implementing Increment 2 had 

affected their ability to include all the planned ammunition-related 

upgrades.

had been developed to 

address specific functionality to ship, receive, inventory, and perform 

stock movements for ammunition items for the Army’s Joint Munitions and 

Lethality Command. However, the Army has recognized other limitations 

associated with ammunition-related data in LMP that also affect the other 

services’ ammunition systems.

Table 1: Status of Ammunition-Related Upgrades That Were Initially Included in LMP Increment 2

Planned upgrade Description and goal Status 

Production Status and 

Other Services Reporting

Would integrate production tracking and reporting in LMP to enable real-time tracking of 

schedule fluctuations and reporting of production status to the customer base, which 

includes the other services.

No longer 

included

Supply Network 

Collaboration

Would allow the extended supply chain the ability to share data and interact with LMP 

through the Internet.

No longer 

Included

Joint Munitions and 

Lethality Command 

Automatic Identification 

Technology (AIT) 

Would enable LMP with an AIT integrated solution and eliminate the legacy system with 

AIT capabilities currently being used to manage several depot-level supply chain 

activities, such as transportation and planning and scheduling.

Included

Expanded Other Services’ 

Capabilities

Would facilitate the corrections needed to provide accurate asset posture reporting and 

transaction reporting and reconciliation between LMP and services’ ammunition systems 

and eliminate many of the manual review and corrections currently in place. 

No longer 

included

Ammunition Budget and 

Pricing 

Would provide additional functionality to further integrate budget and pricing planning 

process and perform end-to-end business functions, such as the ability to price 

ammunition for Foreign Military Sales.

No longer 

included

Source: GAO analysis of Army data. 

Note: Data are from Army ammunition-related requirements for LMP Increment 2 and status updates 

on planned ammunition-related upgrades.

 

38SmartChain is a software application that interfaces with LMP to provide an electronic 

method for performing standard depot operations such as receiving, moving, inventorying, 

and shipping ammunition. It tracks, automates, and integrates depot operations to 

manage and update inventory records. 
 

Page 21 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

As shown in table 1, one of the upgrades that the Army is no longer 

including in Increment 2 is an upgrade to improve LMP’s capability to 

provide accurate asset posture reporting and transaction reporting and 

reconciliation between LMP and services’ ammunition systems. The 

upgrade, according to the Army, would eliminate many of the manual 

processes currently in place. Joint Munitions Command officials said 

some requirements originally associated with this upgrade have been or 

will be addressed outside of Increment 2.39 The Army, however, has not 

yet developed a comprehensive plan, with timeframes and costs, for 

addressing the limitations that exist in LMP ammunition-related 

functionality, including those that were to be addressed by the planned 

upgrades in Increment 2. Such a plan could provide DOD reasonable 

assurance that its efforts to upgrade ammunition-related functionality in 

LMP are making progress. Further, without addressing these limitations, 

the Army and the services will continue to rely on manual processes to 

check and correct LMP ammunition-related data.

The Army’s NLAC is a DOD-wide repository of ammunition data; 

however, it has some limitations in providing visibility of conventional 

ammunition and is not widely used outside of the Army. The Army does 

not have reasonable assurance that NLAC collects complete and 

accurate data from service ammunition systems. In addition to the 

challenges with LMP data discussed earlier in this report, NLAC also 

does not have certain checks and controls that could help ensure that 

data are accurately being transferred from source systems to NLAC. 

Another limitation to NLAC’s ability to provide visibility of assets is that 

DOD has not determined whether NLAC should be designated as an 

authoritative source of ammunition data.

As noted previously, DOD guidance on supply chain materiel 

management requires components to implement data administration 

policies and procedures aggressively in ways that provide clear, concise, 

consistent, unambiguous, accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible 

data DOD-wide, to help minimize the cost and time required to transform, 

 

39For example, according to Joint Munitions Command officials, a change was made that 

enables LMP to more accurately transmit serial numbers associated with ammunition 

items.

NLAC Has Some 

Limitations in Providing 

Visibility of Conventional 

Ammunition
 

Page 22 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

translate, or research different-appearing, but otherwise identical data.40

In addition, federal internal control standards state that information 

systems should have effective internal controls that include application 

controls, which are designed to help ensure completeness, accuracy, 

authorization, and validity of all transactions during application 

processing. Our prior work has shown that controls should be installed at 

an application’s interfaces with other systems to ensure that all inputs are 

received and are valid and outputs are correct and properly distributed. 

An example of the recommended controls is computerized edit checks 

built into the system to review the format, existence, and reasonableness 

of data.41

NLAC was designed to be a repository for all services’ ammunition data 

by aggregating and distributing information throughout DOD. NLAC 

collects data at both the wholesale and retail levels, including inventory 

information such as quantity, location, requirements, and production. 

Several times a day, the repository receives updated data that are 

maintained in a web-based application for users across DOD—including 

headquarters, combatant commands, and ammunition supply points. 

NLAC data are available for use by service and joint component officials 

and, as noted earlier, feeds into the Defense Readiness and Reporting 

System and the Global Combat Support System-Joint.

Although NLAC contains ammunition data from across DOD, NLAC is not 

widely used outside the Army. Information on NLAC provided by the Army 

shows that most users are from within that service. For example, NLAC is 

used as the data source for the Army’s semiannual Total Army 

Ammunition Authorization and Allocation Conference42

 

40See Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para C8.6.2.1 (May 23, 2003). See 

footnote 28 above regarding related guidance appearing in the recently issued DOD 

Manual 4140.01, which cancelled and reissued the guidance found in DOD Regulation 

4140.1-R in February 2014.

and the 

41GAO, Internal Control: Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAOAIMD-00-21.3.1, (Washington, D.C.: November 1999). See also Office of Management 

and Budget Circular A-123, Management’s Responsibility for Internal Control (Dec. 21, 

2004).

42NLAC, rather than LMP, provides data to the Total Army Ammunition Authorization and 

Allocation Conference for the Army. The conference uses data about retail (unit-level) 

ammunition, as well as transportation and Total Army Management Information System 

data, to allocate ammunition for upcoming Army training needs. Since LMP only contains 

wholesale data, it lacks the appropriate management tools to facilitate the conference.
 

Page 23 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Centralized Ammunition and Missile Management system.43

Figure 4: NLAC Users

Figure 4 

depicts NLAC’s user base.

a

Other may contain Army users.

In our discussions about NLAC, ammunition officials who we interviewed 

from the Joint Staff, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy regarded data 

from other ammunition systems to be more accurate and complete than 

the data in NLAC. Non-Army officials who used NLAC said they confirm 

information with other service systems or by contacting knowledgeable 

officials. For example, Joint Staff and Marine Corps ammunition officials 

stated that, rather than relying solely on NLAC, they preferred to take the 

extra step of phoning or e-mailing their counterparts in the other services 

to obtain information on specific items.

NLAC does not have checks and controls that federal internal controls 

recommend to ensure that data from source systems are reliable. As a 

 

43Centralized Ammunition and Missile Management is an Army process whereby 

shortages are identified and requisitions to fill them are developed, sourced, and tracked. 
 

Page 24 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

result, errors in the originating data also will appear in NLAC. In addition 

to being subject to inaccuracies from source systems, NLAC may not 

receive complete data transmissions from source systems into NLAC. For 

example, NLAC is not receiving all serial numbers for serialized items, 

even where these exist in LMP. Joint Munitions Command officials have 

submitted a request to NLAC for assistance to determine why the 

transmission from LMP to NLAC is not taking place, but the issue has not 

yet been addressed and officials have not received a timetable for 

resolution. Also, data available in NLAC on the services’ ammunition data 

may differ from data found in the services’ accountable records because 

of different business processes among the military services. For example, 

the Air Force—unlike the Army—accounts for ammunition items that have 

been shipped to another location by retaining the amount to be delivered 

at the originating location until receipt has been confirmed at the 

destination. As a result, one Air Force official observed that the Air 

Force’s Combat Ammunition System will show higher quantities of 

ammunition items that have amounts designated for shipment than are 

shown in NLAC.

NLAC program personnel have taken some steps to improve accuracy 

and to address errors and inconsistencies in data received from the 

services’ systems. For example, according to program officials, they have 

monitored incoming data to ensure that updates occurred, such as 

whether the repository received the expected volume of information. 

Furthermore, they receive some data elements, such as the weight of the 

explosive component of the ammunition, directly from other sources even 

if these exist in LMP, because of known issues with LMP accuracy. They 

also conduct logic checks of incoming data; for example, they can detect 

and correct if a data field is supposed to contain an alphabetic character 

but the incoming file actually has a numeric character. However, they do 

not check whether the correct alphabetic characters appear. NLAC 

officials told us that users are their best source for detecting errors, 

particularly Army officials, as that service accounts for the preponderance 

of total users.

NLAC is also limited in its ability to provide visibility of conventional 

ammunition because DOD has not determined whether NLAC should be 

designated as an authoritative source of ammunition data. According to 

DOD guidance, an authoritative data source is a recognized or official 

source of data that could have a designated mission statement to publish 
 

Page 25 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

reliable and accurate data.44

Without steps to ensure the quality of the services’ data that flow into 

NLAC, DOD officials could risk making decisions based on inaccurate 

and incomplete information on available inventory, or ammunition offices 

will have to devote extra staff and time to obtain accurate data on DODwide inventory. For example, military decision-makers who use the Global 

Combat Support System-Joint

 NLAC was at one time envisioned as the 

visibility module of the Joint Ammunition Materiel Management System, 

but when that program was terminated, the Army took over the effort from 

its joint predecessor. Although NLAC is an outgrowth of a DOD effort, 

DOD has not designated an authoritative data source for providing asset 

visibility of the conventional ammunition inventory DOD-wide. By 

designating NLAC as an authoritative data source, DOD might be better 

able to provide visibility of conventional ammunition department-wide.

45

 

44An authoritative data source is a recognized or official data production source with a 

designated mission statement or source/product to publish reliable and accurate data for 

subsequent use by customers. An authoritative data source may be the functional 

combination of multiple, separate data sources. Department of Defense, Unique 

Identification (UID) Standards for a Net-Centric Department of Defense, Directive 8320.03, 

encl. 2, para. E2.2 (Mar. 23, 2007).

may be unaware that the ammunition 

data in the system that came from NLAC could have errors. Also, NLAC 

program personnel told us that incorrect information could have logistics 

implications: for example, without correct weight information, shippers 

would not know how many trucks to order or how to best build pallets for 

ammunition transportation. Finally, some users may rely on data obtained 

from NLAC without knowing their provenance or capabilities. For 

example, the memorandum of agreement between the NLAC Program 

Management Office and the Defense Information Systems Agency 

Program Management Office for Global Combat Support System-Joint 

allows the latter to create mechanisms to share NLAC data with 

unanticipated but authorized third parties. In addition, we spoke to Navy 

officials who were unaware that NLAC provides Navy ammunition data to 

the Defense Readiness Reporting System.

45The Global Combat Support System—Joint is the capstone joint logistics mission 

application enabling the Global Combat Support System strategy of providing unimpeded 

access to information regardless of source and fusing information from disparate sources 

into a cohesive and common operational picture. 
 

Page 26 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

The military services have a process for collecting and sharing data in 

annual reports on conventional ammunition levels and use these reports 

to identify inventory owned by one service that may be available to meet 

the requirements of another service. However, the Army’s command that 

manages certain missiles has not contributed to these annual reports for 

the missile inventory, including any items that exceed the service’s 

requirement-related munitions stock. Officials stated that they do not 

contribute to the annual report because the missile stockpile rarely has 

items to offer for redistribution. Also, the Army’s annual report does not 

provide information about all available, usable ammunition items. 

Specifically, the Army’s report does not include information from prior 

years about usable ammunition that was unclaimed by another service 

and stored for potential foreign military sales or slated for potential 

disposal.

The military services have a process for collecting and sharing data on 

conventional ammunition information through the stratification reports that 

they prepare annually. They use these reports to identify inventory owned 

by one service that may be available to meet the requirements of another 

service. DOD Regulation 4140.1-R directs the military services to assess 

the ability of the ammunition inventory to meet stated requirements by 

stratifying their inventories into various categories and requires them to 

prepare an annual internal report that lists the current inventory level of all 

ammunition.46

 

46See Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para. C9.3 (May 23, 2003). The 

services are required to produce three annual reports about the inventory: an internal 

report, an external report to use for cross-leveling, and a summary-level munitions 

stratification report to provide to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics and 

Materiel Readiness. As previously noted, DOD cancelled and reissued DOD Regulation 

4140.1-R as a multivolume manual while this report was in the final stages of drafting. We 

did not assess in detail changes resulting from the revision.

The annual internal report divides the inventory into the 

categories of requirement-related munitions stock, economic retention 

munitions stock, contingency retention munitions stock, and potential 

reutilization and disposal stock. The regulation also directs the services to 

develop an external report identifying inventory in the long-supply 

categories of economic retention munitions stock, contingency retention 

munitions stock, and potential reutilization and disposal stock. The 

services are to use this report to identify potential opportunities for 

redistributing potential reutilization and disposal munitions stock, 

inventory that exceeds the requirements of an individual military service, 

Services Have a 

Process for Collecting 

and Sharing Data on 

Conventional 

Ammunition, but the 

Army Does Not 

Report Information 

about All Available 

and Usable Items

Services Have a Process 

for Collecting and Sharing 

Data in Annual Reports 

about Inventory of 

Conventional Ammunition
 

Page 27 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

but may not exceed the requirements of DOD. The regulation also directs 

the services to consider the economic retention and contingency retention 

stock as potentially available inventory for redistribution if another service 

has a shortage.47

In their reports on fiscal year 2012 inventory, the Army, the Marine Corps, 

and the Air Force reported approximately 6 billion ammunition items in the 

inventory, of which approximately 224 million items (3.7 percent) were 

excess to the requirements of one service, categorized as potential 

reutilization and disposal stock.48

DOD guidance indicates that this redistribution process should serve to 

offset individual procurements by the services and enable disposal of only 

those assets that are excess to all DOD requirements.

From 2009 to 2013, this category of 

ammunition inventory fluctuated from 5.2 percent to 28.4 percent of total 

inventory. Prior to the Quad Services Cross-Leveling Review, different 

organizations within each service may review drafts of the annual reports 

to verify that information from each ammunition system is accurate. The 

reports are then distributed to the other services. In addition, the Office of 

the Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition, which facilitates this 

process, compares the data in the inventory reports with data on planned 

procurements of ammunition. After the services share their annual reports 

on ammunition inventory, including which ammunition could be reutilized, 

service officials meet to discuss how they will redistribute ammunition that 

is available for any service’s requirements.

49 For example, the 

Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition reported that DOD 

avoids an average of $70 million annually in procurement costs by using 

the redistribution process regarding each service’s excess inventory.50

 

47The owning military service decides the final availability of the economic retention and 

contingency retention munitions stock after assessing the acceptability of risk associated 

with drawdown of the stockpile.

During the fiscal year 2012 redistribution process, DOD transferred 

48As noted previously, specific information pertaining to the active Navy inventory is 

classified and is not included in this GAO report. Information on ammunition items that 

were available for redistribution is not classified.

49See Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para. C9.3.1.1.2 (May 23, 2003). 

After the ammunition is screened by the military services, it is then considered for trade to 

other government agencies or for foreign military sales.

50We did not independently verify these estimates.
 

Page 28 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

approximately 44 million items, of which approximately 32 million were 

small-caliber items such as ammunition for machine guns or pistols, 11 

million were demolition materials such as detonation cords, fuses and 

pyrotechnic initiators,51 1 million were ground defense items such as 

grenades used for riot control, and the remaining 2 million were a mixture 

of other various types of ammunition.

The Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Air Force share information on the 

availability of missiles and missile support material52 that exceed their 

requirement-related munitions stock, but the Army’s Aviation and Missile 

Command does not report annually about the same information. DOD 

Regulation 4140.1-R requires that the services include all conventional 

ammunition, including tactical missiles, in their annual report.53

 

51Pyrotechnics are compounds of chemicals that produce a smoke or brilliant light in 

burning and are used for signaling or lighting up the night. Initiators are the device used to 

set off the combustion of low explosives or to detonate high explosives.

The 

Logistics Center under the Army Aviation and Missile Command manages 

the inventory of certain missile items—including Stinger, Javelin, and 

Hellfire missiles—and the Joint Munitions Command manages all other 

ammunition items, including small rockets such as shoulder-launched 

ammunition. The Army’s annual report does not include reference to the 

tactical missile inventory that is managed by the Aviation and Missile 

Command. According to Army officials, the Aviation and Missile 

Command does not contribute to the annual report on inventory because 

the missile stockpile rarely has items to offer for redistribution. The Navy, 

the Marine Corps, and the Air Force all include information in their annual 

reports on the various types of missiles that they manage. Some of the 

missiles that are included in their reports are the same kind of missiles 

that are managed by the Aviation and Missile Command’s Logistics 

Center. According to Army officials, the Aviation and Missile Command 

does not contribute to the annual reporting or redistribution process, but 

52Missile support material refers to component parts used to fully assemble the missile for 

firing—such as fins or wings.

53The regulation requires the military services to apply the requirements and procedures 

related to ammunition stratification, reporting, and cross-leveling to all conventional 

ammunition, including ammunition managed by the Single Manager, tactical missiles, and 

all other military service-managed conventional munitions. It excludes toxic chemical and 

special weapons. See Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para. C9.3.1.2.1 

(May 23, 2003).

Army’s Aviation and 

Missile Command

Does Not Contribute to 

Required Annual Report
 

Page 29 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

the Army has engaged in an internal process that annually reviews the 

missile inventory separately from the annual ammunition reporting 

process. In the course of our review, an Army headquarters official 

indicated that the Army was planning to take steps to include information 

from the Aviation and Missile Command for future annual ammunition 

reports. However, the Army had not yet articulated a plan of action for 

making this change. If the Army and its missile command do not annually 

report any missiles, including missiles excess to the service’s 

requirements, it risks other services spending additional funds to procure 

missiles that already are unused and usable in the Army’s stockpile. Also, 

without such annual reporting, the information DOD obtains lacks full 

transparency about missiles that could be used to support some of the 

other services’ requirements. Therefore, it will be important for the Army 

to ensure that the Aviation and Missile Command implement its direction 

in fiscal year 2014 and beyond.

The Army’s annual stratification report includes current ammunition 

inventory levels and does not include information from prior years about 

usable ammunition that was unclaimed by another service and stored for 

potential foreign military sales or slated for potential disposal. DOD 

Regulation 4140.1-R directs the military services to assess the ability of 

the ammunition inventory to meet stated requirements by stratifying 

inventory into categories.54

As the Single Manager, the Secretary of the Army is disposing of 

serviceable or unserviceable conventional ammunition that is obsolete—

inventory that is no longer needed due to changes in technology, laws, 

customs, or operations—or in excess to requirements of the 

department—inventory that has completed reutilization screening within 

It also directs the preparation of annual 

reports that list the current inventory levels for ammunition items. The 

annual internal report divides the inventory into requirement-related, 

retention, and potential reutilization and disposal stocks. The regulation 

also directs the services to use the annual reporting process to identify 

potential opportunities for redistributing potential reutilization and disposal 

stocks, inventory that exceeded—was greater than—the requirements of 

an individual military service, but may not exceed the requirements of 

DOD.

 

54See, e.g., Department of Defense, Regulation 4140.1-R, para. C9.3.1 (May 23, 2003).

Army’s Annual Reports Do 

Not Include Information on 

All Usable Ammunition
 

Page 30 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

DOD and is not required for the needs of any DOD activity. According to 

an Army financial statement in June 2013, the Army had about 39 percent 

of its total inventory (valued at about $16 billion) in a storage category for 

ammunition items that were excess to all the services’ requirements in a 

prior year and could be disassembled or destroyed in the future. 

However, a service may decide in a subsequent year that it needs 

additional ammunition of some type and check with the Army for 

availability before starting a procurement or to meet an emergent need. 

Officials told us that since October 2012 the Army has reclaimed at least 

44 missiles from the disposal stockpile to meet its needs—such as 

fulfilling a testing requirement. Also, in 2012, the Marine Corps reclaimed 

ammunition storage components to meet a service need. In another 

example, Navy officials told us that a functional ammunition component, 

called sonobuoys, was reclaimed from the disposal stockpile when a 

need arose for the ammunition component.55

The Army is not sharing information on all usable ammunition that 

previously was unclaimed by another service and stored as part of the 

disposal stockpile. This information is not routinely shared with all 

services in the annual reports on ammunition inventory because DOD 

guidance does not require reporting this type of inventory as part of the 

stratification process. Officials told us that prior to the annual 

redistribution meeting, the Office of the Executive Director for 

Conventional Ammunition reviews the stockpile of usable ammunition that 

was previously unclaimed by any other service and stored as part of the 

disposal stockpile. However, this information is not included in the annual 

reports and shared with the services as part of the redistribution process. 

Without guidance to require that the Army’s annual reports or another 

report used as part of the redistribution process include all information 

about available and usable inventory—comprehensive information from 

multiple years—there is risk that the services may budget for funds to 

procure new supplies of conventional ammunition to meet a requirement 

when the ammunition items already are available in the DOD inventory 

but categorized for demilitarization or disposal.

 

55Sonobuoys are sensors used for surveillance and reconnaissance of underwater 

threats.
 

Page 31 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

DOD policy requires the highest possible degree of efficiency and 

effectiveness in wholesale conventional ammunition logistics functions for 

the inventory, but DOD’s systems have some limitations that hamper the 

department’s ability to manage this inventory efficiently. The use of 

outdated data exchange standards by Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force 

ammunition systems makes it difficult for them to efficiently share data 

with LMP, the only system using the updated standards. In addition, while 

the Army has made progress in improving LMP data overall, ammunitionrelated functionality continues to have challenges that affect the accuracy 

and completeness of LMP ammunition data used by the services for 

ammunition management. The Army is aware of these challenges but has 

not developed a plan to address them. A comprehensive plan, with time 

frames and costs, for resolving limitations in LMP ammunition-related 

functionality could provide DOD reasonable assurance that its efforts to 

upgrade this functionality in LMP are making progress. Further, efforts to 

achieve DOD-wide visibility of ammunition assets are hampered because 

the existing data repository, NLAC, lacks some checks and controls that 

could improve the reliability of data from source systems. Moreover, DOD 

has not designated an authoritative source of data on conventional 

ammunition DOD-wide, whether NLAC or through some other means. By 

designating an authoritative source, DOD could have a means to provide 

better visibility of conventional ammunition department-wide.

The services use the stratification and redistribution process to better 

optimize the department’s ammunition inventory by collecting and sharing 

information on available inventory that could meet the requirement of 

another service. However, the Army does not provide information on 

missiles in the annual reports that it prepares as part of this process. 

Also, the Army does not share information on usable inventory in a 

storage category for ammunition items that were excess to all the 

services’ requirements in a prior year and placed into storage in 

preparation for disassembly or disposal. Without such annual reporting, 

the information DOD obtains may lack full transparency about all 

available items and may miss opportunities to avoid procurement costs 

for certain usable items that may already be available in the Army’s 

stockpile.

Conclusions
 

Page 32 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

We are making seven recommendations to improve the efficiency of 

DOD’s systems for managing its conventional ammunition inventory and 

to improve data sharing among the services.

To improve the efficiency of data exchanges between LMP and other 

service ammunition systems, we recommend that the Secretary of 

Defense, in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, take the following two actions:

• Direct the Secretary of the Navy to (1) take steps to incorporate DLMS 

into the Ordnance Information System and (2) direct the Commandant 

of the Marine Corps to take similar steps with regard to the Ordnance 

Information System–Marine Corps.

• Direct the Secretary of the Air Force to assess the feasibility of 

accelerating the 2017 target date for incorporating DLMS into the 

Combat Ammunition System and, if determined to be feasible, take 

appropriate implementation actions.

To provide greater assurance that LMP is capable of maintaining 

accurate, timely, and more complete ammunition data in accordance with 

DOD supply chain materiel management and ammunition guidance, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the 

Army to establish a plan, with timeframes and costs, for incorporating 

ammunition-related functionality into LMP, including functionality that is 

no longer being included in the planned ammunition-related upgrades for 

Increment 2.

To improve DOD’s ability to provide total asset visibility over conventional 

ammunition, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the 

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, in 

conjunction with the Secretaries of the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy, 

to take the following two actions:

• Identify and implement internal controls, consistent with federal 

internal control standards, that will provide reasonable assurance that 

NLAC collects comprehensive, accurate data from other service 

ammunition systems.

• Designate an authoritative source of data on conventional ammunition 

DOD-wide—whether NLAC or through some other means—and issue 

guidance to implement this decision.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action
 

Page 33 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

To enable the military services to make maximum use of ammunition in 

the inventory, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the 

following two actions:

• Direct the Secretary of the Army to ensure that annual stratification 

reports on conventional ammunition include missiles managed by the 

Army Aviation and Missile Command.

• Direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, 

and Logistics to revise guidance to require the Secretary of the Army 

to include in its annual reports, or another report, as appropriate, 

information on all available ammunition for use during the 

redistribution process—including ammunition that in a previous year 

was unclaimed by another service and categorized for disposal.

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with our 

seven recommendations and provided additional comments describing 

actions underway or planned to address them. DOD also provided

technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. The full text 

of DOD’s comments is reprinted in appendix III.

With regard to the first recommendation, that the Navy and Marine Corps 

take steps to incorporate DLMS into their ammunition systems to improve 

the efficiency of data exchanges with the Army’s LMP, DOD concurred 

and cited several examples of DOD guidance that underscore the 

importance of DLMS and use of the standard for logistics systems and 

data exchanges. Further, DOD stated that recent guidance related to 

materiel management directs DOD components to use standard logistics 

data exchanges. Taking actions to implement this guidance, as we 

recommended, would better position the Navy and Marine Corps 

ammunition systems to efficiently exchange data with LMP.

With regard to the second recommendation, that the Air Force assess the 

feasibility of accelerating the 2017 target date for incorporating DLMS into 

the Combat Ammunition System, DOD concurred and stated that 

incorporation of DLMS is tied to overall development efforts planned for 

the system. While DOD noted that the DLMS capability cannot be 

incorporated into the Air Force’s existing ammunition system 

independently, DOD stated that the Air Force expected to be able to 

incorporate DLMS by fiscal year 2017 with the possibility of earlier 

implementation based on contract performance. If fully implemented as 

planned, this action should help address the intent of the 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 34 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

recommendation to ensure that the Air Force incorporates DLMS into the 

Combat Ammunition System on or before its target fiscal year 2017 

timeframe.

With regard to the third recommendation, that the Army take steps to 

establish a plan, with timeframes and costs, for incorporating ammunitionrelated functionality into LMP, including functionality no longer included in 

the planned ammunition-related upgrades for Increment 2, DOD 

concurred and noted that the Army has taken a phased approach to LMP 

implementation. DOD stated that some additional ammunition-related 

functionality is scheduled for deployment as part of Increment 2 in fiscal 

year 2016, and additional functionality will be evaluated for potential 

inclusion in follow-on increments of LMP. Given the schedule delays in 

incorporating needed ammunition-related functionality in LMP, as 

discussed in the report, we continue to believe that the Army should 

establish a plan with timeframes and costs for incorporating this 

functionality. Such a plan could provide DOD with reasonable assurance 

that the Army's efforts to upgrade ammunition-related functionality in LMP 

are making progress and, moreover, provide greater assurance that LMP 

is capable of maintaining accurate, timely, and more complete 

ammunition data in accordance with DOD supply chain materiel 

management and ammunition management guidance.

With regard to the fourth recommendation, that DOD identify and 

implement internal controls, consistent with federal internal control 

standards, that will provide reasonable assurance that NLAC collects 

comprehensive, accurate data from other service ammunition systems, 

DOD concurred and stated that the Army updated the performance work 

statement for NLAC to include analyzing new data sources to identify 

improved system interfacing that will improve data accuracy, 

completeness, quality assurance, and auditability. If implemented as 

planned, this action should help to address the intent of the

recommendation.

With regard to the fifth recommendation, that DOD designate an 

authoritative source of data on conventional ammunition DOD-wide and 

issue guidance to implement this decision, DOD concurred and stated

that it would assess the alternatives and designate the appropriate 

solution by the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2015. We are encouraged that 

DOD will seek to identify an authoritative source of data and reiterate that, 

at that time, DOD should also issue implementing guidance.
 

Page 35 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

With regard to the sixth recommendation, that annual stratification reports 

on conventional ammunition include missiles managed by the Army 

Aviation and Missile Command, DOD concurred and stated that it would 

clarify direction in its recently issued guidance to ensure that this 

happens. DOD added that the Army had already begun to provide 

missile information during the 2014 stratification meeting. We are 

encouraged by this step and believe that DOD will benefit by ensuring 

that the Army continues to provide this information.

With regard to the seventh recommendation, that the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics revise guidance to 

require the Secretary of the Army to include information on all available 

ammunition for use during the redistribution process, including 

ammunition that in a previous year was unclaimed by another service and 

categorized for disposal, DOD concurred and noted that the Under 

Secretary would clarify direction in recently issued guidance that the 

military departments will use information on all available ammunition 

categorized for disposal. This is a positive step, but DOD does not state 

in its response how such information will be reported for use in the 

redistribution process. Requiring the Army to include this information as 

part of the redistribution process, as we recommended, would increase 

transparency about all available items and potentially help DOD avoid 

procurement costs for certain usable items that may already be available 

in the Army’s stockpile.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies to appropriate congressional 

committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Secretaries of the Army, the 

Navy, and the Air Force; and the Commandant of the Marine Corps. In 

addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact 

me at (202) 512-5257 or merrittz@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices 

of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 

page of this report. GAO staff members who made key contributions to 

this report are listed in appendix IV.
 

Page 36 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Sincerely yours,

Zina D. Merritt

Director

Defense Capabilities and Management
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 37 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

To determine the extent to which Department of Defense (DOD) systems 

facilitate efficient management of the conventional ammunition inventory, 

we reviewed DOD guidance on exchanging data, developing data 

systems, and maintaining department-wide ammunition visibility. We 

reviewed relevant documents, including memos from the Under Secretary 

of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and Defense 

Logistics Agency; technical guidance from the Defense Logistics Agency 

Management Standards Office (particularly Defense Logistics Manual 

4000.25, Defense Logistics Management System); and discussed with Air 

Force officials their plans for updating their ammunition system. At the 

service level, we identified the services’ systems, particularly the Logistics 

Modernization Program (LMP), which is the Army’s system of record for 

Army wholesale inventory and wholesale ammunition belonging to all of 

the services; we reviewed documents pertaining to capabilities and 

limitations of these systems. In the case of LMP, these documents 

included: change requests indicating systems adjustments to improve 

ammunition management capabilities; requirements, business case, and 

cost estimate for the update known as Increment 2; and records of 

inspections at each of the eight depots at which the Army’s Joint 

Munitions Command stores ammunition for the Army and the other 

services. At the DOD-wide level, we reviewed minutes of Joint Ordnance 

Commanders’ Group (JOCG) meetings. The JOCG is an inter-service 

forum, among whose goals is to identify, implement or recommend for 

implementation joint opportunities to reduce cost, increase effectiveness 

and ensure interoperability and/or interchangeability of munitions 

systems. 

Also, we interviewed DOD officials responsible for inventory records at 

each of the services’ ammunition system program offices to discuss the 

capabilities and limitations of each of the services’ ammunition inventory 

systems of record. These included officials from the Army, Navy, and Air 

Force headquarters logistics staffs–Army Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Logistics (G-4); Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Material Readiness 

and Logistics (N-4); and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force for 

Logistics, Installations, and Mission Support (A-4/7). For the Army, we 

interviewed officials from the Army Materiel Command and two of its 

subordinate commands (Joint Munitions Command and Aviation and 

Missile Command) that have responsibilities for ammunition 

management. We also interviewed officials from the services’ ammunition 

systems program offices, including the Army’s LMP Product Management 

Office; the Naval Supply Systems Command and Ordnance Information 

System program office in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania; the Marine 

Corps Systems Command, Program Manager - Ammunition in Stafford, 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 38 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Virginia; the Air Force Global Ammunition Control Point at Hill Air Force 

Base, Utah; and the Air Force Combat Ammunition System program 

office. In order to better understand inventory management challenges at 

the depot level, we met with logistics specialists at two depots: Tooele 

Army Depot, Utah; and Letterkenny Ammunition Center, Pennsylvania. 

We selected these depots primarily based on their proximity to other 

ammunition management locations.

We reviewed National Level Ammunition Capability (NLAC) documents, 

including performance work statements and requirements documents, 

usage statistics, and interface testing results; and reviewed 

memorandums of agreement and interface documents to assess how the 

services and NLAC exchange data. We obtained access to NLAC, and 

developed and executed queries to compare whether its data were 

consistent with Army and Air Force source data. Because this report 

focused on wholesale ammunition stocks, we did not gather information 

about all systems that provide information to NLAC. For example, we did 

not attempt to study the extent to which systems containing information 

about retail or in-transit ammunition stocks are complete and accurate. 

We conducted telephone interviews with NLAC program management 

officials at Army Materiel Command headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama 

and Joint Munitions Command headquarters in Rock Island, Illinois, and 

met with NLAC contractor personnel in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. To 

learn more about the interface between NLAC and the Global Combat 

Support System-Joint, we also reviewed the memorandum of agreement 

between the Program Management Offices for those systems and 

interviewed an official from the Defense Information Systems Agency, 

which oversees that system.

To determine the extent to which the military services collect and share 

inventory data to help them meet their stated requirements, we reviewed 

policies, procedures, and other guidance, as well as reports related to 

conventional ammunition reporting requirements for the services, 

including DOD Regulation 4140.1-R and the Joint Conventional 

Ammunition Policies and Procedures. We examined DOD Regulation 

4140.1-R to gain an understanding of the responsibility of the services to 

report inventory levels for items in long-supply retention categories to the 

other services. We examined the Joint Conventional Ammunition Policies 

and Procedures to gain an understanding of the responsibility of the 

Office of the Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition and its role 

in the annual redistribution process.
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 39 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Also, we obtained annual stratification reports—DOD’s term for each 

service’s list of items in the current inventory—from the Army, Navy, 

Marine Corps, and Air Force.

1 These reports list items in the current 

inventory (as of the date of the report) and display how much meets or 

exceeds service requirements. We reviewed these reports to gain an 

understanding of the size and scale of the inventory and to determine the 

percentage of items in each category for fiscal years 2009 through 2013.2

We circulated a standard set of questions to each of the services and 

analyzed the results, and determined that the information was sufficiently 

reliable for the purposes for which we used it. That is, we determined that 

the services have established processes for collecting and reporting data 

into their own systems and for receiving information about stocks that are 

stored at Army depots. We did not attempt to verify figures about 

quantities, locations, or other attributes of the data. The standard set of 

questions we circulated to the services asks detailed and technical 

questions about the systems. For example, for system architecture we 

asked how and in what format does the Army’s LMP send data to the 

other services’ ammunition systems. Similarly, we asked how and in what 

format do the services’ systems send ammunition data to NLAC. We also 

asked about data quality controls and limitations and the services’ 

perception of LMP and NLAC’s data quality and limitations. We collected 

We interviewed officials knowledgeable about the annual ammunition 

report process and determined that the information included in those 

reports was sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our report. Also, we 

attended the March 2013 annual meeting at Picatinny Arsenal, New 

Jersey, at which service representatives met to discuss these reports and 

redistribute ammunition excess to service needs to help other services to 

meet their requirements. We obtained and reviewed the records of results 

from the redistribution meeting for fiscal years 2009 through 2013. We 

discussed the process for collecting, reviewing and categorizing the 

inventory data with officials responsible for compiling these reports. We 

also met with officials from Army Materiel Command’s Office of the 

Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition to understand its 

processes for preparing for the redistribution meeting and for reporting on 

the results of the meeting.

 

1

We received the Navy reports; however, due to their classification, we excluded 

information on Navy inventory from this report. 

2

The Marine Corps did not have a 2009 stratification report.
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 40 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

responses from each of the services regarding their ammunition systems 

and conducted interviews to gain further clarification on their responses.

We conducted this performance audit from December 2012 to March 

2014 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Single Manager for Conventional 

Ammunition Organization

Page 41 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Notes:

This chart depicts the roles of various entities with respect to conventional ammunition. The 

connecting lines do not necessarily represent the complete administrative, operational, or reporting 

relationships for all purposes and functions.

a

The Deputy Commanding General of AMC receives support for the role of Executive Director for 

Conventional Ammunition by a joint-staffed office of senior service military and civilian ammunition 

management specialists assigned to PEO Ammunition who report directly to the Executive Director.

b

Although the Joint Ordnance Commanders Group Charter identifies the Commander of the Joint 

Munitions Command as chair, the Joint Ordnance Commanders Group’s Annual Report for 2012 was 

signed by Joint Munitions Command and PEO Ammunition as cochairmen.

c

The Joint Munitions and Lethality Life-Cycle Management Command brings together the resources 

and expertise of three organizations: PEO Ammunition, Joint Munitions Command, and the 

Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center.

Appendix II: Single Manager for 

Conventional Ammunition Organization
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 42 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Appendix III: Comments from the 

Department of Defense
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 43 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 44 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 45 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 46 GAO-14-182 Defense Logistics

Zina D. Merritt, (202) 512-5257 or merrittz@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, the following individuals made 

contributions to this report: Thomas W. Gosling, Assistant Director; 

Darreisha M. Bates; Richard D. Brown; Rebecca Guerrero; Sally 

Newman; Richard Powelson; Michael Shaughnessy; Michael Silver; and 

Amie Steele.

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(351778)
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