Defense Management: Observations on Changes to the Reporting Structure for DOD's Corrosion Office and Its Implementation of GAO Recommendations
Released: 2019-05-17T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Corrosion is defined in section 2228 of Title 10, U.S. Code, as the deterioration of a material or its properties due to a reaction of that material with its chemical environment. Corrosion can take varied forms, such as rusting, pitting, galvanic reaction, calcium or other mineral build- up, degradation due to ultraviolet light exposure, and mold, mildew, or other organic decay. Corrosion can be either readily visible or microscopic.

To provide leadership on corrosion matters, including the development of policy guidance and oversight, consistent with section 2228, DOD has established an organizational structure that includes the Corrosion Office and Corrosion Executives. The Director of the Corrosion Office is to provide oversight and coordination of corrosion control and prevention efforts for the department. The military departments have each assigned officials to serve as Corrosion Executives. The Corrosion Executives operate within the chain of command of their respective military departments, while also coordinating with the Corrosion Office.

DOD Has Relocated the Corrosion Office, but It Continues to Perform Its Statutory Roles and Responsibilities and Is Making Plans for Future Operations

DOD Relocated the Corrosion Office within the Restructured Acquisition and Sustainment Organization in Fiscal Year 2018

Prior to August 2018, the Corrosion Office reported directly to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. In 2018 the Corrosion Office was relocated within DOD, after section 901 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (Pub. L. No. 114- 328, hereinafter referred to as the Act) required DOD to restructure parts of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Among other things, the Act eliminated the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, and it created:

The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, who, among other things, serves as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense on all research, engineering, and technology development activities and programs in DOD.

The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, who, among other things, serves as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense on acquisition and sustainment in DOD. In addition, the Under Secretary establishes policies on and supervises all elements of DOD relating to acquisition and sustainment.

As part of this restructure, effective August 1, 2018, DOD relocated the Corrosion Office within the department’s restructured acquisition and sustainment organization, as shown in figure 1. The Corrosion Office is now located within the department’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. Within this office, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness oversees the Corrosion Office. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness is a principal advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment; provides integration and oversight of DOD’s maintenance program; and develops policies and procedures for materiel readiness and maintenance support of DOD’s major weapon systems and military equipment.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness stated that he is supportive of the Corrosion Office’s mission and views its move to the Materiel Readiness organization as fitting in with the other areas under his oversight. Officials representing the military departments’ Corrosion Executives also stated that they support DOD’s organizational movement of the Corrosion Office. They stated that they continue to find the Corrosion Office to be helpful in establishing corrosion prevention standards and in providing opportunities for networking and information sharing by means of triannual corrosion forums. In addition, they stated that they have found the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness to be supportive of corrosion oversight and prevention in their meetings with him.

Since August 1, 2018, the Corrosion Office has had an acting director. According to a Corrosion Office official, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness is involved in the ongoing hiring process for a permanent director. According to a Corrosion Office official, the time frame in which a permanent director is projected to be in place is Spring 2019.

The Relocated Corrosion Office Continues to Perform Its Statutory Roles and Responsibilities

Section 2228 of Title 10, U.S. Code, contains provisions regarding the duties and responsibilities of the Director of the Corrosion Office. Specifically, these duties and responsibilities include the following: overseeing and coordinating efforts throughout DOD to prevent and mitigate corrosion of military equipment and infrastructure, and developing and recommending corrosion policy guidance to be issued by the Secretary of Defense; developing and implementing, on behalf of the Secretary of Defense, a long-term strategy to reduce corrosion and the effects of corrosion on military equipment and infrastructure; reviewing corrosion programs and funding levels proposed by the military departments during the annual internal DOD budget review process as those programs and funding proposals relate to programs and funding for the prevention and mitigation of corrosion, and submitting recommendations regarding those programs and proposed funding levels to the Secretary of Defense; providing oversight and coordination of efforts within DOD to prevent or mitigate corrosion during the design, acquisition, and maintenance of military equipment, as well as the design, construction, and maintenance of infrastructure; monitoring DOD acquisition practices to ensure that the use of corrosion prevention technologies and the application of corrosion prevention treatments are fully considered during research and development in the acquisition process; and ensuring that, to the extent determined appropriate for each acquisition program, such technologies and treatments are incorporated into that program, particularly during the engineering and design phases of the acquisition process.

The Corrosion Office continues to perform the duties outlined in section 2228, as evidenced below. Specifically, the Corrosion Office is taking the following actions:

Developing and recommending corrosion policy guidance. DOD previously developed and issued an instruction that establishes policy, assigns responsibilities, and provides guidance for corrosion prevention and mitigation. The Corrosion Office, via a working group in a working integrated product team, plans to update this DOD instruction. The working group intends for the updated DOD instruction to reflect the Corrosion Office’s movement within DOD’s restructured acquisition and sustainment organization; any statutory changes made to section 2228 since it was last issued; direction from the new acquisition and sustainment leadership; and any changes made to address the findings and recommendations in our 2018 report.

Additionally, the Corrosion Office plans to create a new DOD manual on corrosion that, according to Corrosion Office officials, will contain operating procedural details on, among other items, conducting and recording the Corrosion Office’s review and evaluation processes. According to Corrosion Office officials, the Corrosion Office’s target time frame for updating this DOD instruction and creating this new manual is by the end of calendar year 2020.

Also, since July 2018 the Corrosion Office has been reviewing other DOD policy guidance to identify relevant documents in which corrosion content should be added or updated. Corrosion Office officials stated that the new director will update existing corrosion prevention and mitigation policy guidance, directives, and instructions in coordination with the military departments’ Corrosion Executives, under the guidance of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness.

Developing and implementing a long-term strategy to reduce corrosion and its effects. In 2015 DOD issued a long-term strategy for preventing and mitigating corrosion that calls for implementing DOD- wide standards and improving strategies and processes to prevent, detect, and treat corrosion. According to Corrosion Office officials, there was a planning meeting for the working integrated product teams’ leads and co-leads in mid-March 2019. At this meeting, the team leads and co-leads prepared a draft update to the long-term strategy, which had last been updated in 2015. These officials told us that examples of changes included in the draft update are revised goals, objectives, and metrics. In addition, these officials told us that the draft update was aligned to reflect the DOD sustainment and materiel readiness mission statements and objectives articulated by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness. According to Corrosion Office officials, this draft plan is being reviewed internally, and the Corrosion Office’s target time frame is to update it by the end of calendar year 2020.

Reviewing corrosion programs and funding levels proposed by the military departments and submitting related recommendations to the Secretary of Defense. As it did prior to the restructure, the Corrosion Office continues to review the military departments’ proposed corrosion-related programs and funding levels during the annual internal DOD budget review process. In addition, it continues to annually submit a report to Congress on corrosion funding with the defense budget materials. As part of this process, the Corrosion Office collected information from the Corrosion Executives on the corrosion control and prevention programs within the respective military departments. The Corrosion Office in Autumn 2018 included the information provided by each Corrosion Executive as appendixes in its annual report on corrosion funding. The fiscal year 2020 report was submitted to Congress on February 15, 2019.

Monitoring and ensuring that corrosion prevention and mitigation are incorporated into acquisition and maintenance programs. As we reported in November 2018, Corrosion Office officials told us that they continue to perform the Corrosion Office’s acquisition and maintenance-related duties. For instance, the Corrosion Office continues to review acquisition documentation, such as Systems Engineering Plans, and to maintain information on hundreds of technologies for preventing and mitigating corrosion. In November 2018 we recommended that the Corrosion Office develop a process to maintain documentation of its reviews of corrosion planning for major weapon system programs. Further, we stated that these records, at a minimum, should show what comments were made by the Corrosion Office in its reviews and evaluations, and should track the actions taken to resolve those comments.

DOD concurred with this recommendation and stated that the Corrosion Office would develop and maintain such a process. More specifically, Corrosion Office officials stated that they plan to describe this process in a new DOD manual on corrosion. According to Corrosion Office officials, the DOD manual will also include information on considering corrosion during the weapon system program-planning evaluation process. In addition, the Corrosion Office plans to develop an internal data system that these officials told us will track its reviews and evaluations along with the weapon system programs’ responding actions. According to Corrosion Office officials, their target time frame is to create this new manual and internal data system by the end of calendar year 2020.

Corrosion Office officials told us that they have not changed the way in which they carry out additional authorities identified in section 2228. For example, the Corrosion Office continues to develop and deliver corrosion training with the Defense Acquisition University. In addition, it continues to interact with industry, trade associations, other government corrosion prevention agencies, academic research and educational institutions, and a scientific organization engaged in corrosion prevention.

DOD Is Making or Planning Changes for Some of the Ways in Which the Corrosion Office Operates

According to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness, he is working to change some of the ways in which the Corrosion Office operates. Specifically, he is working to increase the following: corrosion advocacy throughout DOD; oversight of the Corrosion Office; the accountability of the military departments and the Corrosion Office to mitigate corrosion; and the transparency of corrosion and its alignment with materiel readiness.

One of the efforts made by the Corrosion Office for achieving these objectives is by providing funding for corrosion technology demonstration projects proposed and implemented by the military departments. According to Corrosion Office officials, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness changed the process for awarding fiscal year 2019 funding by obtaining feedback from the military departments’ Corrosion Executives as to which project proposals should receive funds. Officials representing the military departments’ Corrosion Executives confirmed that they were able to provide such feedback. Corrosion Office officials told us that, as of April 2019, they had selected and funded demonstration projects for fiscal year 2019 in part based on the information provided by the military departments. In addition, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness stated that he wanted to have more of an emphasis on funding demonstration projects that would be beneficial to all of the military services.

According to Corrosion Office officials, another effort they undertook at the direction of the Deputy Assistant is that of working to make the Corrosion Office more cost-efficient by streamlining the number of professional services and other support contracts it awards. For example, Corrosion Office officials stated that by consolidating five contracts for professional services and reporting on the cost of corrosion into a single contract by a target date of mid-July 2019, they estimate achieving savings of approximately $2 million. In another effort, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness provided written feedback to each of the military departments’ Corrosion Executives in March 2019 on their respective departments’ corrosion control and prevention programs. Specifically, the feedback concerned whether each military department’s calendar year 2018 corrosion report complied with statutory requirements; each department’s strengths and weaknesses related to its corrosion efforts; and recommendations each department had identified for itself to implement.

DOD’s Corrosion Office Has Taken Action or Plans to Take Action to Implement Most of GAO’s Recommendations

In calendar years 2003 through 2018, we made 35 recommendations to the Corrosion Office in 11 corrosion-related products on topics such as strategic planning, performance management, and mandatory oversight reports. In responding to these products, DOD initially concurred with 16 of those recommendations, partially concurred with eight, and non- concurred with 11.

As of March 2019 DOD’s Corrosion Office had taken action or had plans to take action on most of our recommendations. Specifically, out of 35 recommendations, DOD’s Corrosion Office had taken action on 18 recommendations, including sufficient action for us to close those recommendations as implemented; planned to take action to implement 12 additional recommendations.

These planned actions include, among other actions, updating existing guidance and developing new policy or processes; and did not plan to take action on the remaining five recommendations.

Corrosion Office officials stated that they did not plan to take action on these recommendations for a variety of reasons. For instance these officials stated that the Corrosion Office did not have the authority over the military departments to take the recommended actions. We continue to believe our recommendations are valid.

Appendix I summarizes all 35 recommendations and DOD’s response to each recommendation at the time of our report and provides information, as of March 2019, on DOD’s actions or planned actions to address each recommendation. In some instances DOD had taken action or planned to take action on recommendations with which it had not concurred at the time of our report.

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to DOD for review and comment. DOD concurred with the draft and had no technical comments.

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees and to the Acting Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or our staff have any questions about this report, please contact me, Diana Maurer, at (202) 512-9627 or maurerd@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs are listed on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix II.

Appendix I: GAO Recommendations to the Department of Defense (DOD) Corrosion Office and DOD’s Response and Actions

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Marilyn Wasleski (Assistant Director), Dawn Godfrey, Shvetal Khanna, Amie Lesser, Edward Malone, Nathan J. Napolitano, Carter Stevens, and Cheryl Weissman made key contributions to this report.