Depot Maintenance: Improved Strategic Planning Needed to Ensure That Air Force Depots Can Meet Future Maintenance Requirements
Released: 2010-05-14T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Depot maintenance is the materiel maintenance or repair requiring overhauling, upgrading, or rebuilding of parts, assemblies, or subassemblies, and the testing and reclamation of equipment, regardless of the source of funds for the maintenance or repair or the location at which the maintenance or repair is performed. The Air Force maintains three depots that are designed to retain, at a minimum, a ready, controlled source of technical competence and resources to meet military requirements. These depots work on a wide range of weapon systems and military equipment. Table 1 describes the location, principal work, workload, and number of personnel for each depot.

Depot maintenance activities are complex and require deliberate planning in order to efficiently and effectively meet future requirements. Our prior work has shown that organizations need effective strategic management planning in order to identify and achieve long-term goals. We have identified key elements that should be incorporated into strategic plans to help establish a comprehensive, results-oriented management framework: 1. Mission statement: A statement that concisely summarizes what the organization does, presenting the main purposes for all its major functions and operations. 2. Long-term goals: A specific set of policy, programmatic, and management goals for the programs and operations covered in the strategic plan. The long-term goals should correspond to the purposes set forth in the mission statement and develop with greater specificity how an organization will carry out its mission. 3. Strategies to achieve the goals: A description of how the goals contained in the strategic plan are to be achieved, including the operational processes; skills and technology; and the human, capital, information, and other resources required to meet these goals. 4. Use of metrics to gauge progress: A set of metrics that will be applied to gauge progress toward attainment of each of the plan’s long-term goals. 5. Key external factors that could affect goals: Key factors external to the organization and beyond its control that could significantly affect the achievement of the long-term goals contained in the strategic plan. These external factors can include economic, demographic, social, technological, or environmental factors, as well as conditions or events that would affect the organization’s ability to achieve its goals. 6. Program evaluations: Assessments, through objective measurement and systematic analysis, of the manner and extent to which programs associated with the strategic plan achieve their intended goals. 7. Stakeholder involvement in developing the plan: Consideration of the views and suggestions—solicited during the development of the strategic plan—of those entities affected by or interested in the organization’s activities.

In addition to our work on strategic planning, recent legislation has focused attention on DOD’s and the military departments’ maintenance strategies and plans. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 requires the Secretary of Defense to contract for a study, which among other things, will address DOD’s and the military departments’ life- cycle maintenance strategies and implementation plans on a variety of topics including: outcome-based performance management objectives, workload projection, workforce, and capital investment strategies. Additionally, the act requires that the study examine “the relevant body of work performed by the Government Accountability Office.” OUSD (AT&L) officials told us that they expect the final report from this study to be delivered to Congress in December 2010.

The Plan Does Not Fully Address All Elements of a Results- Oriented Management Framework

Air Force Plan Does Not Fully Address Elements of a Results-Oriented Management Framework and Lacks Clear Linkages in Planning Documents

While the Air Force plan focuses Air Force efforts on weapon system and equipment operational availability, it does not fully address the elements of a results-oriented management framework, nor does it clearly link information between the two planning documents. The Air Force plan fully addresses one of the seven elements, partially addresses four elements, and does not address the remaining two elements that our prior work has shown to be critical in a comprehensive strategic plan. Table 2 summarizes the extent to which the Air Force’s depot maintenance strategic plan addresses the elements of a results-oriented management framework. Additionally, the plan’s documents are not clearly linked to one another and the relationship between corresponding sets of information in the documents is sometimes not transparent. As a result of these weaknesses, the Air Force’s ability to use its plan as a decision- making tool to meet future challenges may be limited.

The plan’s depot maintenance mission statement fully addresses one of seven elements of a results-oriented management framework. The comprehensive mission statement summarizes the Air Force depots’ overarching purpose and addresses their major functions and operations. In prior reports on strategic planning, we have noted that a mission statement is important because it provides focus by explaining why an organization exists and what it does. The Air Force depots’ overarching purpose, as identified in the plan, is to “ensure that Air Force weapon systems and equipment are operational and available to support the Air Force’s mission.” This mission statement is results-oriented and corresponds with the more general department-wide mission statement in DOD’s Depot Maintenance Strategy and Implementation Plans, which states that the mission of DOD depots is to meet the national security and materiel readiness challenges of the 21st century.

The Plan Partially Addresses Four Elements: Goals, Strategies, Metrics, and Stakeholder Involvement

The Air Force’s plan partially addresses four of the results-oriented management framework elements: long-term goals; strategies to achieve the goals; use of metrics to gauge progress; and stakeholder involvement in developing the plan. With regard to the long-term goals, the plan includes five: maintain a responsive organic industrial base, ensure a highly qualified, technically competent, and professional provide facilities necessary to support existing and projected depot maintain robust public- and private-sector capabilities by leveraging partnering, and transform depot processes through continuous process improvement and logistics transformation.

While the plan includes these goals, it does not specify interim goals, and it does not specify the time frames for monitoring and achieving the long- term goals. For example, the plan discusses the goal of leveraging public- private partnerships to maintain robust public- and private-sector relationships and ensure access to complementary dual depot maintenance capabilities; however, it does not identify interim goals or time frames for achieving this partnering goal.

Similarly, the plan discusses the Air Force’s strategies to achieve its five long-term goals, but does not address the resources that will be needed to achieve them. For example, the plan identifies a strategy to achieve its infrastructure goal. Specifically, the plan states that the Air Force will make capital investments in its depots in order to provide them with the state of the art, environmentally compliant, efficiently configured, and properly equipped facilities to support existing and projected depot maintenance workload. However, needed resources—such as capital, equipment, and technology—are not specified to facilitate implementation of this strategy.

While the plan includes some metrics, it does not discuss any metrics that directly assess the degree to which the depots are achieving the plan’s goals. The plan discusses general life-cycle performance metrics to assess overall depot performance. Air Force officials told us that these metrics indirectly gauge progress toward achieving each of the plan’s five long- term goals. For example, the plan discusses a quality defect rate metric, which measures the variance between quality deficiency reports and the quality defect rate standard, but the plan does not describe how the depots would measure or use the metric to gauge progress toward achieving one or more of the plan’s long-term goals. Air Force officials explained that a performance problem indicated by any of its metrics would lead the Air Force to monitor overall performance and then identify the relevant area (e.g., workforce) contributing to the problem. These officials told us that the Air Force would then adjust performance in the relevant area to achieve the corresponding goal. However, this indirect process is not discussed in the plan. Moreover, the plan does not discuss the desired levels for each of these metrics.

While the Air Force involved many relevant stakeholders in the development of its depot maintenance strategic plan, it did not involve depot officials directly in all aspects of the process. The Air Force developed its plan primarily by using inputs from the following stakeholders: the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, and Logistics; the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition; the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force for Logistics, Installations and Mission Support; and Air Force Materiel Command.

Air Force depot officials said they were not involved in all aspects of the development of the plan, even though their depots are directly affected by the plan. For example, depot officials indicated that they had limited or no involvement in the development of the Strategy.

The Plan Does Not Address Two Elements: Key External Factors and Program Evaluations

The Air Force’s plan does not address two of the results-oriented management framework elements: key external factors and program evaluations. The plan does not identify any key factors external to the Air Force and beyond its control that could significantly affect the achievement of its five long-term goals. Our prior work on developing a results-oriented management framework reported that external economic, demographic, social, technical, or environmental factors may influence whether an organization achieves its goals. Moreover, we noted that a strategic plan should describe each such factor and indicate how it could affect achievement of the plan’s goals. Even though the Air Force plan did not describe any such factors, Air Force officials have acknowledged elsewhere external factors that could affect depot maintenance. For example, in 2007, the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force described the harsh environments the Air Force is currently operating in— including the heat and sand in Iraq’s deserts—during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Further, obtaining technical data rights from private-sector manufacturers is another example of external factors not identified in the plan that could affect depot maintenance. Depot officials told us that technical data are sometimes not directly available to the depots and that without them their work is more challenging.

Similarly, the plan does not identify how the Air Force will evaluate its programs and use the results of these evaluations to adjust the plan’s long- term goals and strategies to achieve desired levels of performance. The plan indicates that the Air Force must continuously validate and update its depot maintenance strategic plan to meet operational depot maintenance requirements; however, the plan does not describe the method to conduct this process.

The Lack of Clear Linkage in the Plan’s Two Documents May Limit the Plan’s Usefulness

The content of the Air Force depot maintenance Strategy and Master Plan are not clearly linked to one another, which may make the collective plan difficult to use as a decision-making tool. OUSD (AT&L) instructed each service to publish its depot maintenance strategic plan in a single depot maintenance-specific document or as an integral part of one or more documents having a broader scope. Air Force officials told us that they intended the Strategy to provide the strategic vision for Air Force depot maintenance and the Master Plan to complement the Strategy by providing the details for executing the strategic vision.

We found that the linkage of information in the plan’s two documents was not always clear. For example, the goals listed in the Strategy are not clearly repeated in the Master Plan, and the Master Plan includes goals that are unrelated to depot maintenance. For example, one goal the Master Plan includes is to improve the strategic acquisition of capabilities to ensure warfighters have the weapons and equipment needed to defend the United States. In addition, the Master Plan does not clearly align its content to the five long-term goals described in the Strategy. Although a table in an appendix to the Master Plan provides some information indicating how the content of the Strategy and Master Plan are aligned, the appendix does not clarify how the two documents are linked to one another or how they are used as a collective plan. An Air Force official acknowledged the weaknesses in the linkages between the plan’s two documents and said that they intend to ensure effective alignment of the plan’s documents in future versions of the plan.

Additionally, Air Force officials told us that they chose not to include information in the plan that was already contained in external documents. For example, they told us that other Air Force documents (such as Air Force budget documents and the servicewide strategic plan) address key external factors that could affect the achievement of the plan’s goals. The Air Force plan, however, does not refer to these external documents. Without clear linkages between the two primary planning documents and other related documents, the Air Force may have limited utility of its plan as a decision-making tool to meet future challenges.

OUSD (AT&L) and the Air Force Did Not Use Effective Oversight Mechanisms to Systematically Evaluate the Plan

OUSD (AT&L) Did Not Employ an Effective Oversight Mechanism to Evaluate the Plan

OUSD (AT&L) did not use an effective oversight mechanism to systematically evaluate the Air Force’s plan to determine whether it fully addresses all needed elements. DOD’s Depot Maintenance Strategy and Implementation Plans states that the Depot Maintenance Working Integrated Process Team would monitor the development and subsequent execution of the services’ depot maintenance strategic plans on a continuing basis. However, that team did not review any of the services’ plans. OUSD (AT&L) officials representing the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Maintenance Policy and Programs told us that, in practice, the Integrated Process Team did not assume responsibility for oversight of the plan, but instead monitored selected issues that the services’ plans describe, such as the implementation of some specific process improvement initiatives. The Maintenance Policy and Programs officials told us that they reviewed the Air Force plan through a process consisting of informal meetings and conversations with service representatives. These OUSD (AT&L) officials told us that, through their review, they found that the Air Force plan was a “good first start” but did not address all needed elements. However, Air Force officials told us that they were not informed that the plan did not fully address elements of a results-oriented management framework nor were they asked to revise the plan. Additionally, Maintenance Policy and Programs officials were unable to provide us with documentation of their review of the Air Force plan.

The Air Force Lacked an Effective Oversight Mechanism to Systematically Evaluate the Plan

At the time the Air Force developed its plan, it lacked an effective oversight mechanism to help ensure that its plan fully addresses the elements of a results-oriented management framework and that the plan’s two documents are clearly linked to one another. Air Force headquarters officials responsible for the plan did not review the Strategy or the Master Plan to ensure that these documents fully address the elements of a results-oriented management framework. Furthermore, the Air Force headquarters officials did not provide direction to the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC)—the office responsible for the Master Plan—on strategic planning elements that should be incorporated in the Master Plan. Also, AFMC officials told us that they received no instruction to submit the Master Plan to another Air Force office or other oversight body for review. Since the development of the current plan, the Air Force developed the Depot Maintenance Strategic Planning Integrated Process Team in June 2008 to improve its future depot maintenance strategic plans. According to the team’s charter, this process will be used to validate and update the depot maintenance strategic plan and help align the Strategy and Master Plan with one another and with DOD’s Depot Maintenance Strategy and Implementation Plans. Moreover, while the Air Force conducts monthly reviews of depot maintenance programs and they told us that these reviews help provide oversight of the plan’s implementation, these reviews do not assess the progress in achieving the plan’s long-term goals.

While Air Force officials responsible for the plan acknowledged some of the plan’s incomplete information, they told us that they believe the plan more fully addresses the results-oriented management framework elements than our analysis reflects. According to these officials, although the plan does not address some elements explicitly, they are implied in the plan’s discussion of various initiatives and processes and experienced professionals involved in Air Force depot maintenance would be able to recognize these elements. However, because the plan does not explicitly address these elements, they may not be clear to individuals not involved in developing the plan.

The Plan Does Not Fully Respond to OUSD (AT&L)’s Direction Designed to Meet Future Challenges

While the Air Force depot maintenance strategic plan describes many initiatives and programs important to the Air Force depots, it is not fully responsive to OUSD (AT&L)’s direction to the services that was designed to provide the services with a framework to meet future challenges. Specifically, the plan does not fully address logistics transformation, core logistics capability assurance, workforce revitalization, and capital investment—the four areas that OUSD (AT&L) directed each service, at a minimum, to include in its plan. Within these four general areas are 10 issues that OUSD (AT&L) also identified. The Air Force’s plan partially addresses 8 and does not address the remaining 2. Table 3 summarizes our evaluation of the extent to which the Air Force plan addresses each of the 10 issues.

As discussed for the elements of a results-oriented management framework, OUSD (AT&L) and the Air Force did not identify missing or partially addressed issues because neither used effective oversight to help ensure that OUSD (AT&L)’s direction for developing the plan was carried out. Among other things, DOD’s Depot Maintenance Strategy and Implementation Plans states that the DOD strategy will ensure that DOD is postured to meet the national security and materiel readiness challenges of the 21st century. However, at present, information missing from the Air Force plan may limit the service’s assurance that its depots are postured and resourced to meet future maintenance requirements.

The Plan Partially Addresses the Three Logistics Transformation Issues

The Air Force plan partially addresses each of the three logistics transformation issues that OUSD (AT&L) directed the services to discuss in their plans. In this area, OUSD (AT&L) directed the services to discuss the future roles and capabilities of the depots, transformation actions, and approaches for integrating various depot capabilities in their plans.

The plan generally discusses the future roles of the depots, but it does not discuss projected future capabilities of the Air Force depots or how those capabilities will be measured. The plan states that the general role of the depots is to ensure Air Force weapon systems and equipment are operational and available to support the Air Force’s missions. However, the plan is silent on the depots’ future capabilities despite changes that DOD had planned to make to the Air Force’s force structure. For example, the February 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report noted that DOD had planned to reduce the number of Air Force B-52 aircraft by about 40 percent to 56.

Additionally, the plan partially addresses actions the Air Force is taking to transform its depots. For example, the plan discusses continuous process improvement initiatives such as the High Velocity Maintenance program, in which the Air Force expects to schedule depot maintenance for aircraft more frequently but for shorter periods. However, the plan does not discuss how the Air Force intends to change the structure or organization of its depots to transform them to achieve the Air Force vision of the depots’ future capabilities.

Moreover, the plan partially addresses the management approach for integrating various depot maintenance capabilities, including public- and private-sector sources, as well as joint, inter-service, and multinational capabilities. To address public- and private-sector sources, the plan states that partnering with the private-sector to ensure access to complementary or dual depot maintenance capabilities is an integral element of the Air Force strategy. However, the plan does not discuss the management approach for integrating joint, inter-service, or multinational capabilities. Because the plan does not discuss the approach for integrating these capabilities, it is unclear if the Air Force is positioned to reduce redundancies and take advantage of potential cost-saving measures.

The Plan Partially Addresses Both Core Logistics Capability Assurance Issues

The Air Force plan partially addresses both core logistics capability assurance issues. For one of the two issues, the plan partially addresses the OUSD (AT&L) direction to discuss actions taken or contemplated to (1) identify core requirements upon program initiation, (2) ensure that depot source of repair decisions are made upon program initiation, (3) encourage the formation of public-private partnerships, and (4) identify and rectify core capability deficiencies. The plan describes tools the Air Force uses to identify core requirements including processes, models, and guidance. For example, the plan states that the Air Force uses the biennial core computation process and other tools to generate Air Force core requirements. To address OUSD (AT&L)’s direction to discuss depot source of repair decisions, the plan states that the Air Force uses the strategic source of repair process, the source of repair assignment process, and the depot maintenance inter-service processes. The plan also discusses public-private partnerships and states that AFMC and the depots intend to develop a standard process for public-private partnerships to ensure compliance with DOD and Air Force directives on public-private partnerships. To address OUSD (AT&L) direction to discuss actions to identify and rectify core deficiencies, the plan notes that if core target shortfalls exist, the depots will provide plans to mitigate the risk but, the plan does not explain how the Air Force will do so. Furthermore, the plan does not discuss concerns we have previously reported on DOD’s biennial core computation process. For example, we reported in 2009 that the Air Force used a method for calculating core capability deficiencies that differed from the method used by the other services and that officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense said that the Air Force approach was not appropriate.

For the second of the two core logistics capability assurance issues, estimating depot workload is partially addressed in the Air Force plan. To address the depot maintenance workload estimating portion of this issue, the plan describes a process in which Air Force organizations, such as the Centralized Asset Management Office, provide input into the workload review process. The plan goes on to state that the workload review process determines future depot workload. However, the Air Force plan does not discuss the OUSD (AT&L) direction to address the projected effects of weapon system retirements or bed-down (i.e., the act or process of locating aircraft at a particular base). However, the Air Force plans to substantially reduce some portions of its fleet. In May 2009, the Air Force announced that it would accelerate the retirement of 249 older aircraft, including 112 F-15s and 134 F-16s. While these retirements will affect the workload at the Air Force depots at Warner-Robins, Georgia, and Ogden, Utah, the Master Plan issued 2 months earlier does not include any information on the planned changes. Moreover, the plan does not discuss new aircraft that will replace those being retired, the future workload estimates associated with any potential replacement aircraft, or the processes that will be used to determine which facilities will obtain any new work.

The Plan Partially Addresses Two of the Workforce Revitalization Issues but It Does Not Address the Third Issue in This Area

The Air Force plan partially addresses both reengineering and replenishment strategies but does not contain information on the OUSD (AT&L)-directed workforce replenishment requirements. Regarding the reengineering strategies issue, the plan discusses actions the Air Force is taking to reengineer its existing employees’ skills to satisfy new capability requirements, but it does not discuss actions the service is taking to identify new skill requirements. To address reengineering existing employees’ skills, the plan indicates that the depots are partnering with local universities and technical schools to provide training. However, it does not directly address the Air Force actions to identify new skill requirements. Instead of providing details on new skill requirements, the plan makes a general statement that the Air Force’s workforce skill capabilities are continuously assessed to determine future training and skill requirements. Likewise, it is silent on specific actions the Air Force is taking to carry out this assessment.

The plan does not discuss the method the Air Force will use to forecast workforce replenishment requirements, nor the quantitative data needed to project annual hires as well as losses due to retirements and other reasons. Although the plan discusses a manpower and capability program that determines the required personnel for future work, the plan does not follow the OUSD (AT&L) direction to discuss the methods or sources of quantitative data the Air Force uses to determine turnover and the timing of the turnover.

To address the replenishment strategies issues, the plan describes actions the Air Force is taking to train employees, but it does not discuss how the Air Force is recruiting new employees, nor does it discuss a comprehensive management approach for establishing and implementing an employee replenishment strategy. The plan discusses, for example, a university and vocational school partnership program to train depot employees. However, it is silent on the Air Force’s recruiting methods (e.g., for hard to fill types of positions) and any servicewide employee replenishment strategy.

The Air Force plan’s limited and missing information for the three issues in the workforce revitalization area is noteworthy in the context of our previous findings on the DOD depot maintenance workforce and in the context of information in the OUSD (AT&L)’s document directing the services to provide the plans. In 2003, we reported that DOD faced significant management challenges in succession planning to maintain a skilled workforce at its depot maintenance facilities. Among other challenges, we reported that relatively high numbers of civilian workers at maintenance depots were nearing retirement age. DOD’s Depot Maintenance Strategy and Implementation Plans makes a similar point. It states that DOD’s depot maintenance community, like the rest of the federal government, faces increasing numbers of retirements as the “baby boom” generation reaches retirement eligibility. It goes on to state that the retirement-eligible population within the depot maintenance workforce and forecasted annual retirements are expected to increase annually for the remainder of the decade. This dynamic—coupled with the highly skilled nature of some depot maintenance work and the length of time required to train new employees—creates hiring, training, and retention challenges. Without a discussion that acknowledges these and other such workforce challenges, it is unclear how well the Air Force is positioned to optimally address the challenges that its depots face.

The Plan Partially Addresses One Capital Investment Issue but Does Not Address the Other

The Air Force plan partially addresses the capital investment issue of quantifying current capabilities but does not address the other issue— capital investment benchmarks. Neither the benchmarks for evaluating the adequacy of investment funding nor the Air Force’s basis for selecting the benchmarks are in the Air Force’s plan despite OUSD (AT&L)’s direction to address this issue. Even though the plan does not address benchmarks, it notes that the Air Force intends to continue making an annual capital investment of at least 6 percent of revenue, as required by law, to sustain depot infrastructure requirements. Moreover, an OUSD (AT&L) official mentioned that the Air Force’s citing of the 6 percent capital investment should be seen as addressing the benchmark issue.

The plan partially addresses the issues pertaining to the methods for quantitatively articulating these concerns: current capabilities, current and projected deficiencies, and the capabilities that planned investment will provide. The plan notes that the Air Force targets its investments to the highest priority needs to support the warfighter. While the plan also discusses an infrastructure investment prioritization process, it does not describe the method for prioritizing needed investments. Similarly, the plan notes that the Air Force invests in facility restorations and modernizations and discusses the Capital Purchase Program for equipment, restoration, and modernization programs for facilities, transformation initiatives, and military construction. However, the plan does not present quantitative data on the projected funding (or shortfalls) for facilities and equipment.

Capital investment in DOD depots has been an issue of concern in our prior work. For example, in 2001, we reported that capital investments in depot plant equipment had declined sharply in the mid-1990s as a result of defense downsizing and depot closures and consolidations. As a result of DOD’s lack of capital investment, its depots did not keep up with the latest technologies. In subsequent years, funding levels increased as the services recognized the need to modernize their depots.

Conclusions

OUSD (AT&L) officials told us that the primary intent of the OUSD (AT&L)’s direction was to provide a framework for the services to meet challenges in the future and that the issues identified in the four areas specified in the direction were designed to address those challenges. Further, DOD’s Depot Maintenance Strategy and Implementation Plans states that each service will conduct depot maintenance strategic planning that focuses on achieving the DOD depot maintenance strategy and that the DOD strategy will ensure that DOD is postured to meet the national security and materiel readiness challenges of the 21st century. However, the Air Force’s plan does not provide a comprehensive, results-oriented management framework to efficiently and effectively inform the Air Force’s future decisions, nor does it fully respond to OUSD (AT&L)’s direction that was designed to provide a framework for the services to overcome four general areas of future challenges. Furthermore, the limited linkage of information in the Air Force’s two planning documents may reduce the utility of the plan as a decision-making tool to meet future challenges. A primary reason for not fully addressing these framework elements and linkages in the plan was that OUSD (AT&L) and the Air Force did not have effective oversight mechanisms in place to promptly identify the incomplete information, communicate such findings to the plan developers, and monitor the revision of the plan to ensure that the limitations had been addressed. These concerns about the content, linkage, and oversight resulted in a plan that missed an opportunity to identify a more complete Air Force vision for the effective and efficient operation of its depots in the future. For example, had the Air Force identified and implemented systematic program evaluation and a thorough set of metrics to directly assess goal achievement, it would have additional tools for reacting in a timely manner to findings from the ongoing congressionally mandated study on depot capabilities. Most importantly, a comprehensive plan could have resulted in the Air Force having more assurance that its depots are viably positioned and have the maintenance workforce, equipment, facilities, and funds they need to meet current and future requirements.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To provide greater assurance that Air Force depots will be postured and resourced to meet future maintenance requirements, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the Air Force to take the following three actions to revise the Air Force’s depot maintenance strategic plan: Fully and explicitly address all elements needed for a comprehensive results-oriented management framework, including those elements that we have identified as partially addressed or not addressed in the current plan. Demonstrate clear linkages among the depot maintenance strategic plan’s component documents, should the Air Force decide to publish its revised plan in multiple documents.

Fully and explicitly address OUSD (AT&L)’s direction that provides a framework for the services to meet future depot maintenance challenges.

To strengthen the oversight mechanism for depot maintenance strategic planning, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and the Secretary of the Air Force to develop and implement procedures to review revisions of the depot maintenance strategic plan to ensure they fully address all key elements of a results-oriented management framework, explicitly address any OUSD (AT&L) direction for the plans, and periodically assess progress and corrective actions to the extent needed in meeting the plans’ goals.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

In oral comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with our four recommendations to provide greater assurance that Air Force depots will be postured and resourced to meet future maintenance requirements.

The department concurred with our recommendation to direct the Secretary of the Air Force to revise the Air Force’s depot maintenance strategic plan to fully and explicitly address all elements needed for a comprehensive results-oriented management framework. DOD stated that it will direct the Air Force and the other services to more clearly address all elements needed for a results-oriented strategy in the next OUSD (AT&L) request to services to update their depot maintenance strategic plans.

DOD also concurred with our recommendation to direct the Secretary of the Air Force to revise the Air Force’s depot maintenance strategic plan to demonstrate clear linkages among the plan’s component documents, should the Air Force decide to publish its revised plan in multiple documents. In its response, DOD stated that it will direct the Air Force and the other services to more clearly demonstrate the linkages of the Air Force plan to the DOD depot maintenance strategic plan in the next OUSD (AT&L) request to the services to update their depot maintenance strategic plans. While the department concurred with our recommendation, it did not discuss directing the Air Force to more clearly demonstrate linkages among the Air Force plan’s component documents, which was the focus of our recommendation. Therefore, DOD may need to take further action to explicitly direct the Secretary of the Air Force to more clearly demonstrate linkages among the Air Force plan’s component documents, should the Air Force decide to publish its revised plan in multiple documents.

The department also concurred with our recommendation to direct the Secretary of the Air Force to revise the Air Force’s depot maintenance strategic plan to fully and explicitly address OUSD’s (AT&L) direction that provides a framework for the services to meet future depot maintenance challenges. DOD stated that it will direct the Air Force and the other services to explicitly address the OUSD (AT&L) direction for depot maintenance strategic planning in the next OUSD (AT&L) request to the services to update to their depot maintenance strategic plans.

Additionally, DOD concurred with our recommendation to direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and the Secretary of the Air Force to develop and implement procedures to review revisions of the depot maintenance strategic plan to ensure they fully address all key elements of a results-oriented management framework, explicitly address any OUSD (AT&L) direction for the plans, and periodically assess progress and corrective actions to the extent needed in meeting the plan’s goals. In its response, DOD stated that it will direct the Air Force and the other services to explicitly address the procedures noted in our recommendation. DOD also said that OUSD (AT&L) would further develop a process to periodically assess progress and corrective actions to ensure the Air Force and the other services are meeting OUSD (AT&L) and their own plan’s goals.

DOD also provided technical comments that we have incorporated into this report where applicable.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Air Force. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please call me at (202) 512-8246 or edwardsj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix II.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

In this report, we addressed two questions: (1) To what extent does the Air Force’s depot maintenance strategic plan address key elements of a results-oriented management framework? and (2) To what extent does the Air Force’s depot maintenance strategic plan address direction from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology, and Logistics (OUSD (AT&L)) that was designed to provide a framework for the services to meet future challenges? We limited the scope of our analysis to the current Air Force depot maintenance strategic plan, which includes both the April 2008 Air Force Depot Maintenance Strategic Plan and the March 2009 Air Force Depot Maintenance Master Plan.

We used the same set of methodological procedures to answer both questions and each type of procedure was performed simultaneously for the two questions. For our analysis, we first reviewed relevant laws; Department of Defense (DOD) and Air Force regulations governing depot maintenance; and depot maintenance-related reports issued by agencies and organizations including GAO, DOD, the Logistics Management Institute, and RAND. We then used qualitative content analyses to compare the Air Force plan against criteria from the seven elements of a results-oriented management framework and the 10 issues listed in the OUSD (AT&L) direction for depot maintenance strategic plans. To conduct these analyses, we first developed a data collection instrument that incorporated these two types of criteria. One team member then analyzed the plan using this instrument. To verify preliminary observations from this initial analysis, a second team member concurrently conducted an independent analysis of the plan. We compared observations of the two analysts and discussed any differences. We reconciled the differences with the assistance of analysts from the team that was evaluating the Navy depot maintenance strategic plan. We subsequently met with Air Force officials to confirm our understanding of the plan and sought additional information where our preliminary analyses revealed that the plan partially addresses or does not address the criteria. We also interviewed and obtained documentary evidence from relevant OUSD (AT&L) officials regarding its oversight of the services’ plans. We additionally interviewed depot leaders and strategic planning personnel during site visits at two of the three Air Force depots to obtain first-hand information on issues the depots face. We also obtained data on workload and personnel from the Air Force and determined that these data were sufficiently reliable for our report.

The organizations we interviewed are listed in table 4.

We conducted this performance audit from July 2009 through May 2010 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: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Staff Acknowledgments

Key contributors to this report were Sandra B. Burrell, Assistant Director; James P. Klein; Ron La Due Lake; Joanne Landesman; Brian Mazanec; Michael Willems; and Elizabeth Wood.

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Depot Maintenance: Improved Strategic Planning Needed to Ensure That Army and Marine Corps Depots Can Meet Future Maintenance Requirements. GAO-09-865. Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2009.

Depot Maintenance: Actions Needed to Identify and Establish Core Capability at Military Depots. GAO-09-83. Washington, D.C.: May 14, 2009.

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Depot Maintenance: Actions Needed to Provide More Consistent Funding Allocation Data to Congress. GAO-07-126. Washington, D.C.: November 30, 2006.

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