Defense Inventory: Plan to Improve Management of Shipped Inventory Should be Strengthened

摘要

The Department of Defense (DOD) annually ships inventory valued at billions of dollars to various locations around the world. For years, the Department has had difficulty tracking this inventory from origin to destination. Concerns about the vulnerability of these shipments to fraud, waste, and abuse led the Congress to enact section 349 of the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (P.L. 105-261), which requires the Department of Defense to develop a comprehensive plan for tracking inventory while it is being shipped. The Department refers to these inventory shipments as 'in-transit inventory'. The statute required that the Department's plan include actions to address these tracking problems, statements of objectives for the actions, performance measures and schedules, and an identification of any resources necessary for implementing the required actions, together with an estimate of annual costs. This statute also required that our office review the plan and provide to the Congress any comments we consider appropriate. This report is in response to that requirement.