Business Systems Modernization: Summary of GAOs Assessment of the Department of Defenses Initial Business Enterprise Architecture

Abstract

The Department of Defense (DOD) faces financial and related management problems that are pervasive, complex, long-standing, and deeply rooted in virtually all business operations throughout the department. These problems have impeded the departments ability to provide complete, reliable, and timely business information to the Congress, DOD managers, and other decision makers. Of the 25 areas on our governmentwide high-risk list, 6 are DOD program areas, and the department shares responsibility for 3 other high-risk areas that are governmentwide in scope.1 DODs problems in each of these areas hinder the efficiency of operations, and leave the department vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. For fiscal year 2003, DODs information technology (IT) budget request was over $26 billion. More specifically, to support its business operations, DOD reports that it currently relies on about 2,300 systems, including accounting, acquisition, logistics, and personnel systems that will cost about $18 billionnearly $5.2 billion for business systems2 and $12.8 billion primarily for business systems infrastructurein fiscal year 2003 to operate, maintain, and modernize. As we have previously reported,3 this environment was not designed to be, but rather has evolved into, an overly complex and error-prone environment, including (1) little standardization across DOD, (2) multiple systems performing the same tasks, (3) the same data stored in multiple systems, and (4) manual data entry into multiple systems. One of the seven key elements we have reported4 as necessary to successfully reform DODs financial and related management challenges is establishing and implementing an enterprise architecture, or modernization blueprint. In May 2001,5 we recommended that DOD develop, maintain, and implement an enterprise architecture to modernize its financial management operations and systems across the department.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 07, 2003
Accession Number
AD1150430

Entities

People

  • Gregory D. Kutz
  • Randolph C. Hite

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Cyber
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accounting
  • Acquisition
  • Business Administration
  • Command And Control
  • Command And Control Systems
  • Commerce
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Financial Management
  • Governments
  • Information Systems
  • Infrastructure
  • Money
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Security
  • Standards

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Defense Financial Management and Audit.