Defense Management: Stronger Support Needed for Corporate Information Management Initiative To Succeed
Abstract
The Department of Defense faces huge challenges in effectively managing its diverse operations as it downsizes its forces and activities. It has already made reductions to its force structure, and more are planned. At the same time, trimming operational support costs by designing more efficient work processes, integrating essential data systems, and automating more program and administrative operations is essential to achieving productivity gains. To help meet this challenge, Defense began its Corporate Information Management (CIM) initiative in October 1989. CJM entails a major effort to improve Defense operations and administrative support by streamlining business processes, upgrading information systems, and improving data administration and other technical areas. The initiative encompasses all Defense functional areas including Command and Control, Finance, Material Management, Distribution, Procurement, and Human Resources. The Department spends a reported $88 billion annually on these activities and estimated in 1991 that it would be able to save billions through implementation of CIM. Based on your January 26,1994, request and discussions with your office, we evaluated Defense's efforts in implementing the CIM initiative. This report provides an overview of our assessment of the Departments progress in improving business processes and information systems andidentifies problems that must be addressed for the initiative to succeed. Inaddition, this report is one of several responding to your request that wereview key Defense efforts supporting CIM implementation. A list of relatedreports is presented at the end of this report.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1994
- Accession Number
- AD1150447
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office