Management Information: A Key to Better Acquisition at NIH

Abstract

The acquisition process at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides a wide variety of supplies and services to the on-campus research and administrative staff. Management of the process must balance responsiveness with frugal procedures that meet all statutory and regulatory requirements. Achieving the appropriate balance is a challenge, particularly since NIH has no objective, quantifiable, acquisition performance standards. We recommend that it develop such standards and use them to measure how well the acquisition process is meeting its goals. In addition, NIH is not managing its information resources to best support its organizational goals and objectives. We recommend that it do so in a systematic process that we term a a management information system (MIS). The MIS should be defined by a MIS team - a partnership of acquisition information specialists and functional managers who work together to define the data and system needed to make good decisions. We believe that NIH can improve its automated resources to better support the MIS.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1990
Accession Number
ADA226867

Entities

People

  • Cynthia W. Shockley
  • Harry H. Moore
  • Robert A. Spargo

Organizations

  • LMI

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Application Software
  • Business Administration
  • Classification
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Contract Administration
  • Control Systems
  • Databases
  • Health Services
  • Information Systems
  • Mainframe Computers
  • Management Information Systems
  • Management Personnel
  • Personnel Management
  • Standards
  • Systems Engineering

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.