Army workforce management system questioned
A GAO report says the Army Workload and Performance System is duplicative and needs tighter oversight.
The Army’s automated system providing information for industrial workforce decisions lacks oversight and is potentially sucking up unnecessary money by performing duplicative functions, a GAO report said.
Even though the 2002 defense authorization mandates an annual report on the Army Workload and Performance System until the Secretary of the Army certifies that it has been fully implemented, no such report has been filed in more than a decade. Since AWPS’s inception in 1996, the Army has spent a reported $90 million on the program and plans on spending another $35.6 million over the next five years.
According to Army officials, the reports have not been filed because an update of an AWPS master plan has yet to be completed.
“According to officials, the Army has not completed the AWPS master plan due to oversight challenges arising from a series of internal reorganizations and multiple transfers of responsibility for AWPS within the Army,” the report said. “Another contributing factor, according to [Army Materiel Command] officials, was the loss of personnel with knowledge of AWPS that has occurred since the AWPS master plan was last updated in 2002.”
AWPS connects the Army’s industrial workload demands to workforce requirements. Similarly, the Army’s Logistics Modernization Program, implemented three years after AWPS, is intended to address industrials needs. GAO said the Army hasn’t done enough to assess the potential overlap between the two systems.
“In our October 2002 report on AWPS, we found that the 2002 AWPS master plan did not address potential overlap between the functionality provided by AWPS and that provided by LMP,” the report said. “We reported that Army and contractor officials told us that there was some potential overlap and redundancy in the two systems’ capabilities.”
Both systems are capable of comparing resource expenditures against production plans, scheduled workload and related budgets.
Among GAO’s four recommendations are increasing oversight to produce an update for the AWPS master plan and identifying a senior-level Army Material Command official to provide oversight.