Dual Management of Commercially Available Items - Defense Logistics Agency Electronic Catalog Pilot Program

The audit was requested by the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Materiel and Distribution Management). This report is the first in a series of reports on dual management of commercially available items. The program, one of several Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) initiatives to expand sales of commercial items, involves developing an electronic catalog from which customers may browse, select, and order commercially available items. The DLA program will be tested in phases, with four customers and seven vendors participating. Initial testing of the electronic catalog, one customer and one vendor, began on April 15, 1997. If successful, the catalog is planned to be rapidly expanded into a major buying tool for DLA customers. The planned completion date for the pilot program is September 1997. The audit objectives were to determine the extent of products available through non-Defense Federal organizations for which DoD also operates central procurement programs and to evaluate whether the DoD programs are providing services without added benefit to DoD. The objective of this report was to evaluate the electronic catalog to determine the extent of commercially available items in the pilot program that were also available from the General Services Administration. Subsequent reports will determine the extent of specific commodities available through non-Defense Federal organizations for which DoD also operates centralized procurement programs. We also reviewed the adequacy of management control programs as they applied to the stated objectives.