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GAO-14-617R 1 (2014-06-26)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaaibl0001 and id is 1 raw text is: cAO U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Washington, DC 20548 June 26, 2014 The Honorable Howard P. Buck McKeon Chairman The Honorable Adam Smith Ranking Member Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives Defense Acquisitions: Review of Private Industry and Department of Defense Open Systems Experiences This letter formally transmits the enclosed briefing that we presented to your staff on April 23, 2014. House Committee on Armed Services Report No. 113-102, which accompanied a House bill on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, mandated GAO to provide a briefing on private industry best practices for implementing an open systems approach to product development (i.e., an approach that includes a modular design and standard interfaces).1 This correspondence contains additional information not included in the briefing slides and addresses (1) industry practices and experiences for implementing an open systems approach during product development, (2) Department of Defense (DOD) initiatives and experiences for implementing an open systems approach on weapon acquisition programs, and (3) challenges DOD faces in implementing identified open systems practices on weapon system acquisition programs. To conduct this work, we interviewed officials from four private companies (BP, Chevron, DreamHammer, and Iridium), standards organizations, and academia, and conducted literature reviews. The companies were selected based on their recent implementation of an open systems approach on a product. We reviewed relevant DOD policies, guidance, and handbooks, and interviewed officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and military services. We also discussed challenges selected private companies and some military programs had to overcome to implement an open systems approach with appropriate officials. Finally, we leveraged information from previous GAO reports where applicable. We conducted this performance audit from February 2014 to June 2014, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 1 H.R. 1960, 113th Cong. (1st Sess. 2013). A related bill, H.R. 3304, became the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-66 (2013). GAO-14-617R Open Systems Page 1

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