GAO's Report on the Management of ACE (Part II - Final)
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report entitled, Information Technology: Customs Automated Commercial Environment Program Progressing, but Need for Management Improvements Continues.
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GAO states that as required by law, it has reviewed the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS') fiscal year (FY) 2005 expenditure plan for the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) program, which was submitted to Congress by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in November 2004.
According to GAO, its report (1) addresses whether the FY 2005 expenditure plan satisfies certain legislative conditions, (2) describes the status of GAO's open ACE recommendations, and (3) provides observations about the FY 2005 expenditure plan and DHS' management of the ACE program.
This is Part II, the final part in a two-part series of summaries on this GAO report and "highlights" the status of actions to implement GAO's open ACE recommendations. (See ITT's Online Archives or 03/30/05 news, 05033005, for Part I.)
GAO Recommendations That Are "In Progress"
Implementation is in progress for the following recommendations previously made by GAO:
Future expenditure plans should address using ACE to support other homeland security applications. GAO recommended that CBP have future ACE expenditure plans specifically address any proposals or plans, whether tentative or approved, for extending and using ACE infrastructure to support other homeland security applications, including any impact on ACE of such proposals and plans.
In its FY 2004 expenditure plan review, GAO reported that the CBP Modernization Office (CBPMO) had discussed collaboration opportunities with DHS' U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program to address the potential for ACE infrastructure, data, and applications to support US-VISIT.
Since then, the ACE and US-VISIT programs have formed collaboration teams that have drafted team charters, identified specific collaboration opportunities, developed timelines and next steps, and briefed ACE and US-VISIT program officials on the teams' progress and activities.
(According to GAO, US-VISIT is a government-wide program to collect, maintain, and share information on foreign nationals in order to enhance national security and facilitate legitimate trade and travel while adhering to U.S. privacy laws.)
Cost estimating program. GAO recommended the development and implementation of a rigorous and analytically verifiable cost estimating program that embodies the tenets of effective estimating as defined in the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) institutional and project-specific estimating models.
According to GAO, CBPMO has (1) defined and documented processes for estimating expenditure plan costs (including management reserve costs); (2) hired a contractor to develop cost estimates, including contract task orders, that are independent of the ACE development contractor's estimates; and (3) tasked a support contractor with evaluating the independent estimates and the development contractor's estimates against SEI criteria.
Human capital management strategy. GAO recommended the immediate development and implementation of a human capital management strategy that provides both near- and long-term solutions to the program office's human capital capacity limitations, and quarterly reporting to the Congressional appropriations committees on the progress of efforts to do so.
Following GAO's recommendation, CBPMO provided reports1 to the appropriations committees on its human capital activities, including development of a staffing plan that identifies the positions it needs to manage ACE.
However, GAO states that in December 2004, CBPMO implemented a reorganization of the modernization office, which makes the staffing plan out of date. As part of this reorganization, CBP transferred government and contractor personnel who have responsibility for the Automated Commercial System (ACS), the Automated Targeting System (ATS), and ACE training from non-CBPMO organizational units to CBPMO. According to CBPMO, this change is expected to eliminate redundant ACE-related program management efforts.
Metrics for measuring program management improvements. GAO reports that CBPMO has implemented a program that generally focuses on measuring the ACE development contractor's performance through the use of earned value management, metrics for the timeliness and quality of deliverables, and risk and issue disposition reporting. In addition, CBPMO is planning to broaden its program to encompass metrics and measures for determining progress toward achieving desired business results and acquisition process maturity. The plan for expanding the metrics program is scheduled for approval in early 2005.
Quarterly report to Congress. GAO reports that CBP has submitted reports to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on its efforts to address open GAO recommendations for the quarters ending March 31, 2004 and June 30, 20041.
GAO notes that CBPMO plans to submit a report for the quarter ending September 30, 2004, after it is approved by DHS and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
GAO Recommendations That Are "Complete"
Implementation is complete for the following recommendations previously made by GAO:
ACE acquisition schedule & cost estimates in light of early release problems, etc. GAO reports that in response to the cost overrun on Releases 3 and 4, CBPMO and the ACE development contractor established a new cost baseline of $196 million for these releases, extended the associated baseline schedule, and began reporting schedule and cost performance relative to the new baselines.
In addition, a new version of the ACE Program Plan was developed in July 2004 that re-baselined the program by extending delivery of the last release from FY 2007 to FY 2010, adding a new screening and targeting release, and increasing the life-cycle cost estimate by about $1 billion to $3.1 billion. Furthermore, the new program schedule reflects less concurrency between future releases. (See ITT's Online Archives or 09/21/04 news, 04092110, for BP summary on the new ACE Program Plan, etc.)
Reconciliation of cost estimates in FY 2005 expenditure plan. GAO reports that CBPMO has implemented the recommendation that the FY 2005 expenditure plan be based on cost estimates that are reconciled with independent cost estimates.
Independent verification and validation (IV&V) function. GAO reports that CBPMO has selected an IV&V contractor that has had no prior involvement in the modernization program in order to implement the GAO's recommendation to establish an IV&V function to assist in overseeing contractor efforts.
1See ITT's Online Archives or 09/09/04 and 02/23/05 news, 04090920 and 05022315, for the final parts of BP's summaries on the March 2004 and June 2004 quarterly reports, respectively.
GAO report (GAO-05-267, dated March 2005) available at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05267.pdf