Irony alert: In its quest to improve management of its finances, the Navy is having trouble managing the contractors who have received tens of millions of dollars to help the service meet congressionally imposed “audit-readiness” deadlines. That’s the takeaway from a newly released review by the Defense Department’s inspector general. One finding: The Navy’s Fleet Logistics Center office in Philadelphia spent $12.6 million on two task orders, “but did not adequately track whether the contractor met the requirements.” The report highlights other shortcomings in how Navy employees oversaw the contracting work, including failing to devise quality assurance plans for some…
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The Department of the Navy will not award a contract next month for its Next Generation Enterprise Network as planned. Navy officials had originally planned to award one or two contracts by Feb. 12 to develop the massive private network, known as NGEN, but the award date has been pushed back to May 2013. “Due to the complexities of the NGEN requirements, we are changing our contract award estimate in order to ensure a complete and thorough review of offerors’ bids,” Ed Austin, spokesman for the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems, said in a statement. Three companies have…
The Navy and Marine Corps are soliciting ideas on how to reduce costs through better management of information technology, efficient business processes and improving cyber-related procurements. Under orders last year to cut information technology budgets by 25 percent over the next five years, the Department of the Navy is consolidating data centers, increasing the use of departmentwide software licenses and reducing cellphone costs. Navy and Marine Corps employees, industry, academia and the public are welcome to make recommendations. Submissions must include a brief discussion of the problem, a proposed scope, key assumptions, constraints and risks, costs, savings and other benefits and operational impacts. Email completed submission forms to…
The Department of the Navy has already taken steps to reduce information technology costs and cut its overall business IT budget by $2 billion over the next five years. Data center consolidation and greater scrutiny of IT purchases like mobile devices and software are expected to cut costs, said Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen in an interview. “That money has been taken out of those lines for accounting that would support buying those services,” Halvorsen said. “We’re beginning the execution in 2012,” but the savings run from 2013 to 2017. Following Halvorsen’s orders, both services have appointed a so-called Information Technology Expenditure Approval…