Book Description

The Air Force has instituted a successful program to achieve improved productivity and cost control by contractors producing major weapons. It involves the Military Standard (MIL-STD) 1567 which establishes a contractual requirement for integrated and disciplined work measurement systems in manufacturing operations. Work measurement is a technique for collecting data on work hours and production of work units to determine the relationship between work performed and work hours expended. The resulting data is used to evaluate areas of low productivity for the early identification of potential improvements in personnel planning, scheduling, manufacturing, budgeting, performance, evaluation, methods improvement, and cost control. GAO believes that early application of MIL-STD-1567 to all Department of Defense (DOD) major acquisition contracts could result in improved productivity and cost control. However, successful implementation will not be achieved in a timely manner without the support of top-level DOD and military service management.