The Federal Aviation Administration has made progress with
its multibillion-dollar effort to modernize the national
air traffic control system but it still faces systems
acquisition problems, the Government Accountability Office
has said in a new report.
It said FAA’s performance-based Air Traffic Organization
was created in February 2004, partly to address cost,
schedule, and performance shortfalls in its system
acquisitions that stretch back over two decades and landed
the program on GAO’s high-risk list where it has remained
since 1995.
The agency met acquisition goals for 2004 but only because
they were based on revised program milestones and cost
targets and they are not a reliable benchmark that can be
used in isolation to measure progress, according to
GAO-05-331.
It said however, that while additional steps are necessary,
FAA has managed to cut funding for some major systems
after failing to meet goals and it reassessed capital
investments to channel funds to priority systems.
The report also noted improved management of
software-intensive acquisitions and IT investments and
said the ATO has begun to more effectively involve
stakeholders in the modernization effort, and at GAO’s
recommendation, ATO is planning an overall policy for
applying a process improvement model to
software-intensive acquisitions.
Despite these improvements, ATO needs to use “a
knowledge-based approach to managing system
acquisitions, characteristic of best commercial
practices, to help avoid cost, schedule, and
performance problems,” said GAO.
