Contractor Recommendations for Spares Provisioning of the F/A-18 C/D Aircraft

Provisioning is the management process of determining and acquiring the range and quantity of support items necessary to initially operate an end item such as an aircraft. For spares provisioning of the FA-18 CD aircraft, the Naval Air Systems Command required the prime contractor to recommend the items needed for initial support of the aircraft and to determine whether the items were already stocked by DoD or were new candidates for procurement. The contractor was also required to provide forecasting factors to the Naval Aviation Depot, North Island, for review and approval prior to submission to the Navy Aviation Supply Office for use in its requirements computation model. The primary objectives of the audit were to determine if the Navy was receiving adequate and timely data on provisioning of spares from contractors to serve as a sound basis for initial purchase of spares for new weapon systems, and to determine if the Navy had effective internal control procedures in place to review and evaluate the quality of contractor estimates and forecasting factors before approving procurement of the initial quantities.