NASA improving "high risk" procurement

This just in from Eun Kyung Kim in Washington:

WASHINGTON - NASA's acquisition management remains on a list of federal programs at "high risk" for waste and abuse, but the government auditors who released the report Thursday also praised the agency for taking "significant steps" toward improving long-time concerns.

NASA has made great strides in strengthening project management, improving accuracy in estimating costs and better monitoring contractor performance since a similar report released in 2007 by the Government Accountability Office.

However, the GAO estimates it will take NASA "several years to fully implement these initiations and transform the agency into an organization that delivers the kind of analysis and forward-looking information needed to effectively manage its many complex programs."

Further complicating any changes is NASA's attempt to retire the space shuttle program while beginning work on its replacement, Constellation.

The transition will effect a "large span of NASA's workforce and its contractors and could detract attention from acquisition management reforms," the GAO said. "However, this transition also provides a good opportunity for NASA to implement its reforms."

The GAO originally listed NASA's acquisition management on its biannual report of "high-risk areas" in 1990 because of the way the space agency failed to rein in schedule slippage in most of its major contractor projects, resulting in "persistent cost growth."

You can read the GAO report here.