DHS Could Improve Learning From Past Acquisition Mistakes Like ASP Radiation Detection, Says GAO
The Department of Homeland Security should have been more resolute in its attempt to learn from the agency's failed advanced spectroscopic portal monitor (ASP) radiation detection program, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Prioritizing "lessons learned" reviews would improve the agency's procurement's efforts and avoid the mistakes that surrounded the ASP program. But DHS still doesn't have a formal process to immediately conduct such reviews, it said.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) failed to immediately conduct lessons learned reviews upon cancellation of the ASP program in 2010. The program was designed to both detect radiation and identify the source as benign, suspect, or a threat in cargo containers and trucks at U.S. ports of entry, but it triggered false alarms in common items like kitty litter and granite, the report said. Though DNDO did conduct a lessons learned review about the canceled program and prepared a lessons learned report, the report was prepared and disseminated two years after final ASP testing and around a year after the program was canceled, GAO said. According to the GAO report, this delay “suggests that timely identification of lessons learned was not a DHS priority.”
Acquisition guidance for DHS requires lessons learned reports “immediately” after a program is canceled but is not an institutional requirement, which experts consulted by GAO highly recommended. In addition, DHS lacks documented processes for component agencies to follow in the preparation and dissemination of these reports throughout the department, the report said. Until lessons learned reviews become an institutional requirement, GAO said that DHS could miss opportunities to improve future chances of success for “billions of dollars” in future acquisition programs.