As part of our audit coverage of the Service’s Year 2000 conversion effort, we conducted a follow-up review on the corrective actions associated with the century Date change (cDc) Project Office’s Phase III implementation. These corrective actions resulted from management’s response to Internal Audit recommendations as well as management initiatives undertaken after the Phase III implementation. We examined actions scheduled for completion by June 30, 1998.

Our review identified 32 corrective actions. Of these, 21 were completed on time. Nine other actions were not completed by June 30, 1998 while two others were completed by June 30, 1998, but after a delay of three months. Those actions that we considered critical are discussed below.

Our analysis identified three significant issues that still need to be resolved. One of these concerns the standard for the use of PIc(9) for date fields. In our initial review, we found components with the date field defined as a character field (‘PIc X’) and not as a numeric field (‘PIc 9’). The cDc Project Office is aware of the delay in issuing this standard and discussed the issue at the Executive Steering committee meeting in July 1998. There are two additional issues requiring management attention.

In a memorandum dated December 3, 1997, Internal Audit recommended that the cDc Project Office coordinate the development and issuance of documented procedures for recompiling all Service programs after related system macros are modified. Management, in its response to the memorandum, agreed to deal with this issue as part of an analysis of the process for developing and disseminating Systems Information Bulletins (SIB). This analysis was to be conducted during their internal review of the century Date change Phase III Implementation. The actions resulting from this effort did not, however, provide any additional guidance regarding the recompiling of Service programs after related system macros are modified.

The cDc Project Office has requested an additional four months to ensure that all Service functions develop test plans, test results, Source code compliance Forms and Unit Test checklists for all Tier I, II and III cOTS products. The original implementation date for this corrective action was June 1, 1998. The effective date for this corrective action has been postponed until October 1, 1998, to coincide with the completion of a self-certification process introduced by Product Assurance on July 8, 1998. Although Product Assurance plans to review a 5% sample of the self-certification documents before October 1, this review will focus on the existence of documents and is not directed at evaluating the quality of the documentation and the effectiveness of the testing. Because of the schedule for the end-to-end test (Test 1 in July/August 1998 and Test 2 in November 1998), the offices responsible for systems and cOTS products need to provide adequate evidence before October 1, 1998, that vital cOTS products included in the end-to-end test have been tested for Year 2000 compliance.

The following recommendations require additional attention to correct the original condition.

At the time of this final report we had not received management’s response. We were informed that management is developing actions to address our concerns and will provide us with a written description of their proposed corrective actions at a later date