A data analysis of Naval Air Systems Command funding documents

Abstract

This research looks at the financial transactions that occurred within United States Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) between fiscal years 2012--2016. It analyzes over 180 thousand transactions with a total value in excess of 146 billion dollars. NAVAIR uses the Navy Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to process its financial transactions and, since its implementation, there has been an increase in the overall number of transactions. As a result, there is an effort underway to reduce the number of transactions. This research provides insights into NAVAIR business practices, develops a metric with which to gauge efficiency and benchmark performance, and provides a few simple linear regression equations to determine adherence to the newly established benchmarks. We conclude that 55% of NAVAIR financial transactions are intergovernmental and that they are responsible for 80% of all transactions requiring amendments. We were also able to determine that the number of line items on a purchase request grows by 39% for intergovernmental transactions when requiring amendments. These findings indicate that intergovernmental transactions are easy to amend. Therefore, we recommend placing more purchase request line items on a single purchase request and working to reduce the number of intergovernmental transactions requiring amendments.