TABLE 39.-Production equipment inventory by type and military department as of June 30, 1958 1 Includes $92,503,000 for cost of installing machine tools and $16,899,000 for cost of machine tools located outside continental United States. TABLE 40. Metalworking equipment costing $500 or more each in continental United States, by military department and production equipment codes as of June 30, 1958 The total number of metalworking equipment items in the Department of Defense on June 30, 1958, was 245,900. About 3,500 of these machine tools are in Navy use in overseas areas. Other items of production equipment controlled by the military departments totaled 272,800. Of this latter equipment, about 5,500 items are located outside continental United States. In addition to the 87,800 machine tools, the Army reports that it has 172,800 other items of production equipment in use and in reserve which are used in the manufacture of various military end items and components. This production equipment, other than metalworking, had an acquisition cost of $1,813 million. All of the Army production equipment is within continental United States. Included in the Navy production equipment totals (apart from any production equipment in the supply system data) are 81,500 machine tools and 69,000 other items of production equipment such as railroad transportation, electrical distribution, materials handling, and construction and excavating equipment. The 69,000 items of production equipment other than metalworking had an acquisition cost of $366 million. In addition to the 76,600 machine tools, totaling slightly over $1 billion, the Air Force had 31,000 other production equipment items such as airfield maintenance, materials handling, and excavating equipment. These latter items cost at acquisition $190 million. The Air Force also reports 36,500 items of capital plant equipment with an acquisition cost of $173 million. None of the above are included in the Air Force supply system data. SECTION C. INVENTORIES HELD IN INDUSTRIAL FUNDS Working capital funds are authorized by section 405 of title IV of the National Security Act, as amended. The use of industrial funds. permits the financing of industrial or commercial type activities and the development of production costs to be used as a basis for charging the appropriations of customers for the products or services furnished to them by the activity financed by the fund. As of June 30, 1958, 55 activities in the Department of Defense were operated under industrial fund charters. The Army had 25; the Navy 55 (including 27 separate printing activities); the Air Force 2 (1 of which is a printing activity located in 8 different plants and 1 a laundry and dry-cleaning activity operated at 50 installations). The total inventories, consisting of raw materials, supplies, and work in process, held in all industrial funds in the Department of Defense amounted to $352 million on June 30, 1958. The industrial fund inventories for each group of activities within each Department are shown in table 41. TABLE 41.-Industrial fund inventories as of June 30, 1958 SECTION D. SURPLUS PERSONAL PROPERTY IN HANDS OF PROPERTYDISPOSAL OFFICERS As of June 30, 1958, the value of the worldwide surplus and foreign excess property inventory of the Department of Defense amounted to $4,175 million, of which $3,564 million, or 85.4 percent, was in continental United States and $611 million, or 14.6 percent, was overseas or foreign excess (table 42). TABLE 42.-Surplus and foreign excess property inventories held by property-disposal officers as of June 30, 1958 Of the total amount of surplus and foreign excess property inventories held by property disposal officers the Army reported $1,200 million or 28.7 percent; Navy (including Marine Corps) $1,873 million or 44.9 percent; Air Force $1,102 million or 26.4 percent. The Army reported that 69.3 percent of their total surplus and foreign excess inventories held by property disposal officers was in continental United States while 30.7 percent was in foreign countries. The Navy surplus and foreign excess inventories held by property disposal officers were reported as 98.8 percent in the continental United States and only 1.2 percent in foreign countries. Air Force reports that 80 percent of their surplus and foreign excess inventories was located within the continental United States and 20 percent located in foreign countries. SECTION E. NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RESERVE 1. General Public Law 883, 80th Congress, the National Industrial Reserve. Act of 1948, provides for establishing adequate measures whereby an essential nucleus of Govern- The properties still owned by the Government are managed by the General Services Administration (as successor to the Federal Works Agency) under general policies established by the Secretary of Defense. Since the Department of Defense has a contingent claim and production priority rights in all the national industrial reserve plants including those which GSA has disposed of with a national security clause and those plants leased, or in GSA custody, data on these are 33294-58 included in this section of this report. However, none of the properties in this reserve has been included in the totals for real property (pt. I) or metalworking equipment (pt. II, sec. B) of this report because they are held by GSA. 2. Plant reserves The national industrial plant reserve contained 83 facilities as of June 30, 1958. The sponsoring military department and status of these plants on that date were: In keeping with Department of Defense policy to release as many reserve plants as possible to private corporations, 68 of the 83 plants have been sold subject to appropriate restrictions and recapture clauses, 13 are being operated under lease or contract agreement, and the remaining 2 plants in the reserve are being maintained at Government expense by the General Services Administration. The net residual acquisition cost (original cost of construction and acquisition of entire plant less portions previously disposed of) of the 83 plants now in the reserve was $1.03 billion. This cost is made up of $902 million for the 68 plants which have been sold to private interests and $124 million for the 15 plants still in custody of the Government. The status of the 83 plants by category of product is shown in table 43. Of the 15 plants still owned by the Government, 8 produce basic raw materials or products in the magnesium, iron and steel, and miscellaneous metal fields, and 7 are producing military end items and components in the aircraft and tank automotive fields. The 2 idle plants in the reserve consist of 2 magnesium facilities sponsored by the Air Force. TABLE 43.-National industrial reserve plants, by status and category of product, as of June 30, 1958 3. Equipment reserve The total number of items of production equipment in the national industrial equipment reserve on June 30, 1958, was 4,990 as compared with 4,648 1 year ago. The original acquisition cost of these items was $16.4 million. Of the total of 4,990 items in the reserve, 2,395 are carried in the central inventory of the production equipment redistribution group, available for lease to overcome production shortages of qualified contractors engaged in defense-supporting production. The remaining 2,595 equipment items are held in reserve for additional defense support and essential civilian production in the event of mobilization. PART III. PROGRESS IN RECORDING AND REPORTING PROPERTIES SECTION A. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PUBLISHED DIRECTIVES AND INSTRUCTIONS AND CURRENT PROJECTS PERTAINING TO PROPERTY ACCOUNTING AND REPORTING A digest of the principal regulations, directives, and instructions which provide for the recording or reporting of inventory data which have been issued by the Office of the Secretary of Defense since the enactment of title IV of the National Security Act and were in effect as of June 30, 1958, is presented in this part of the report. These current directives and instructions, in some instances, supersede or revise earlier directives and instructions on the subject of property accounting and reporting. 1. Regulation covering the operation of working capital funds for industrial and commercial-type establishments (industrial funds), issued July 13, 1950, as amended September 7, 1950 These regulations provide for the establishment of three industrial funds-one in each military department. They also establish the policy for the initial transfer of funds, inventories, and properties to the industrial funds; the handling of work orders and reimbursements for such work; provision for accounting and cost accounting systems; authorization to incur obligations and expend funds; budgetary control; reporting on operations; and auditing. 2. Military assistance program supply performance report (DOD Instruction 2110.27), issued June 10, 1958 This instruction prescribes procedures for the direction and preparation of summary quantitative data which will serve as the basis for official reports of the DOD under the military assistance program. The reports will make available comprehensive summaries of the military assistance program to the Department of Defense, the Congress and other Federal agencies. 3. Aircraft inventory record series (DOD Instruction 3232.3); issued March 23, 1956 This instruction establishes a uniform aircraft inventory record series within the Department of Defense in order to ensure that an accurate accountability and inventory record control of components installed in aircraft may be maintained. This requirement is applicable to all aircraft including those subject to interdepartment transfer, maintenance cross-servicing, and utilization by National Guard units, Reserve training units and the mutual defense assistance program. |