AGENCY ACTIVITIES DISPLACED BY PROJECT SAFE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R001200140012-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 2005
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: November 22, 1974
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Releae 2006/02/01 : CIA-RDP80B01495R00W0014
22 November 1974
MEMORANDUM FOR: Comptroller
SUBJECT Agency Activities Displaced by Project
SAFE
1. This memorandum is in response to the OMB request
for cost data on Agency activities that will be displaced by
Project SAFE when full-scale implementation is completed in
FY 1980. It is not possible at this time to make any cost
benefit analysis of the SAFE-system. The whole thrust of
SAFE is toward improvement of the Agency's intelligence
product by using computer technology to provide new analytical
techniques and data bases and quicker access to and manipula-
tion of these data bases. Chapter VII of the Project SAFE
report does suggest areas where savings might result but
correctly states that savings cannot be projected until the
system design is completed and phased implementation has
begun.
2. It is equally difficult at this early stage of SAFE
development to be precise about the many Agency activities
that eventually will be subsumed. We have identified two
areas where we can see major displacements and have attempted
to project these for OMB. There is overlap between these
areas so the displacements are not unique and separate.
3. We know that the SAFE system will displace a signifi-
cant amount of OJCS resources now currently allocated or
planned for CRS and five production offices (OSR, OER, OSI,
OCI, and OPR). The SAFE system will also subsume some OJCS
costs for supporting OWI, OBGI, IAS and FBIS. We project
the annual cost to OJCS for all of these Offices in FY 1980
at $10.7 million of which $7.1 million (65%) will be displaced
by the SAFE system. This displacement figure is subject to
several caveats, the strongest being that only a fraction of
it represents potential savings, probably $1.6 million.
These figures are tenuous for the following reasons:
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 Approved For Relea&e 2006/02/01 : CIA-RDP80B01495R00 0140012-4
SUBJECT: Agency Activities Displaced by Project SAFE
a. Fixed Costs--A significant portion of OJCS
current and projected computer system costs are fixed;
that is, they do not vary directly with the cost of
individual activities. (It was this fact that permitted
the absorption of the CRS computer workload by OJCS a
year ago.) Large computer central processors and
related operational and maintenance costs are the
principal elements of these fixed costs. No direct
savings from the SAFE system can be found in such
costs, but the resources freed by the SAFE system can
be used in part to cover SAFE costs and in part to
absorb some of the expected growth of non-SAFE
requirements.
b. Suspect Cost Projections--The projected cost
of FY 1980 activities that would be supplanted by the
SAFE system was based on FY 1974 experience; that is,
the ratio of SAFE-like costs to total costs for each
office was assumed to be unchanged in 1980. A SAFE
system obviously will unpredictably perturb these
ratios. The OJCS support to the offices affected by
the SAFE system for both system development and opera-
tion in FY 1975 will be approximately $6 million.
Projected costs to support these offices in FY 1980 is
$10.7 million of which we estimated $7.1 million would
be displaced by the SAFE system. The largest displace-
ment will be in CRS whose computer requirements using
both CRS and OJCS resources are estimated at $7.9
million in FY 1980. The SAFE system would displace
about 75% or about $5.9 million of the CRS requirement.
c. Unavailability of Programmed Fund Totals--
Costs can be displaced and money saved only if funds
are allocated. The estimated displacement of $7.1
million assumes that budgets will be approved at the
level needed to meet the required growth in computer
activities without SAFE. Using FY 1972-75 figures and
assuming a constant rate of change, the OJCS and CRS
computer budget would be by FY 1980.
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 Approved For Relee 2006/02/01 : CIA-RDP80B01495R00400140012-4
SUBJECT: Agency Activities Displaced by Project SAFE
4. Another technique for tentatively estimating SAFE
displacements is to examine the Agency costs associated with
the handling of paper receipts that will be displaced by the
SAFE system. CRS and the Cable Secretariat annually dissem-
inate about 20 million paper copies of messages that arrive
in the Agency in electrical form. We estimate the annual
printing costs for these 20 million paper copies at $200,000.
There are very few governmental studies on the "total paper
cost." A 1955 Hoover Commission Task Force found that for
every dollar the federal government spent on printing, it
spent an additional $20 to process the printed material.
Agency Forms Management officials now estimate the Hoover
Commission ratio as closer to $40. Using this $1 to $40
ratio, Agency paper processing costs are $8 million annually
to handle the 20 million electrical messages that are printed
at an annual cost of $200,000. These Agency costs include
supplies, equipment, space and manpower expenditures necessary
to read, disseminate, file, retrieve, store and destroy the
20 million electrical message copies. Not all of this $8
million annual cost will be displaced by the SAFE system;
but the curtailment and, in some instances, cessation of
this large paper flow could result in savings of $4 million,
half of the estimated figure of $8 million.
5. The displacement figures discussed in paragraphs 3
and 4 are not precise and overlap in an unknown degree.
They do indicate, however, there will be several major
Agency activities that will be partially or totally displaced
by the SAFE system. In the area of OJCS computer support to
production offices, we estimate an annual displacement of
$7.1 million of which $1.6 could be actual savings. Using a
different approach which most likely includes many of the
OJCS computer costs, we estimate an annual displacement of
$4 million in the Agency activities associated with dissemina-
ting, reading, storing, retrieving and destroying of the
electrical messages now handled in paper form. These displace-
ments, no matter which you chose, however, are not the major
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SUBJECT: Agency Activities Displaced by Project SAFE
justification for implementing the SAFE system. SAFE's
major benefits are an improved and more timely intelligence
product, a reduction in the handling and movement of paper,
and a more integrated use of those Agency computer resources
devoted to intelligence production.
H. C. EISENBEISS
Director, Central Reference Service
("' HARRY E. FITZWATER
Director, Joint Computer Support
Distribution:
Orig. &
1 -
Addressee
2
OD/CRS
2 -
OD/OJCS
yam-
ADDI
1 -
DDA
1 - DDI MS
1 -
C/SAS/CRS
1 -
C/DSG/CRS
1 -
C/SSD/CRS
1 -
C/ISG/CRS
STAT
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