How would you manage the projects below?
- A. Construct a 15,000-person city in the middle of the Saudi Arabian Desert, placing over 200,000 cubic yards of concrete and 150,000 board feet of lumber. Project must be complete in six weeks.
- B. Send 400 laborers and over 2,500 tons of tools and equipment to Charleston, South Carolina; Puerto Rico; Vieques; and Antigua Islands in less than nine days. Once on site, complete over 150 disaster recovery projects estimated at 3,500 labor-days to restore complete U.S. Navy capabilities in these four locations within two months after Hurricane Hugo.
- C. Manage 30,000 labor-days of construction every seven months, with crews located in Japan, Alaska, Korea or in Spain, Italy, Scotland and Greece.
THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTION FORCE
The U.S. Navy has units that stand ready to respond to three distinct missions:
- Wartime contingency construction
- Disaster recovery operations
- Peacetime construction
Collectively, these units comprise the Naval Construction Force (NCF), made up of two types of service members: Civil Engineer Corps (CEC) Officers and Seabees. CEC officers may also serve outside of the NCF as Navy construction contract administration representatives or Naval Base facility managers worldwide. The Seabees are tradespeople, grouped into seven separate areas of construction:
- Builder: carpentry, roofing, concrete, interior finish
- Steelworker: welding and fabricating all types of metals
- Engineering aid: surveying, design, drafting and material testing
- Construction electrician: electrical
- Utilitiesman: plumbing
- Equipment operator: heavy equipment operation
- Construction mechanic: heavy equipment maintenance and repair.
CEC officers typically are educated and experienced in project management. Seabees, however, are more akin to construction workers, although their individual skills are more diversified.
THE ORGANIZATION
The management organization has three distinct levels: Level I, Level II and Level III. Managers at each level perform the same project management functions at a varying level of detail. These functions include:
- Construction logic
- Precedence networks
- Barchart development
- Material management
- Equipment management
- Labor resource allocation
- Progress tracking and reporting
To understand the entire philosophy, one must first recognize the inherent level of expertise, education and experience at each level. The organization for these units is shown in Figure 1.
MANAGEMENT SKILL LEVELS
Level I: The Operations Department. The Operations Officer is typically a registered professional engineer with an advanced engineering degree and 10-14 years experience in a broad range of facilities management positions within public works and contract administration. The Operations Chief Petty Officer is a superior skilled technician and a trained manager with 18-20 years of construction experience. This upper level manages unit-wide construction and is concerned with every project under construction by the entire unit.
Level II: The Company or Detail. The Company Commander or Detail Officer-in-charge is typically a registered engineer in training with a bachelor's degree in engineering and 4-8 years experience as a project manager. The Company or Detail Chief Petty Officer is a superior skilled technician and a trained manager with 14-20 years of construction experience. This middle level manages a portion of the unit's construction projects, grouped either by geographical location (for a detail) or by type of construction (vertical, utility or horizontal) at the main site.
Level III: The Construction Crew. The crewleader normally has no post high school education and only 2-4 years construction experience. When first assigned, the crewleader typically has no management training or experience. This lowest level manages a single project, typically with a crew of fewer than 20 members.
MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY
The Naval Construction Force has developed a single management philosophy to meet the challenges of all three missions. The center for this philosophy is the Navy's application of Total Quality Management, which we call Total Quality Leadership. The bottom line: project management is in the hands of the lowest level of leadership for planning and execution. Input, based on hard data from the individual project leaders, is then used by middle and upper management to manage limited available resources in accordance with mission tasking and priorities for the unit as a whole. This system is demonstrated graphically in Figure 2.
During both the planning and execution phases, the input from the lowest level drives any adjustments required from the upper levels. Although unit missions and therefore their priorities may change, the same system is used to replan and reallocate resources.
Figure 1. Typical Naval Construction Force Operations Organization
Figure 2. The Project Planning and Management Process
For example, in the middle of a previously planned seven-month rotation in Guam, a battalion sent 250 direct labor personnel to assist in the evacuation and clean-up of Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines, after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The management challenge here was twofold: first, we had to plan and execute the recovery operations, and second, we had to revise all construction efforts remaining in Guam.
The only difference, especially in a contingency, is the amount of time available for training and planning. For example, these units have a 48-hour ready-response subunit: 89 people and over 400 tons of equipment prepared to deploy at anytime, anywhere in the world. Before they get on the plane or ship, however, they will complete this entire planning process to ensure they have an achievable construction plan that can be supported by the labor, tool and equipment resources they carry with them. This planning process may have to be complete in less than 12 hours to allow time to physically prepare, pack and ship the required assets.
This system also allows for constant planning reviews during the execution portion. Accordingly, a maximum amount of time is dedicated to training and planning during peacetime periods. This management system, and associated training, prepares the Naval Construction Force to be effective and efficient in responding to construction requirements during combat or disaster recovery operations. In keeping with Total Quality Leadership, the NCF delegates a tremendous amount of responsibility and authority to the lowest leadership level, making the success of peacetime construction management efforts critical to readiness.
NATURE OF THE BUSINESS
Since these NCF units stand ready to deploy into combat zones, they carry a dual mission: construction and combat. To be effective as infantry fighters, they must develop cohesive, small units in a very rigid structure. This same structure is applied to the construction organization to continue small unit leadership development. Accordingly, the labor resources are not managed to the construction project. Rather, the project is scheduled to require the same number of labor resources everyday for the duration of the project. Therefore, a squad that works together as a construction crew will be the same as the squad that performs a reconnaissance patrol into enemy territory.
This unique dual organization imposes a further restriction on construction management and actually makes the military task more difficult. Accordingly, members of all three management levels must tailor their project management skills and focus on this additional requirement as well. The end product of project planning, therefore, is a project schedule with a straight line progress curve, resource leveled to a fixed number of daily labor resources.
Finally, in a NCF unit, contracts are written in labor-days of effort and therefore the profit/loss margin is calculated in labor-days expended vs. work in place as originally estimated. Add to this the fact that projects are typically planned 3,000 miles from the site with no site visit, the challenge to the management system is obvious.
THE ANSWER
The answer to the challenge is meticulous training. The Civil Engineer Corps Officer School in Port Heuneme, California, provides construction management training to all three levels within the organization. Training for Level I and II students is largely a review from their formal education or practical experience, with careful guidance on the newest policies, management and communication.
At the Level III stage, however, the school is challenged to train students with no formal post high school education and little experience in standard project management techniques. The provided course is two weeks long, with one week dedicated to project planning and one week dedicated to execution and on-site management. All the standard skills requirements are presented, including the Navy's current project management software package. Most students enter this phase of training with little or no computer experience.
Optimally, both officer and enlisted personnel will attend the same project management training provided for all three levels at various times during their training period. Each level of management is given an overview of the requirements of the other levels to ensure strong, positive communication and an understanding of the entire management philosophy. This in turn creates an environment of mutual respect and trust, which readies the entire unit to provide the support necessary for successful construction.
THE RESULTS
The 50-year history of the Naval Construction Force stands as testimony to this management philosophy. The three projects in the opening paragraph of this article were, in fact, completed in the stated timeframes. Recognizing that the success of the unit relies on the project management skills of the lowest level of leadership (in many cases a 20-year-old high school graduate), the success of the current training program is evident. The Naval Construction Force trains during peacetime to be prepared in the face of uncertainty: their success during the Persian Gulf War and recent disaster recovery operations is proof of an effective training program.
Steven R. Wolfe, Lieutenant, U.S. Nay Civil Engineer Corps, is the lead construction management instructor at the Naval School, Civil Engineer Corps Officers, in Port Hueneme, California. After receiving a B.S. in civil engineering at Berkeley and completion of Officer Candidate School, he served as a construction contract administrator on Guam, and as a company commander and training officer with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Three. He is Seabee Combat Warfare qualified and an engineer in training in the Territory of Guam.
Luann R. Swanberg, Engineering Aid First Class (Seabee Combat Warfare), has a B.S. in industrial education (concentrations in construction and drafting) from Illinois State University, and soon a M.S. in business organizational management from the University of LaVerne. She has served in the U.S. Navy for- nine-and-a-half years as a draftsperson/surveyor in Connecticut, Canada, and Antarctica. For the last three years she has taught construction management and total quality leadership to all levels of management in the Naval Construction Force at the civil Engineer Corps officers School in Port Heuneme, California.