GRAFENWOEHR, Germany - It was the U.S. Army's biggest construction project in Europe since the 1950s - and it was delivered on scope, on time and most importantly, on budget.
For the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Efficient Basing Grafenwoehr was not business as usual. The U.S. Army Europe initiative to consolidate command and control headquarters and six battalion-sized elements consisted of more than 150 projects valued at close to $1 billion with the Europe District managing about $100 million each year since 2001.
Succeeding in bringing this massive construction projects to fruition required innovative approaches to organization and acquisition, said Col. John Kem, USACE Europe District commander, in his speech during the official EB-G Transition Ceremony April 28.
"Normally, each U.S. Army construction project in Germany is dealt with individually, with U.S. and German experts coming together to iron out project-specific differences in standards, processes, criteria and preferences," he said. "That just wasn't going to work here. The magnitude and timeline demanded an entirely new model for collaboration."
Because the projects were in Germany, U.S. engineers had to follow a U.S.-German agreement to work through BauAfA$mter, or German state construction offices. That extra layer of bureaucracy have could potentially slowed down these critical projects, said Peter Barth, USACE's EB-G regional program manager, were it not for a unique solution - to develop a Baudeinstelle, or construction service location, where highly-qualified professionals from both U.S. and German sides would come together and dedicate their time solely to the Grafenwoehr program.
According to Barth, the Baudeinstelle was probably the most important factor to the success of this extraordinarily large and fast-paced program, as it shortened lines of communication. Rather than waiting for e-mails or playing phone tag with each other, Barth said the group - comprised of members from the Corps of Engineers, the Grafenwoehr Army Garrison and BauAfA$mter - could literally walk down the hall to deliver a message.
"We made the communication process more efficient just by utilizing face-to-face meetings and verbal communication," Barth said. "We had open communication with the garrison and with the BauAfA$mter and we identified problems very early so we could come up with the right ways to compensate."
Moreover, the team also provided continuity uncommon within many military construction projects.
"On the U.S. side, we are challenged with the rotation of people every few years," Barth said. "Programming began in 2000 and construction began in 2002 - that's 10 years for this program. We had to take the approach of keeping people as long as possible."
Additionally, rather than approaching the EB-G effort as individual projects, the team looked at the effort as a whole program.
"We needed to know what the impact of one project would be on another if it was not constructed, and what the impact would be to the garrison if we completed one facility that cut off access to the construction site of another facility," Barth said. "When you see it as a program, you see the benefits and impacts of each project to the next."
By taking this program perspective, the team could discern what utility needs were to support all the new facilities and in what sequence infrastructure needed to be constructed. Any traffic issues, earth management, site accessibility and even contractor access to the post all needed to be considered on the whole.
"For instance, with more than 150 projects, we had a lot of cut and fill going on. We would reuse material created by one project as fill material for the next project," Barth said.
Soil management provided a unique challenge. Grafenwoehr's training area was a German military site during World War II until it was bombed. Environmental contamination was not as scrutinized as it is today.
"We had to do a significant cleanup of the site - oil spills, waste from the war and even an anti-aircraft gun buried in the ground," Barth said. "The challenge here is that we really had to include host nation federal agencies like the water protection board. They were very concerned about limiting contaminations, coordinating cleanup, and the use of partially-contaminated material."
In spite of the environmental concerns, the EB-G team came up with a plan to reuse crushed asphalt and concrete rather than disposing it in a landfill and purchasing gravel, which saved roughly $1.5 million.
Keeping the project on budget and on schedule was one of the most challenging aspects of the project, according to Barth.
Despite the holistic approach, Barth said they still had to piece-meal the program into $2 million to $20 million bite-sized projects that allowed multiple local contractors to participate - an approach that differs from similar stateside projects and could have caused delays.
"One contractor means less layers and less schedules to coordinate - less individual projects," he said. "But it was give and take. Breaking down the program to individual projects benefited the local industry, which helped garner public support from the German community."
Another cause for potential delays was the German weather, Barth said. With budgets approved mid-October, contracts could not be awarded right away due to harsh winter conditions.
"It was a permanent struggle to deliver the projects in time," Barth said, as some projects had to be split into parts that could be worked immediately and parts that were weather-dependent.
To save time, the team worked to develop contracting and solicitation methods that shortened the time the BauAfA$mter needed for an award.
"We really tried to have an interactive process during the award process," Barth said. "The BauAfA$mter would work on their bid package while we worked parallel on our award package. We had preliminary discussions with them about where the bid is and if we would need additional money."
Another time-saving technique was the decision to bring in U.S. companies to design the larger projects that required an understanding of U.S. administrative processes.
"We pulled in U.S. design companies for the schools, for example, because they had an excellent understanding about what our school needs would be," Barth said. "So the U.S. company came up with the basic design and got together with the German company to convert that design into German specifications."
Finally, the push to use or adapt available U.S. military design standards played a critical part in keeping the program on time and on budget.
"Even though the German architects have a tendency to bring in a little of their design culture, we really were sticking to the plan in making repetitive designs and constructed 12 similar barracks buildings or six similar looking vehicle maintenance shops," Barth said.
At the same time, the team added efficiency features to make the facilities greener and easier to maintain.
"We have to meet host nation standards in terms of energy conservation, which are pretty high, so a lot of the facilities are very efficient in terms of reusable energy and even in terms of using local construction materials so we didn't have to import it from all over the world," Barth said.
In total, EB-G provided the facilities to change the former 1,000-Soldier garrison into an installation that could support more than 3,500 Soldiers and over 5,000 family members.
"It is an understatement to say it was a lot of work," Kem said at the ceremony. "But somehow our engineers, architects and master planners made it look easy."
Projects included the Netzaberg Housing Area with 830 three- and four-bedroom units; a shopping center that boasts a 250-seat food court, PX, commissary and concessions mall; troop billet buildings, company buildings and motor pools; a physical fitness center with a running track and multi-purpose field; upgraded medical facilities; and a modern dining facility.
"This program has turned Grafenwoehr from the Army's premiere training facility outside the United States to a truly modern, highly-developed, community," Kem said. "It's a station of choice and a community of excellence."
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