By Scott Dorney, Executive Director
Rear Admiral W. Greg Shear, Jr. Commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), outlined three major challenges facing the Navy as it executes its military construction program – including $3 billion in North Carolina.
During his remarks at the NAVFAC Atlantic Industry Forum, Admiral Shear cited speed of execution, friction in acquisition processes and lifecycle costs as three issues that the Navy will need to solve to successfully execute its program. The Navy needs effective partnerships with industry to overcome these challenges – creating opportunities for North Carolina companies.
The issue of speed in execution is driven by requirements to provide high quality facilities on time to NAVFAC customers – Navy and Marine units, often returning from deployments to theaters worldwide. NAVFAC needs to shorten construction windows while improving job site safety (which has declined since 2006).
The Navy will continue to use the design build delivery method (75% for future NAVFAC Atlantic projects) and multiple award contract vehicles to reduce delivery times. However, NAVFAC Mid-Atlantic (responsible for North Carolina) indicated that 78% of its future projects will be awarded through stand alone acquisition processes – versus multiple award contracts.
To reduce friction in the acquisition process, Admiral Shear emphasized reducing contract transactions, reducing transaction costs and increasing use of performance-based contracts. Contractors stressed that the Navy also needs to shorten its acquisition cycle times – to reduce stress on contractors and free up bid bond capacity for other projects.
Reducing lifecycle costs will create opportunities for North Carolina companies that specialize in sustainable design and construction. The Navy will improve processes to measure and reduce the total cost of ownership of facilities worldwide. Admiral Shear emphasized that acquisition, design, construction and ultimate demolition of facilities may represent only 20% of lifecycle cost – with the other 80% being facilities maintenance and operational costs.
NAVFAC will increase emphasis on LEED (“silver certified” is the Navy standard) and low impact development (LID) processes in future military construction, and will develop and exploit renewable energy opportunities.
Design build teams that integrate into their designs and proposals processes to increase speed of delivery, improve safety and increase sustainability while reducing total life cycle costs will benefit from the Navy focus on these initiatives – and win more military construction projects in North Carolina.
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