68The Military Engineer l November-December l 2009 control areas—planning and schedul- ing; material procurement and man- agement; and quality assurance, quality control and turnover—and developed or adopted innovative approaches to address the projects speci?c needs. Planning and Scheduling The team ?rst developed a milestone plan outlining the major components of the project: relocation, remediation, de- molition, site and utility development, vertical construction, and unit turnover. These six components became the basis for the development of each individual parcel. The 72 major activities resulting from this initial analysis became the ba- sis for the entire project schedule. Eventually the plan evolved into a comprehensive project schedule. The ?- nal product detailed all scopes of work, on a daily basis, for the entire four years of construction. With more than 170,000 individual activities, the schedule was broken into three manageable phases. The comprehensive daily schedule al- lowed the team to run numerous scenar- ios early in the initial construction phase to con?rm the feasibility of potential revisions, based on the overall impact to the project, before implementing the decisions in the ?eld. Even with this degree of planning, the team met weekly to review the ap- proach and evaluate progress. As a re- sult, obstacles such as the governments and the developers need to change re- location requirements or the need for speci?c housing types early in the proj- ect were identi?ed as early as possible. Such obstacles have been common, but early identi?cation has allowed the project to remain clearly on schedule. Materials: Supply & Demand Projects have always been at the mer- cy of material suppliers—and without the timely delivery of materials, con- struction does not progress. To mini- mize such potential impacts on the su- per-base project, United Communities established a material control center near the project site dedicated to sup- plying almost all required construction and ?nish materials. The project team worked with every subcontractor to de- termine daily material requirements, coordinated with vendors to establish competitive rates and essentially be- came the material vendor for every sub- contractor on the project. Despite the considerable risk of a sin- gle vendor providing concrete, under- ground utility piping, electrical com- ponents, framing materials, interior ?nishes and even bath accessories and appliances, United Communities has so successfully provided materials at the super-base site that Sundt plans to implement the same concept on other projects. Quality and Turnover To support the super-base missions in concert with GWOT, there was a critical need to turn over housing units for oc- cupancy as quickly as possible. To meet this requirement, the team developed a program to maximize the turnover rates and minimize re-work. To make this concept a reality, two aspects of turn- over had to be addressed and improved upon: quality of work and accessibility. Quality. Quality housing for military families at McGuire AFB and Fort Dix was the teams top priority. Sustaining the quality of construction throughout the construction process was an imperative. To address these items, Sundt developed a construction quality control (CQC) plan based on the U.S. Army Corps of Engi- neers three-phase control process. The CQC plan incorporates prepara- tory, initial and follow-up inspections for every de?nable feature of work. The preparatory inspection is performed prior to beginning any work and ad- ditionally before beginning each seg- ment of work. Preparatory inspection includes a review of contract require- ments, a review of approved submit- tal data and veri?cation that required preliminary work has been completed. Initial inspection, which takes place as soon as a representative segment of the particular item of work has been ac- complished, includes an examination of workmanship and a review for compli- ance with contract requirements, exclu- sion of defective or damaged materials, omissions and dimensional require- ments. Lastly, follow-up inspections are performed as necessary to ensure con- tinued compliance with the contract re- quirements, including control testing, until completion of work. Accessibility. During the development of the project schedule, an opportunity was identi?ed to improve site access and shorten construction time. The team de- veloped a program whereby various par- cels were severed from the base proper and accessed from outside the base during construction. The plan required parcels to be constructed to allow hous- ing units to be reincorporated within the secured area of the base before the entire parcel area was completed, thus maxi- mizing the new housing occupancy/ turnover rate. As construction at a given parcel is ready to begin, the area is severed from the base by relocating the perimeter fence to form a construction zone. Work within the parcel is sequenced to create sections—sometimes as few as 15 homes—that can be reincorporated into the base once work is completed, allowing the balance of ongoing con- struction within the parcel to continue unimpeded. Further complicating an already complex task of planning and coordina- tion was the need to maintain security. This plan was bene?cial to contractors and the Air Force and Army in that base security checkpoints would not im- pede site access for the contractor and approved workers, and base security would not have to deal with processing the more than 300 individuals access- ing the site each day. Summary By focusing on three distinct ele- ments of the construction process with the intent of improving each aspect in- dependently, the team at the McGuire AFB and Fort Dix super-base project has developed a highly-ef?cient system for construction of privatized military housing that minimizes the impact to base operations; delivers a quality product in a timely manner; provides enhanced control of the entire con- struction process; and identi?es op- portunities for timely improvement throughout the process. James R. Dravet is Senior Project Manager, McGuire AFB/Fort Dix Public-Private Ven- ture; 609-723-3333, or jrdravet@sundt.com.