74The Military Engineer ? July-August ? 2010 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 wait- ing for e-mails or playing phone tag, Barth said the group—comprised of members from USACE, the Grafenwoehr Army Gar- rison and Bauämter—could walk down the hall to deliver a message. We made the communication process more ef?- cient just by utilizing face-to-face meet- ings and verbal communication. We had open communication with the garrison and with the Bauämter and we identi?ed problems very early so we could come up with the right ways to compensate. Moreover, the team provided continu- ity uncommon within many military con- struction 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—thats 10 years for this program. We had to take the approach of keeping people as long as possible. Additionally, rather than approach- ing 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 an- other 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 bene?ts and impacts of each project to the next. By taking this program perspective, the team could discern the utility needs to support all the new facilities and in what sequence infrastructure needed to be constructed. Any traf?c issues, earth man- agement, site accessibility and even con- tractor access to the post all needed to be considered on the whole. Meeting Unique Challenges Soil management provided a unique challenge. Grafenwoehrs training area was a German military site during World War II until it was bombed. At the time, environmental contamination was not as scrutinized as it is today. We had to do a signi?cant cleanup of the site—oil spills, waste from the war and even an anti-air- craft 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 contami- nations, coordinating cleanup and the use of partially-contaminated material. Despite the environmental concerns, the EB-G team came up with a plan to re- use crushed asphalt and concrete rather than disposing it in a land?ll and purchas- ing gravel, saving roughly $1.5 million. Keeping projects on budget and on schedule was one of the most challenging aspects of the EB-G program, according to Barth. Despite the holistic approach, the program team still had to piece-meal the program into bite-sized, $2 million to $20 million 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 indi- vidual projects, he said. But it was give and take. Breaking down the program to individual projects bene?ted the local in- dustry, which helped garner public sup- port from the German community. Another cause for potential delays was the German weather. With budgets ap- proved mid-October, contracts could not be awarded right away due to harsh win- ter conditions. It was a permanent strug- gle 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 Bauämter needed for an award. We really tried to have an interactive process during the award process, Barth said. The Bauämter 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 de- sign the larger projects that required an understanding of U.S. administrative pro- cesses. We pulled in U.S. design compa- nies 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 speci?cations. Finally, the push to use or adapt avail- able 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 ef?ciency 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 ef?cient in terms of reusable energy and even in terms of using local construc- tion materials so we didnt have to import it from all over the world. A Station of Choice 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 5,000 family members. It is an understatement to say it was a lot of work, Col. Kem said at the transition ceremony. But somehow our engineers, architects and master planners made it look easy. Projects included the Netzaberg Hous- ing Area with 830 three- and four-bed- room units; a shopping center that boasts a 250-seat food court, post exchange, commissary and concessions mall; troop billet buildings, company buildings and motor pools; a physical ?tness center with a running track and multi-purpose ?eld; upgraded medical facilities; and a modern dining facility. This program has turned Grafenwoehr from the Armys premiere training facility outside the United States to a truly mod- ern, highly-developed community, Col. Kem said. Its a station of choice and a community of excellence. Rachel V. Goodspeed is Technical Writer-Editor, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Europe District; (DSN) 314-570-2847 or rachel.v.goodspeed@ usace.army.mil.
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