Flagship Installations Are Vital to Army Transformation

Today more than 600,000 soldiers are on active duty and half of them are deployed around the world in 120 countries.

The call to duty has changed, however.

We are engaged in a prolonged war on terrorism and the unpredictable nature of the new conflict requires new thinking and a new response to the threat.

This is why the Army is transforming on multiple fronts as it fights this ongoing war.

The Army is transforming from a division-based, forward-positioned force to a force built on self-sufficient, brigade-based modules that are more agile, more powerful and better equipped to support prolonged operations. This new force relies more than ever before on secure, efficient, high quality installations as the place where soldiers work, train, play, deploy, redeploy and raise families. These installations are the flagships of Army readiness.

As the Army transforms to a modular force, so does the way the Army manages installations. The first step in that transformation was the activation of the Installation Management Agency (IMA) in October 2002. IMA became the single, central manager for all of the Army's major installations, as well as the administrative overseer for most of the others. In just more than three years, IMA has used its central manager role to accomplish four key tasks: enable the equitable distribution of scarce resources; civilianize some 4,000 military administrative positions to make more soldiers available for operational assignments; develop the first-ever model for standardizing and quantifying garrison services; and build an innovative, learning organization of more than 75,000 employees with an annual budget exceeding $8 billion. The agency's reach is global.

Since December 2002, IMA has supported the deployment and redeployment of almost 675,000 active and reserve component soldiers and civilian volunteers through mobilization and deployment centers on installations. In 2005, more than 100,000 soldiers have trained at and processed through IMA installations on their way to or from a combat operation, a homeland security mission or a joint/combined combat exercise.

IMA's ongoing challenge now is to manage movements on a global, Army-wide scale. Movements related to the Army modular force restructuring have been under way for more than a year and will continue. Adding to this challenge, IMA is now engaged in a six-year process of implementing changes that will reset the Army for the foreseeable future. Most changes come from two initiatives.

The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round will close 12 major installations, realign parts of nearly all others, close hundreds of local National Guard and Reserve facilities and move activities from leased space in the National Capital Region to installations by 2011. For the first time, the Department of Defense will have 12 joint bases with garrison services provided by a garrison command from one service for all occupants on the base.

Second, the Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy (IGPBS) will relocate some 50,000 service-members and their families from overseas locations, mostly in Europe and Korea, by the end of the decade. Along with the BRAC moves, IGPBS is creating challenges for installations and their surrounding communities to provide housing, facilities and services, not just for the 50,000 troops, but for a total population movement estimated at about 150,000.

These two initiatives will play a huge role in transforming the Army, and in the short term will create tremendously complex logistical challenges. The leadership of the assistant secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment (ASA-I&E), and the assistant chief of staff for Installation Management (ACSIM) guides IMA's execution of the directed moves in accordance with BRAC law. How will IMA carry out all these moves and build related construction during wartime? How can IMA minimize disruption to the mission and to the lives of thousands of soldiers, civilian employees, family members and other members of the Army community? These are the questions that drive the installation management team's thinking and planning.

Together, these global movements require restationing thousands of soldiers and their families. To handle the magnitude of the issue, IMA stood up a new Stationing Management Office in 2005 to work with Headquarters, Department of the Army and the senior mission commanders. Its goal is to ensure that the installations can train, house and support the changes in soldier populations with as little turbulence as possible in soldiers' lives.

To give soldiers permanent, high quality quarters and services when they arrive at their new locations, housing and facilities construction must be coordinated with deployment schedules and related unit movements. In reality, however, some moves will take place before receiving installations are completely ready for increases in their populations.

Even before the BRAC and IGPBS moves begin in earnest, the Army is moving and reshaping units in implementing the Army modular force restructuring. IMA is tasked with making room for the new units in their new locations before permanent construction or renovation can take place. To fill the void, garrisons are building temporary, relocatable structures for some population movements that cannot wait for permanent structures.

Relocatable structures are already in place or under construction on at least 10 installations, including Forts Wainwright, Stewart, Drum, Bliss, Hood, Lewis, Bragg, Riley and Campbell. The agency public works team is also at the forefront of the master planning effort to define and program for permanent military construction projects needed (more than $6 billion) to replace all the interim facilities.

Another factor that drives the need for more space and facilities on installations is the growing size of the Army. Congress has ordered a temporary increase in end strength of 30,000 soldiers, and the Army plans a 10,000 increase in the fighting force created by continuing to move soldiers out of administrative jobs and into operational units. As a result, the number of active duty brigade combat teams (BCTs) will increase to 42 from 33, raising the total number of active and reserve component BCTs to 70.

As the deployment pool grows with these additions, the soldiers will stay in their assignments longer, giving them more time with their families and making their lives more predictable. Improved unit cohesiveness and decreased family stress because of frequent moves will be the obvious benefits.

The concept of installations as flagships means running and maintaining them as first-class communities. Installations are the primary focal point for soldiers' lives. To make this happen we have to sustain a good quality of life for them. IMA is working hard to execute this vision by standardizing services and facilities so Army families will know what to expect when they move from one installation to another.

A key IMA initiative over the past three years has been establishing common levels of support (CLS), a set of standards that ensure soldiers and their families receive quality, consistent and predictable services wherever they live within the Army community. This is the first ever set of criteria developed to quantify a level of service for a given level of funding. CLS is now going through final stages of validation to ensure the standards provide consistency and meet customer needs.

This quantification is important because running installations is big business. As an example, IMA manages 583,000 family and single housing units; 98,000 training barracks; 646 recreational facilities; 152 daycare centers; and 108 general-service libraries. In addition, to address the special physical and emotional needs of military families, IMA manages programs that help with issues such as child care and youth services; spouse employment; family and marital counseling; and health.

With scarce resources, maintaining and upgrading facilities on Army installations has always been hard, and continues to challenge IMA as the Army's facilities' manager.

Last year IMA conducted a $252 million barracks improvement program that improved living conditions for nearly 40,000 soldiers in 339 substandard barracks on 29 installations. Finding the resources was demanding, and IMA is specifically charged with leveraging centralization to find better and more efficient ways to deliver services to customers.

The IMA business transformation initiative is tied closely to the Army's overarching business transformation program, which uses Lean Six Sigma as its major improvement tool.

IMA is implementing a program focused on a corporate approach to business transformation that will accomplish two major goals: work to improve the 136 major business processes for service delivery toward a goal of gaining efficiencies while reducing the variability across installations; and conduct organizational self-assessments at the garrison level to apply lean thinking to improve the management processes that are used at the local level to support our customers.

The Army is changing how soldiers fight and how they live. IMA strives to build and manage installations that live up to the unprecedented quality of America's fighting forces. Soldiers deserve the same care and respect that they demonstrate every day in their stand to protect American values. Today, in the global war on terrorism, soldiers face uncertainty, disruption and potentially catastrophic challenges unlike any in our nation's history. Critical to soldiers in this environment is the peace of mind that comes from knowing their families at home are cared for and safe. That assurance lets soldiers concentrate on the mission, defending America's security from enemies who wish to threaten it. Caring for soldiers is central to the Army mission, and what installations as flagships deliver.

© 2006 Association of the United States Army Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.