Football analogy benefits ACC civil engineers

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt Jason McKernan
  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFPN) --  When looking for better ways to conduct business, many people check out their competitors for ideas. For one directorate at Air Combat Command, however, the answer was found with a different set of competitors -- football teams.

To tackle problems which typically plague construction projects in their final stages, the civil engineer directorate instituted a "red zone mentality" to ensure everyone involved with a project fulfills their obligations on time and on budget.

"When you are a real good football team, you have to be able to score once you get down to the red zone, the area of the field between the 20-yard line and goal line. Each player on the team has to pull together, know their assignment and carry it out in order for the team to score," said Dennis Firman, ACC chief of construction. "Construction is kind of like that -- we call it operating in the red zone when we get down to 60 to 90 days before occupancy."

The need for the red zone mentality came about because of frustrations of not being able to predict when buildings could be turned over to users. Projects were constantly coming in behind schedule and over budget, officials said.

That began to change with the start of the red zone plan. Since being implemented, the directorate has seen a dramatic shift in the ability to get projects completed on schedule and on budget, Mr. Firman said.

For example, in 1999, 70 to 80 percent of the buildings came in behind schedule and 4 percent over budget. With the full implementation of red zone, that number changed to 70 to 80 percent of the projects in 2003 being completed on schedule and only 0.02 percent over budget.

"The first (red zone) project was a fitness center at (Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.)," Mr. Firman said. "We instituted the red zone, and the project slipped only about two weeks from the ribbon cutting date. (Without red zone), it probably would have been the kind of thing that would slip six months.

"We came up with this concept to work as a team effort,” he said. “In the past, there was not an effort to bring the team together to discuss the problematic issues."

Now, under the red zone, meetings with everyone involved in the construction project take place to go over every detail as the project is progressing. This "team" -- which includes contractors, communicators, the fire department, the command program manager and the user -- works through the issues that could possibility delay or add cost to the project.

The result is a much more efficient process in completing projects, Mr. Firman said.

"They are committed to have these projects done by a given date," he said.

Typically, the project gets delayed or has cost overruns during its last days because of the specific details that require special attention.

"What we do at the red zone meeting is identify any outstanding commitments that need to take place, and we fund them early on so they can be completed on time," Mr. Firman said.

ACC bases are seeing benefits of the red zone strategy. Using the strategy has resulted in users getting their buildings on average six months to a year earlier than they would have previously, Mr. Firman said. The strategy has worked so well, it has been adopted across the Department of Defense.

"Every day you slip, that is a day that warfighter doesn’t have use of that facility," Mr. Firman said. (Courtesy of ACC News Service)