Transportation and Facilities Management Role in Military - Essay Example

Transportation and Facilities Management Role in Military Proper operation system and strategy are the basic factors that dictate effectiveness and performance of any organization. Strategies that can propel an organization towards achievement of success need to be structured in a way of ensuring complete satisfaction of the organization’s objectives and goals of operation. Successful organization projects its operation strategies as well as defining scope of operation in ways of meeting its exact statement policy and periodical objectives. US Army is one of the world’s critical organizations that recognizes the needs for proper strategy and operation system in the accomplishment of its various missions and objectives in achieving internal and international peace and sanity. In the proving this commitment, the US Army Force has a well instituted program scale named Optimal Stationing Army Force (OSAF) that has helped in setting and making of viable organizational strategies (Dell 421). OSAF has fundamentally helped the US Army in organizing various installation programs and setting up of operational platform for the US Army Force. The Optimal Stationing Army Force has been significantly applied in the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). The OSAF provides a significant tool for planning and scheduling the installation and reinforcement of the military forces in manner destined at cutting expenditure and resources spent in maintaining and sustaining the US Army (Dell 421). Every military plan conducted on the basis of the OSAF is done in such way that it will be implemented under the lowest possible cost. OSAF program dictates that every stationing plan for any army unit has to meet particular standards without which the particular unit may be disregarded. The standards include the availability of field for maneuver training, buildings and various requirements for training a unit. The OSAF also provides strict and explicit mechanism for determining and evaluating every station plan. With the provisions in the OSAF, Army leaders have been able to guide stationing analysts on the appropriate channels and systems to rely upon, those to change and those to ignore in making decisions that meet qualitative and qualitative metrics of Army Stationing. Furthermore, Army has substantially used the OSAF program as a tool for determining appropriate conditioning of various facilities as well as upgrading the underdeveloped and outdated facilities (Dell 423). The Optimal Stationing Army Force (OSAF) is said to cover and perhaps judgmental of only five types of Army installations out of the total thirteen types of the Army installation. The five types of installation stations run by OSAF include the maneuver centers, professional schools control and command, major training bases and training schools. As observed by Dell the installation centers operated by OSAF are somewhat different from the other centers not operated by OSAF as determined by the high population of soldiers in the OSAF operated stations (424). In dictating the installation costs, OSAF uses the principles of the Cost of Base Realignment Action (COBRA) Army to arrive at the per-person cost of running particular installation station. The cost of running an individual installation station is calculated in terms of the location, medical costs, repair costs housing operations, modernization costs and the amount of allowances offered. According to Dell the installation programs of various stations face numerous problems and challenges that are however solved and settled by the OSAF (424). One of the noted problems that faces and affects the smooth achievement of the installation programs in various stations is the unpredictability of the actual costs and expenditures. This results from the variability in the installation costs of different units in particular stations. Another problem faced in the installation program of stations relies upon the high transport costs of the soldiers and their families during their transfer to the newly proposed stations. The high transport costs also affects repositioning of heavy containers and conducting long haul transport. Another likely problem is stove piping that involves evaluation of an installation against the same types of installation (Lachowski 5). This strategy has since resulted to uncertainties resulted by the disregard of other installation types across which units move. Additional problem and challenge likely to be faced by the Army installation programs results from the struggle to reduce costs, a move that is speculated to have detrimental effects of eroding the value of military and reducing substantial land required for the training purposes. Lachowski observes that the BRAC process and the installation of stations in the US have faced severe criticisms from a section of the US citizens who term the moves as strategies by the government to introduce dictatorial and militarism rule in America (61). The opposing section of the America wishes that the soldiers be left in the foreign war military bases instead of being call back home. The section of the American citizens who are hard to dispute the realignment process of the US Army attribute the process to the expected rise in the government spending as it will need to build more structures for the arriving soldiers and providing them with the basic needs to cover their entire families. Lachowski further cites that the critics of realignment process focusing to call back home US soldiers argue that it would be cheaper to let maintain the soldiers in the foreign lands considering that particular host countries provide free and cheap structures and land, and also supports the US envoys in meeting their basic needs (10). The Base Realignment and Closure of the US soldiers and in particular the closure and lack of consultation with the foreign host country accommodating US military camps has sends negative signals to the allies as well as foe to the US. In addition, the realignment process of the US Army in the direction of deploying more military forces to certain foreign bases has attracted hot criticisms that protract US’s mission and interests as bestowed the valuable resources in those particular countries (Lachowski 13). This misconception has seen great impediment of US military activities in the most of the Middle East countries, and thus the repeated vehicle and plane routing because of increased uncertainties with the security of the US facilities in the particular foreign countries. Furthermore, the realignment process of the US military force has faced burning political arguments that leads to complexity in the decision making process. In attempts and moves solve the impending and likely problems and challenges that face the realignment process of US Army, there are instituted certain explicit strategies to assist in achieving the best results out of the efforts. The complexity of the stationing plan has since been eased by the institution of OSAF program (Dell 425). OSAF has extensively assisted the installation analysts to arrive at quick solutions to the pending problems and challenges faced. The OSAF program allows the analysts space to deviate from various speculated installations and ensure the best outcome out of the efforts. This has especially been instrumental in managing the limited lands available for the military activity as the organization cannot purchase more lands. On the side of managing expenditure in the realignment process, the Army and the Department of Defense uses the Cost of Base Realignment Action (COBRA) that assists in the estimation of the savings and costs of the proposed installation of realignment or closure plan. The effectiveness of the COBRA relies on the Net Present Value (NPR). There are also well defined unit stationing guidelines projected to avert any problems likely to be faced in the installation process. The stationing guidelines also help in ensuring that units are not stationed at close intervals. The introduction of the BRAC has also helped in averting and handling the political influence that would otherwise ruin the realignment process (Dell 434). There are also introduced categorical evaluation methods that assist in determining the effectiveness of stationing plan. Such methods include the use of red card to indicate the poor state of the proposed stationing point, yellow to indicate the fair state of the particular stationing point and green card for a good and appropriateness of a proposed stationing point. Outcomes for the organization’s initiative With the well guided use of the OSAF program, the US military have been able to limit the cost constraints of station installation. Realignment has also been very easy and effective as the expenditure are cut to the lowest possible values thus resulting to admirable achievements. The OSAF has also helped in ensuring safe and well managed environments that are accommodating to the various military activities such as training. OSAF program has also been very effective in ensuring sliced costs of constructing structures and infrastructures need for realignment and closure plans. According to Dell, the establishment of the BRAC model has witnessed great improvement in the realignment and closure plans conducted in 2001, 2005 and the subsequent 2011 (435). In addition, the cost reduction objective as intended and perfected by the OSAF program has seen continued maintenance of the military value, an occurrence that was impossible in the previous realignment and closure practices. Moreover, the OSAF program has seen the splitting of the military force into more manageable units that are easy to control. The realignment and closure process makes it impossible for the Army to carry along with them the constructed structures like schools, hospitals and other social amenities at a time of permanent closure of the bases in the foreign lands. The security problems especially distrusts from the citizens in a foreign land where soldiers are deployed to as part of the realignment process makes it uneasy to establish permanent structures in the particular host countries. Sometimes soldiers undergo mental problems like distresses and slight delay of the facility managers to track and take hold of weapons may result to individual soldier’s suicide of murder of another person. In conclusion, for any organization to operate effectively and achieve the set goals and objectives there must be a proper system of operation and strategies. Just like any other organization, Army Force requires well planned operation system to drive and lead the army personnel to the achievement of the mission. The most common practice of the US Army and any other military force in the world involve series of realignment and closure in case it participates in a foreign security mission. The realignment and closure assists in drawing of new tactics destined to improve security and cutting expenditure on military operations. However, the process of realignment and closure especially in the US Army has faced numerous problems and challenges ranging from management of facilities to transportation. Realignment and closure of the US foreign military bases and returning of the soldiers back home has resulted to great competition for land for construction of structures to settle the soldiers. Establishment of permanent structures and setting up of facilities in the foreign host country that doubts the mission of the US is inappropriate due to security uncertainties. Medical problems like mental depression succumbed by soldiers may also pile up the problems faced in the realignment and closure processes of the US military bases. Works cited Dell, Robert et al. Optimally Stationing Army Forces. Interfaces, 2008. Vol. 38(6), pp. 421-435. Lachowski, Zdzislaw. Foreign Military Bases in Eurasia. 2007. Web. . Read More