Planning and Programming for Military-Facility Reuse

Abstract

As base closures accelerate and defense funds are reduced, it will become essential for the military engineer to have a strategic plan for military-facility reuse. At the core of this plan will be the need to have an extremely clear and definitive inventory and assessment of each facility's condition. Developing this data can be an arduous task, which can collapse under the shear weight of the information collected. Often a one-time audit is commissioned to develop this plan as a support to funding documents, but no method or system is put in place to keep the collected data current and updated. With the arrival of cost-effective relational database management systems linked through a structured query language to computer-aided drafting and design, it is possible to create a “living” facility-management system. This allows managers at all levels to benefit from current and accurate facility data in their daily decision-making process. An additional benefit is that the information is kept current as changes occur. This paper describes a condition-assessment survey process as well as how the results of this process can be used to develop information for long-term facility reuse planning and programming.