It Takes a Partnership
The National Military Command Center, Kings Bay, Ga., monitors the Navy submarine fleet’s readiness and operational performance to ensure the fleet’s shore-based support infrastructure meets the myriad demands of an advanced sea-going customer.
By Marty Kauchak
The National Military Command Center monitors the Navy submarine fleet’s readiness and operational performance with keen interest. The daily monitoring evaluates the fleet’s ability to depart and arrive in port as scheduled, the provisioning levels of the boats’ weapons, consumables and stores and detailed operational data. The fleet’s shore-based support infrastructure must deliver its services to allow all submarines to meet the demanding expectations of administrative and operational commanders.
Part of the submarine fleet that calls U.S. Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Ga., home consists of the East Coast’s venerable Ohio-class nuclear powered ballistic missile (SSBN) and recently reconfigured guided missile (SSGN) submarines. The base is the only one on the East Coast capable of handling Trident II D-5 missiles and it serves as a key partner in the fleet’s submarine- and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missile program.
SUPPORTING HIGH-VISIBILITY MISSIONS
Some of the missions at Kings Bay are those conducted by one tenant activity—the Defense Ordnance Support Facility (DOSF). “Without this important facility, submarines operating out of Kings Bay would have a difficult time launching attacks or using evasive maneuvers,” according to the base’s Website. “That is because DOSF personnel go to extreme lengths to ensure the ordnance they provide for the boats are 100 percent ‘good to go’. DOSF receives, prepares and loads several different types of torpedoes, submarine countermeasures, Tomahawk missiles and emergency beacons onto every submarine operating from Kings Bay.” These base operations are representative of those supported by a governmentindustry team.
DoD’s decision to outsource tens of thousands of its civilian and military billets at its operating bases and stations during the last decade has seen the migration of many logistics management responsibilities to an increasing number of industry firms. Halliburton, KBR and VT Griffin are among the private sector entities that provide base operations and support to DoD across the United States and overseas. For its part, VT Griffin, a division of VT Services, has an extensive portfolio of facility support contracts. VT Griffin provides logistics support to 25 major DoD facilities, including Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Ga.
The company has been a provider of base operations and logistics support to Kings Bay since 1996 and currently delivers services under a 10-year contract that runs until 2011. The scope of VT Griffin’s support covers the entire base infrastructure. “This is everything from the utilities and industrial operations to some of the warehouses, from telephones to local area networks, and maintaining material handling equipment—it is a very broad base of services,” said Mike Kapp, president, VT Griffin, and vice president and board member of VT Services. While the exact number of personnel supporting the contract could not be provided, it is “a significant portion of the base’s daily population,” added Kapp.
The nature of the base being a homeport for Navy submarines requires increased levels of quality and attention to detail from the industry team. “It requires a high level of quality standards—you are supporting the Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet. So that in itself drives things that you would think as being mundane as being very critical— utilities, industrial operations, water management and crane operations supporting the warfighter and the Navy’s ability to sail on time,” Kapp said.
Securiguard, one member of VT Griffin’s subcontracting team, delivers security services for Kings Bay. More than 100 company personnel supplement the base’s Marine security force. “We provide entry control and perimeter security at the base as part of the government-industry team—with Marines,” said Fred Williamson, Securiguard’s executive vice president for administration.
Securiguard supports a mission that DoD is increasingly outsourcing to the private sector. “Since 9/11, the government has evolved with the global war on terror. Some agencies have evolved very swiftly by realizing the commercial arena can provide them with the strict requirements they need at some of these facilities,” said Patricia Marvil, the company’s chief executive officer. “I see the government has been very proactive in turning to industry to provide security requirements at various levels.”
Security firms face three basic challenges— recruitment, training and technology— to meet their government customers’ rigorous expectations. “In recruitment, we hire one out of 13 applicants. And in training these individuals, we have our own training institute,” Marvil explained. The institute has oversight over instructors, classroom material, instructional design and other parts of its applicants’ curriculum. Securiguard addresses the industry’s third tenet, technology, by furnishing its force with the latest security tools.
Securigard officials said DoD has increasingly relied on a company’s risk assessment as a key criteria for awarding a contract and acceptable performance for being allowed to complete a contract. “The fact that the government is weighing the past performance of the company is a key issue,” observed Marvil. “This means the government is pursuing a fair-market value that has no risk to the government,” she added. This process helps provide a positive outcome for the taxpayer as the government ensures a mission is contractually completed and it limits the risk by judging companies by past performance.
An important component of any DoD contract is the vendor’s formal performance evaluation. Securiguard is evaluated quarterly under the terms of its contract with VT Griffin. “Obviously you are evaluated at this sensitive base on a daily basis. That quarterly evaluation is an accumulation of marks throughout that quarter—what kind of performance at the gate, what kind of performance with your recordkeeping, the effectiveness of your training program and other factors,” said Williamson. More frequent evaluations of a contract team may serve as an incentive to the vendors—the higher the evaluation score, the higher the award fee.
RECOGNITION
The government-industry team’s base management efforts were recognized when Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay was named the Navy winner of the 2007 Presidential Commander in Chief’s (CINC) Installation Excellence Award (IEA). The CINC IEA was established in 1984 to recognize outstanding efforts of personnel in the operation and maintenance of U.S. military installations worldwide. For each competitive cycle, an installation from each service and the Defense Logistics Agency are recognized. Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay was one of eight Navy installations nominated by Commander, Navy Installations Command (CNIC) regions worldwide for their outstanding efforts in shore installation management.
“We are truly humbled to receive this award,” said Captain Mike McKinnon, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay’s commanding officer at the time of this award. “We understand that we are a reflection of the immense talent that exists throughout the CNIC enterprise and feel extremely fortunate to be singled out and honored with this recognition.” McKinnon attributed their success to “the supreme talent, solid character and keen abilities of our team to achieve excellence in executing our simple, but demanding mission statement, ‘Provide Support to the Fleet, Fighter and Family.’ For military members, DoD and contract workers, family members and people in our community, this award has put them in a spotlight they truly deserve,” said McKinnon.
FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
DoD’s business models and processes are evolving in response to the department’s efforts to win the global war on terror and a confluence of other factors. The support services market is reflecting many of these changes and will increasingly do so at the demand of the government customer. “These types of fielded capabilities to perform logistics services—whether it’s rearrangement of facilities, providing better throughput or support to the mission, or helping asset management—you are going to see some strong requirements from our customers to bring those capabilities to bear,” predicted Kapp.
But to accomplish these expanded requirements in a performance-based contracting environment, a broader concept of long-term asset management by the vendor—perhaps following a public finance initiative-type model that has been implemented by European defense departments— may be required. “DoD acquisition policy would have to evolve to permit that,” said Kapp.
The toolset of Lean Six Sigma applications also holds potential for broader use in DoD service support contract requirements with an important caveat. “The Lean Six Sigma has to be packaged with domain knowledge. This is doubly important in the services environment. We see the toolkit as a capability that, when packaged with the domain knowledge, brings tremendous value to the customer, and it fits well with performance-based contracting and other trends,” said Kapp. ♦