Partnering Case Studies

Maintenance Support Facility Seawall Upgrade Case Study
NAS North Island, San Diego, CA

Partnering Lesson:

• Procedures were created to accelerate cost proposal approval to meet critical milestone dates.
• Improved quality control, which reduced rework, saving both time and money.

Project Description
This project was designed to provide repair and maintenance facilities for nuclear powered aircraft carriers. The project consisted of an 80,000 sf two-story main building containing offices and a warehouse. This building was constructed of metal wall panels on top of concrete tilt-up panels clad to a structural steel frame on the exterior with masonry walls up to 40 feet high on the interior. Three additional metal storage buildings were also constructed.

The project also featured a 2,000-foot long seawall repair and stabilization. Stabilizing included jet grouting of 10,000 cubic yards of cement grout behind and under the wall to a depth of 20 feet below sea level followed by compaction grouting of the soil.

Project Challenges:
This project originally bid in October of 1997 with a twelve-month construction schedule. The Navy was delayed in Congress for three months, until December 30, before awarding the project. At the initial Partnering Workshop in January of 1998, the Navy indicated that the USS John C. Stennis was scheduled to arrive by September 1, 1998, cutting the proposed schedule by a third. Partnering allowed us to make changes in the way the project was managed. This led to a successful completion.

Issue 1:
Through the partnering process, the construction team came up with procedures that would significantly shorten the submittal approval and material delivery times. The atmosphere of trust that was cultivated through the partnering process expedited. The architect and the owner were trusting that the contractors were ordering and installing material based on oral agreements instead of waiting for written resubmittals verifying that correct material was being ordered.

The trust that developed from the partnering also led to the contractors being able to proceed with changes before cost proposals were approved. Time was truly of the essence. If a change was needed to continue with construction, it was made based on verbal approval. Over 90% of the changes were made before cost proposals were even submitted. Some contractors might take advantage of this process. Not on this project. We were able to keep change orders to 1% of the contract amount, significantly below the national average. There were sizeable costs involved with accelerating this project which are not included in the 1%. Here too, the contractors proceeded with the work. A change order was not written until after the project was complete. Approximately 94 cost proposals were sent to the owner, all negotiated with none going to claim.

Issue 2:
Overall quality was increased by three procedures that were developed at partnering sessions. The first was by providing continuous inspection. The daily inspection called for in the specifications would result in wither work crews being less productive while waiting for the inspector to show up or increasing the amount of rework. Either of these items would take away critical time. It was determined early on in the job that we needed continuous inspection to keep the job moving at its rapid pace and to keep rework at a minimum. Even though on this job the contractor was responsible to provide quality control, the Navy agreed it was getting added benefits and reimbursed the Contractor for furnishing additional quality control inspection staff.

The second procedure was to hire an assistant quality control manager to handle the multitude of routine paperwork duties, thereby freeing up the quality control manager to spend full time with the Superintendent and field crews, ensuring that they knew exactly what quality was expected for each step.

Third, Lockwood Greene, the architects for the project, were based 3,000 miles away. In order to provide quicker response to RFIs and submittals, they furnished two architects full-time on the project site. This had the added benefit of ensuring that quality decisions from the architect could be made immediately.

All of these factors eliminated most rework and resulted in a punchlist of almost entirely cosmetic items.

Benefits of Partnering:

• No Claims on 94 cost proposals.
• Project completed ahead of schedule so the USS Stennis and its 5,000 sailors on board would have a place to port in San Diego upon its arrival.
• Under Budget. Amount of change orders was under 1% of the contract amount.

Stakeholders:
Southwest Division South Bay AFT (Owner), Naval Air Station, North Island (Owner), Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Lockwood Greene (Architects), Beckett & Pritchett (Seawall Engineer), Douglas E. Barnhart, Inc. (General Contractor), Hayward Baker, Inc. (Subcontractor), Dynalectric (Subcontractor), CTE (Subcontractor), A.O. Reed & Company (Subcontractor), EMCO (Subcontractor), Ace Roofing (Subcontractor).