Article by Capt Kyle Ho
Real Property Operation Unit Western Region (RPOU(W)) is managing all the DND owned infrastructure in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It is managing 2365 buildings, and 18.5 million Sq Meters of roads/lots with 240 million direct annually cost. The HQ located in Edmonton under the Commanding Officer, LCol John Hallet, and the Regional Sergeant Major, CWO Eric Barney. Since the Real Property transformation from the Engineer Service, the efforts required to create a sustainable portfolio became a high priority. The command team relied on their professional staffs improving their programs making it more efficient.
A working group was conducted at the Defence Canada Construction (DCC) Western Regional Office. Our Engineer Plans Officer, Capt John Hufnagel, our DCC RPOU(W) Support Manager, Michael Yegani, and the DCC program specialist, Dan Twaites, met with Mike Gilmore, Project & Program Management Regional Service Line Leader, to brainstorm on improving program schedule management in the West.
The working group was trying to determine various ways in defining success on schedule performance. It was one of the key challenges for planners as there are many uncontrolled factors affecting the outcomes. The working group was trying to determine if the current methodology, using the Joint Program Implementation Tool (JPIT), is truly as efficiency as it could be. The program schedule needs to be adjusted consistently because there are many factors causing controlled or uncontrolled slippages and so planners constantly monitor and adjust in order to get a sense of budget impacts and where they’ll land at fiscal year end. The group agreed that further investigation into the pre-planning phases is required to track all the milestones of a project. Tracking the process during the development phase before the procurement phase could increase confidence and reduce uncertainty of the program schedule.
It was an educational meeting and not all the questions were answered due to time constraints. The group decided to meet a few times a year to continue discussing ways to continuously improve schedule management so that RPOU(W) continues to deliver optimal performance using data that is accurate and credible. The best program financial performance so far was -4% for the overall programme from Q2 projections.
Each year since transformation has yielded additional areas for improvement and new innovations. With increased expenditure authorities and the move to multi-year planning, RPOU(W) is well placed to improve performance further to support and address the remaining infrastructure problems in the western region.
